Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 80

Brendan is a bad ass...

In the chapter I finished working on, today, Brendan uses a baseball bat to crack the knees of an abusive cop in order to protect a waitress at the bar where he works. Memories of his father's abuse of his mother clash through him so he almost clips the guy in the head, too. Todd, the bartender, has to stop him and kick him out, fast, before the police arrive.
It's not like Brendan's seeking trouble or out to prove himself to anyone. It was just instinct mixed with a memory of seeing the IRA kneecap someone he knew, over stealing. This on top of his reaction when he suspects a doctor's nurse abused him are bringing out a sharp, confrontational side to him that is possibly going to happen more and more.
I'm now through chapter 13 and the total wordage is over 115K. He's18 and feeling a need to gain control over more of his life. But when he tries to find out his real status in the country, he keeps getting half-answers from his aunt and uncle, making him suspect more is going on with him. He'll keep digging, and even send secret letters to Mairead.
This spurt of work came after a day of my usual self-flagellatory psychosis. I don't know what I'm doing. This is all shit. Why am I bothering? I should just give up writing, completely. And on and on. I'm feeling my age, in both body and spirit, so these moments come in like waves crashing against Hawai'i's North Shore. Then they ride back out. And I regain equilibrium. And keep moving forward, baby step by baby step.
Letting Brendan shift from scamp to scoundrel helped. So did finding that image of Robert Carlysle with his smoke and shank. 
"Don't make me an angel," Brendan keeps telling me. "Let me find my own way." Oh, will he ever...

Maybe I'm getting old...

I'm becoming agoraphobic. I was going to run out and grab some things I needed and instead I talked myself into waiting until tomorrow. When I'll have to get milk, at the very least. I'm also juggling pulling together estimates for 5 different jobs -- San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Hudson Valley, and London -- and it's got my brain scattered. I barely got my expenses and invoice in to Caladex.

Which is a long way of saying I got no writing done, today. I got lazy and watched new episodes of Midsomer Murders. They came out last month, on Acorn, and I didn't know. There's also a new season of Vera coming up. So I went uncaring about money and set up Britbox and Acorn, again. 

I have to watch MM because it still has Nick Hendrix as DS Jamie Winter and he's who I based DS Finley Winterbourne on in The Beast in the Nothing Room. A book I am seriously proud of because of how well its mystery works and its tag line is -- How do you stop a serial killer who kills no one and doesn't even exist?

I only watch Vera because it started out with David Leon as her DS and he matched Brenda Blethyn in every way. To the extent that when he left he was replaced with a washed-out version of him who has zero charisma. But Brenda's cool and that's not out for another month, and their mysteries are a bit better situated than Midsomer Murders' ones; the latter are just cozy...like Agatha Christi stuff. And Finn...I mean, Nick is fun to watch (which makes absolutely no sense to me because he is not my type, but there it is).

So to finish up, I got distracted and I feel fine about it.

Back on track...

Okay...I reworked a section of the Celebration chapter to deal with Brendan beginning to see that a need for control is swirling around him in too many ways, and it may tie into the Dean Corll mass killing spree. The term serial killer wasn't coined until years later, depending on who you choose to believe.

The FBI called it serial homicide in the middle 70s, and apparently the LAPD changed that to serial killer in the middle 80s. But this section of New World For Old takes place in 1973, when Brendan is slowly regaining his footing in reality, so gotta go with the lingo. He still has flashbacks and even sudden sharp memories of what happened to him while he was catatonic, and they can be exacerbated by current events.

Something else he's becoming aware of is the uncertainty of his status in the US. He was brought over late in October 1972, and being a citizen of the UK he's given an automatic 3 month visa. If he was provided a medical visa, that can be extended for an additional 3 months, if I understand this right. But it's now August, more than ten months later. Which makes him totally illegal.

