Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 83

Blogger went wonky...

For some reason, Blogger shut me out of my blog and I couldn't get back in until now. I don't know why, but I had to finally change my password in three different ways to get it to work. Which is irritating. I now need to update my password hints on my reminder page.

It's also messed up my links on Chrome. All I did was make sure my mike is working for a video call to my doctor, tomorrow, but apparently that was too much. God, sometimes I hate technology.

What's especially irritating is that this comes just as I'm working on updating a serious part of APoS. Because he's dating Vangie, a woman who's half black/half Cajun he's jumped by some racists, a pillow case is rammed over his head and he is taken to Deer Park, bound to a tree and viciously beaten. Initially, I had him left there to make his own way home. He's seriously injured and doesn't know where he is, so he calls his uncle to come get him, and events lead him to believe the man knew what was going to happen.

Then it hit me -- Brendan has a heart condition. If he's being attacked like this, he would have issues...which changed everything. I tossed out 6 pages and he wound up having an episode of some type. He floats in and out of consciousness, so he only hears snippets of what's happening...but knows the men who attacked him are shaken and arguing over what to do. Can't take him to the ER; too many questions. 

So he's given a nitroglycerin tablet and taken home in the back of a huge station wagon, where he is carried into the pool house and tended to by Aunt Mari. Because of things said and not said, he comes to believe Uncle Sean was actually at the beating and probably the one who stopped it when he collapsed. He's also pretty sure Vangie's cop brother, Lon, was there, too.

This is what I worked on, once I got some of my internet crap settled and corrected. There's still more to do and I need to pass through it, again, to make sure it holds together, but at least it's workable.

Still dealing with a light version of Corona virus. Barely a line showing on the test, but visible and my sinuses are agreeing with it. Dammit. Taking another one, tomorrow.

I will arrive...

I got two more chapters reduced to three paragraphs, each, telling what's happening. Seems that's all I'm able to do, at a time, before I zone. I'm still not 100% but also still better than yesterday. And I'm seeing spots in the chapters that I've written where I can deepen the story even more.
Something I've noticed is Brendan isn't as OCD in this book, and that may need to be changed. Granted, he's had a brutal shock, so maybe that could alter his personality...but it's not feeling right. He'd still have his habits, and they do show up, now and again.
When he returns from the New Orleans trip, he gets into a huge argument with his Uncle because he didn't tell the family he was going. He didn't even think about it. That is how he learns he's overstayed his visa and they're just letting it ride because he's white. But running around with a group of black and Cajun people is just begging for the cops to start nosing around, wondering what's going on.
His uncle's casual racism hits him wrong...and snarls back at him...then the man punches him to the floor. Aunt Mari has to intervene, and tells Brendan it's just better for all concerned if he keeps a low-profile. Even the IRA was pissed at him for ruining their plans, despite not meaning to.
Now Brendan feels like he's really a prisoner. He focuses on his repair jobs to help him settle his mind. As Joanna said in Book One, he likes to fix things when he's upset...and it does help him decide to just do what he wants, but quietly. Except he's about to learn there is no quiet way for a white boy to date a black girl in mid-70s Houston. Hell, there are people around even today who will disown their kids if they get involved with someone from another race. That's how little things have changed.
But this is a lesson Brendan will learn the hard way.

Glancing blow, maybe?

I'm already feeling better in this Covid saga. It's been crazy. Negative on Saturday. Full-fledged on Monday. Like the tail end of a sinus infection, today. Tempted to run a test just to see if it's gone, yet, but I told myself, wait to see what it says on Friday. Give it plenty of time to depart me, hopefully, forever. But from now on, I'm wearing 2 masks when I go out. Taking no more chances.

I got a couple of chapters each worked into a short 3 paragraphs on APoS, as it's going along. First is when Jeremy comes back from Israel, having fought in the Yom Kippur war, and the only person he feels any kinship to is Brendan, because he's also seen death. What follows is Brendan's turning 19 so Rene, his boss, throws a Cajun celebration for him, including the whole three pots, Falstaff beer and beignets.

New World For Old has 27 chapters in it. That seems like a lot, but I like where they break so not going to mess with them. I'm letting it just flow...but skimming through it for the synopsis is showing me places I can tighten and/or expand the connection to Derry's situation, in Brendan's consciousness. He's going to nearly flip out thanks to the Mardis Gras crowd in the French Quarter because the chaos becomes a combination of the Celebration Fleadh and Bloody Sunday.

Looks like my first job this month will be handling moving an archive from Berkeley to a university for someone very well-known. All I'm doing is overseeing the collection from where it's stored and then put into shipping containers to protect it. No physical labor, if I can help it. Hell, not even a day's work, but a trip to SFO and back...and maybe a stop in Chicago or NYC en route back.