That means him going to a gay bar when he's just seventeen years old and drinking is really insane. If the place got raided and he was caught, it would cause huge issues for not only him but his Aunt and Uncle. What makes this even more fun is, if he is caught and gets deported back to Northern Ireland, it's possible he'll be either arrested by the British or killed by the IRA. Mairead and Aunt Mari have done too much to help him to let that happen.

Anyway, now I'm up to page 177 out of 510 and 114,300 words. This part's going to wind up bigger and more involved than Derry is, because I haven't even written the road trip to Austin to hear a punk band called The Next play at Raul's...and maybe a trip to San Antonio to visit the Alamo.

A truly brilliant man, I am...not...

I didn't take my laptop with me on this trip because it was just an overnight and I figured it was too much of a pain to ferry around. Well, the fates decided I needed a good kick in the ass to remind me that any time I think I know what I'm doing, I don't. Nor should I have the hubris to believe I do.

My plan was to work more on some thoughts I had about APoS, the night before, while waiting for my flight. It's all about emphasizing how the need for control plays a massive part in what everyone is doing in not only NI but also the serial killings in Houston and even Brendan's father and Aunt & Uncle. Of course, it's not something I want to explicitly state; I want it to grow from the story...but it's a solid start to understanding another aspect of what the story is about.

Brendan cannot be controlled. Not really. He does his own thing, no matter what, and others around him find that hard to deal with. I need to illustrate it better, but at the moment it's mainly shown through his relationship with his mother and the church. It will, however, become more and more evident throughout the Houston part of the story as his sense of independence gets him into some truly vicious situations...and he learns just how far people will go to control others and force them into their own view of how they should be.

So I was going to have 5 hours in the airport to work it through until this job popped up, and suddenly I needed to start working out the logistics of it because it's happening the second week of February, immediately after a packing job in San Francisco and immediately before the California Book Fair. What materials will be needed? What are the options for travel and where to stay? What's it going to cost? How long will it take to do? And all of it on my phone, only. Which does not have anywhere near the information I needed to prep this, in full, or any of the links I've set up in Chrome.

Still I got it worked out and sent off an estimate for my part of it, today...but it turns out we probably won't be able to present the estimate to the client till Friday because we need the final okay for the SF job and that's not coming till Thursday.

If I'd had my laptop with me, I could have had this done in an hour or two. Never again.

Road trip...

Actually, a flight to Providence, RI to collect an archive to ship to a university. Flying down, tomorrow, and back Monday night. I'm not taking my laptop; it's a quickie trip and I just won't have time to do anything so why ferry it with me? I'll have my phone and can handle Facebook and Twitter and Tribel and Instagram on that, as need be. Take photos of the archives once they're on pallets. And since I'm not taking a bag, the lighter I can make my backpack, the better. This will give my brain time to sort through the new idea Brendan set up connecting the violence of Derry, Houston and the Catholic Church.

It looks like I also have a job coming up in San Francisco the first three days of February, for another archive and collection of books. And then comes the California Book Fair. There's a possibility of a collection to pack and ship in the UK that might be especially delicate, so I might push really hard to be sent over for that since it's for a major client...but we'll see how that goes. First they have to decided what's in it.

I did go through Chapter 10 of APoS, again, to smooth things out and give a hint that Scott was trying to screw Brendan up. Of course, it backfires because Brendan is far more casual about things than Scott is, down deep. He's had to be. Then Scott's off to Austin, soon after, and Brendan's only issue is the B-Girls. But he just lets them do their thing and ignores their orders, knowing they'll change them the next time he sees them, anyway.

I think when I do the next full run through APoS, I'm doing it back to front. As I work on New World For Old, I'm finding references to aspects that really need to be in Derry. Nothing major but something to note.  Like the smell of beer on Da's breath and Scott being drunk reminding Brendan of it. That's one of the reasons Scott's plan to cause trouble doesn't work; Brendan dislikes American beer and cannot stand any of the hard stuff. He just does pot and pills and his blesséd Marlboros. So early 70s.

Moving along...

I think I'm into a smoother part of APoS Book Two, now. Scott takes Brendan to a gay bar where they're having a drag show, intending to get Brendan drunk and in trouble. He's upset he didn't get the pool house for himself. He'd already tried to do it once at his father's bar, but Brendan turned out not to like rum and coke so ignored the loaded drink.

So Brendan has a single Coors during the drag show, while Scott winds up being fed boilermakers by a man seated next to him and gets too loaded to drive. Meanwhile, Brendan, who was nervous and ready to run at the start, has calmed down and made the acquaintance of Everett, a gay man who's decent and kind, and sees a couple of kids in trouble.

He takes both boys back to his place, driving Scott's GTO, and fixes tea for Brendan, then he drives them home. He's a solid counterpoint to the Corll serial killings unfolding at the time, and will have a major impact on Brendan's life, in Houston.

Something that's begun to happen is Brendan beginning to see Corll's murders as connected to the mass murder of Bloody Sunday and the molestation of children by priests in the Catholic Church. Especially as regards his friend, Danny. I'm still thinking through how best to show this, but Brendan's sensing there's a streak of brutal selfishness in people, and while some can control it others either can't or won't. And though it rarely blossoms into murder, it does make some fight to take care of their wants and desires above everyone else's, even if they cause others trouble. Rather like what the GOP is doing, now.

I'm sure others have dug into this idea far more completely and properly than I ever could, but by keeping it at Brendan's level...as he's working through memories of seeing a good friend help men prepare to attack Eamonn on the PD march, and constables attacking peaceful demonstrators on October 5th, and the murderous expressions on the paratroopers shooting unarmed people on Bloody Sunday, he's also finding it happens in Houston, and the idea begins to explain things to him. He finally figures out something like...it's just part of man's nature, neither evil nor good. Those are labels used to condemn or praise, often without considering of the true meaning behind the actions being referred to.

But this is a new aspect of the story I'm still circling around. I may be laying too much onto it. However, it's better to have too much to put in than not enough.

Past the hump?

I got through Chapter 8, Celebration, and set up Chapter 9's structure. I took 7 pages from the first one and used them at the beginning of the second. Then I expanded a reference to Brendan having trouble with a drunk at one of his uncle's other bars that almost crashes into a fight because he won't sing Danny Boy.

That hints that Scott is a troublemaker, something I may bring out more. Scott's upset Brendan has the pool house to live in. It's only because Jeremy is there that the confrontation doesn't spiral out of control. First hint that Jere is a black belt in Aikido. Now Scott's going to drag Brendan to a drag show in Montrose, even though he's not yet 18. But again, it doesn't turn out like expected, and Scott is off to university so things stop, by default.

The B-Girls also ram their way back into Brenda's life by taking him on as their pet and showing him the best clothes to buy. Nothing high-end like Neiman's or Frost Brothers, but intense. He's finally seen the best way to deal with those two is jut let them do what they want and ignore them once he's out of their sight. So now I just need to go through them to make sure they're in proper order.

There's also reference to the Houston Serial Killers -- Dean Croll, Elmer Wayne Henley and David Brooks. They invite Brendan to come to one of Dean's parties but he says no. A couple weeks later, word breaks.

27 boys went missing from the Heights area of Houston, including brothers, and the cops didn't do anything about it. Even after Henley shot Corll and they learned of the horror, their attitude was, Cool. We've got a higher number of dead than Juan Corona.

Then a few years later, after John Wayne Gacy was credited with 33 murders, the cops tried to find more bodies in places they'd once been told to look, so they could maintain their record...but to their irritation could find nothing more.

If that doesn't tell you what cops are all about, nothing will.

Tired...

Lots of family drama, yesterday. Long distance. But things might be on the right track. We'll see what happens after MLK Day. But it exhausts me, because I'm not the smartest guy in the room and don't know how to get people to do what is necessary (even help themselves) except to keep asking. Almost begging. I'd use guilt but I've found far too often far too many are impervious to that. So I do what I can, damage myself to keep things from becoming too much worse, and keep moving on. Like the English.

I must've picked that attitude up when I lived in London, as a child. Ruislip Gardens, next to the last stop on the Central tube line. I did my first three years of school at Eastcote Primary School, which mingled British and American dependents of military personnel.

That was 1958-1961, and I remember seeing pockets of the center city that were still rebuilding after the end of WW2. The Scottish couple across the street from us had lived through the Blitz, moving out to Ruislip Gardens when their East End home was gutted during a raid. They may have wound up working at Bletchley Park; but that would have been before we were stationed in the area. I'm pretty sure the Mr. was retired by that point.

God, I can't remember their names, but the Mrs. served me tea with cucumber sandwiches, whenever I went over. Or chocolate caramels. She all but weaned me off the peppermint stick I liked. Now it's all been rebuilt into housing -- Pembrooke Park.

Anyway, this is informing the emotional content of APoS, now, and is rearranging a lot of what I'd written. The structure is still somewhat the same, with a little rearranging. It's just...finally layering in the deeper effect events had on Brendan. This has become so much more important. He's more fragile, mentally and emotionally, than I thought. And more adamant when he makes up his mind. The next section has him experiencing the Fourth of July for the first time and freaking out at the fireworks and gunshots, while working at The Colonel's...but things will get better. Becoming friends with Jeremy, Scott's Jewish buddy, will help.

But if I thought Book Two would be easier than Book One, I was dreaming.

About me...

I try to keep my life to myself, but today I just...I need to vent on a part of my life because that's tearing me up.

I am the main support of my half-brother, Kelly. He's just over 9 years younger than me, and he's always had emotional issues. Not mental, nor is he stupid. He may be undiagnosed ADHD or Autism or something; I honestly don't know. By the time these things started being looked for, he was well into adulthood and functioning. Hell, I honestly think, sometimes, that I'm dyslexic and just worked out a way to handle it on my own, because I keep getting things backwards or have to read a passage in a book over and over to get its meaning. I still will even glance at a headline and substitute a word I think is in there for the actual word and then have to stop and look very carefully to reset my brain. And I've always been prone to going left when told to go right.

But with Kelly...he's always been willing to work, but he's always had hygiene issues and a pathological fear of seeing a doctor or dentist. The latter cost him his teeth; he's now got dentures (which our sister paid for) and will need a new set, soon, because his gums are changing. But he still managed to hold down low-wage jobs and bring in enough to live one...until I moved up to Buffalo.

He was living with our mother and wound up having to take over as her caregiver, which was not good. It was way outside his capabilities. But our sister lived 50 miles away and our middle brother did not want to be bothered. When mom died, I started sending him money to live on, and at times he was able to get work...like with my brother-in-law and nephew, helping clean up homes they wanted to flip. But even that stopped, and he cannot find work anywhere, so I've been sending him enough to survive on for years.

I was able to maintain it through the Covid lockdown because I had some savings, unemployment, occasional packing jobs, and I cut down my expenses to the bone. But I had been paying down the debut I ran up during a long period of unemployment, years ago, and now it's ballooned, again. I'm at the point where I will be broke in a year and owe more than I can pay. Even with occasional jobs still coming in and the increase in my social security. But this time next year, Kelly will be old enough to apply for early social security, and he will be getting more than I can give him...so there's that.

I swore to my mother and myself I would not let him be homeless, and I've kept that promise. He lives in a small trailer my sister purchased for him, situated in a skanky lot on San Antonio's east side, but it's shelter. And between her and me, he's surviving. Now my nephew is working to get him help, which would mean him probably moving into an apartment that is rent subsidized. He'd also get SNAP and I could cut down what I'm sending him...but today I spoke with him, urging him to call a social worker my nephew had contacted...and he's resisting it. And I am having a shitload of trouble with that.

He has to call her in order to get the ball rolling on receiving assistance, and he says he will do so in the morning...but I don't believe he will. I've been pushing him on SNAP for years and gotten nowhere. I tried to get him on disability and he gave excuses and only did what I insisted on. And now? Now...now I'm close to losing it. When I was talking to my nephew about what could be done, it was like a window was opening up and I could breathe...and now it's shut in my face. And I don't know what to do. I feel like this slice of rock in the ocean, my years of life and layers slowly being worn away...and eventually I'll teeter over and collapse into the sea.

But if I stop supporting him, he'll be homeless in two months. On the street. My sister can't help him like I have. His only option will be to move to the Gulf Coast to live with her (which neither of them wants) or beg on the corner. I can't have that. I couldn't live with it. I don't have to worry about it, for myself. My apartment is subsidized senior living. I can close my credit cards and pay a minimal amount. Drive my 25 year-old car into the ground...then get a tricycle to go grocery shopping. Hope my health holds out. I have options. I don't like them, but I have them.

But FUCK. I'm so tired of this bullshit. So fucking tired.

Sundays are agent time..

I sent out a query to another agent. Seems Sundays will be my time for that, so they have my query sitting in their in-box Monday morning. This is what I write to them, each one a bit different and the name of the agency filled in:-----------------My three volume novel, A Place of Safety, is the story of Brendan Kinsella, a lad who just wants to live his life. But he was born and raised in Derry, Northern Ireland, and history interferes with his plans. The first volume begins in 1966, when Brendan's father is murdered. He is but ten years of age. It sweeps through: 
• the 1968 Civil Rights demonstrations in Derry • the attack on peaceful marchers at Burntollet Bridge in early 1969 • the lead-up to The Battle of Bogside in August of that year• the arrival of British troops to separate the two warring sides• the re-introduction of internment in 1971• Bloody Sunday in 1972• and witnessing a horrific bombing in October, that year 
Brendan navigates his way through a society in thrall to history and the Catholic church as he tires to forge his own path. He also forms a relationship with a Protestant girl...a relationship that must be kept secret for fear of reprisals...from both sides. 
This section is currently undergoing revisions to clarify characters, events and various details. As of now, it is 132,845 words and 583 pages long, double-spaced and in Courier 12 point font. 
Volume 2 is set between 1973 and 1981 in Houston, Texas. Brendan is in a catatonic state so is situated with his aunt until he regains his sense and tries to rebuild his life. In volume 3, he is called home during the hunger strikes, where he accepts his destiny. Both are in second draft, but with need of revision for depth and consistency. 
This story is historical fiction. I have been working on it off and on for several years. And while I have self-published 14 books in both print and ebook, I would like to situate A Place of Safety with a mainstream publisher to avoid the issues that are part of self-publishing. I believe ___________________ can assist me with this. 
Below is the first chapter of the story, which is not quite ten pages. I would be happy to also send you a copy of The Alice '65, my romantic comedy, or The Vanishing of Owen Taylor, my gay murder mystery, to verify my abilities in writing a complete novel. 
Thank you for considering A Place of Safety. I believe it would be a great match with ___________________ interests. I look forward to hearing from you. 
Synopsis: 
Brendan Kinsella is a lad who just wants to live his life, but being born and raised in Derry, Northern Ireland, means history will interfere with his plans. Beginning in 1966 when he is but ten years of age, Brendan fights to maintain his own path through the turmoil of the time, from the vicious murder of his father to being caught in the middle of an IRA bombing to a growing relationship with a Protestant girl that must be kept secret for fear of reprisals...from both sides. But with chaos exploding around him, Brendan begins to wonder if his hopes and dreams and prayers and promises will ever find a place of safety.
----------------Then I paste in the first chapter. Here's hoping.