Too bad I no longer like San Francisco. 

Covid, here...

After a rough night of coughing and aching, I took another Covid test, Monday morning...and it was positive. Took another an hour later, even more positive. Between Saturday afternoon and Sunday night, the damned disease caught me. I'm not flat on my back, like some people. Seems I have a mild case, but it's still taking its toll. Couldn't focus at all, yesterday. Barely managed to postpone my job in NYC and contacted my Doctor's office to speak with him. Guess who wasn't in, yesterday.

TBH, this really just feels like a case of bronchitis, which I've had before. I don't have it bad enough to require the anti-viral regime people like my sister have gone through. Just rest, isolation (no problem there), plenty of fluids and use Zyrtec to handle the sinuses and cough drops for the throat.

Unfortunately, I'd forgotten cough drops have a negative effect on me, especially the sugarless ones. Besides, gargling with salt water does a better job. Lots of tea. Lots of DPZ, which actually handles the tickle in my throat well. And Tylenol. I'm doing well-enough...but I'd much rather not have had this.

I know where I got it, from a woman at the office. She had Covid recently and came beck before I though she would. I walked into the office to drop off paperwork and there she was, and I wasn't masked. That was on Monday...or was it Tuesday, last week? Don't remember. Head is fuzzy. But within a day I was feeling out of sorts. I'm 5x-vaxxed so that is probably why I'm not in the hospital. Ugh, the one time I don't wear a mask.

Anyway, all travel is off for two weeks. If I can kick myself hard enough, tomorrow, I'll start in on the step outline of the book, chapter by chapter. Get that done. Send out more agent queries. Use the now-free time as productively as possible for APoS. I've spent too much time futzing around with it to kick back, now.

Marathon man...

Did a marathon of the last four chapters of APoS-New World For Old, even though I feel like shit. That may have helped in working on Brendan's punk rock phase; he doesn't give a damn, anymore, and my attitude was...Why not just let him roll with it? It needs another draft, without question but it's close to being set in its size. 530 pages, 119,000 words.

I found I had shrugged off an important death in the latter part of the story, so set that up better...and could still do more with it, on the next draft. My one and only fear about that moment is it's too obvious this is going to happen. That may not be a bad thing, but still...I'm not a fan of predictability.

I've been fighting a sinus infection all day. Initially, I worried it might be Covid but another test today was negative. And it's mainly my sinuses aching and me shivering like I have an infection. So I used Vicks Vapo Rub on my neck and chest, and up inside my nostrils, and set a pot on the stove with eucalyptus water in it to permeate through the apartment. I feel better, if not tip-top.

I slept until noon so missed a call from my brother, Kelly. He needs a notarized letter stating I've been supporting him for some years and for how much, each month. I can do that at the bank. Hopefully, my check for this month's work will come in the mail.

I'm also getting a folding dolly (from Amazon, I know, I know, but I couldn't find another one that would work) so I want to see if I can take that as carryon luggage. Means a trip to the airport and checking with Delta. This job in NYC is only a day's worth of packing, but it's getting the materials I use into the office without making three trips. That's why I want the portable dolly.

It also means I don't need to take much in the way of clothing, so I'm just using my backpack for the minimal stuff. Travel as light as possible...

Brendan has a cold side...

New World For Old is showing Brendan can be a real bastard, at times, especially when he's been hurt. It doesn't matter who's in his line of fire...if they cross him in any way he goes full Howitzer. Which he just did with Evangeline. He was thinking of asking her to marry him, before he was beaten, but learns she never felt that way about him. He's fun for now, but not forever. So he subtly lets her know he's pretty sure one of her brothers was in on his beating. He feels betrayed by her so does it, right back. And he's not sorry, even after she slaps him and storms off.

Then he quietly arranges to sneak away from the pool house and his aunt's family to live on his own in the shadows. He's beginning to see that's the only way to avoid those who would try to make him live his life by their precepts. He finds a room in a house like this, in a run-down section of the city and begins to build himself a new family. A new life.

This takes me to Page 422 out of 525 and almost 118,000 words. That's not counting a chapter I still need to add about Brendan's punk phase and a trip to Austin to hear The Next, a San Antonio punk band playing at Raul's, up on the strip. So it's probably going to be a good 122-123K. Which I don't mind. When I first started writing this section I worried it would be even so much as 80K.

I've fallen off the search for an agent so will do that tomorrow. A couple emails and queries to keep it up. Just one rejection, so far, is pretty good. I also need to catch up with the step outline for this one. Lots behind on that.

I may have a sinus infection. Light but irritating. Just feeling a bit achy and cranky. I took a home Covid test and it came up negative, but I'll take another before I head down to NYC, on Wednesday. Train back on Friday should give me plenty of time to write. I like Amtrak. Like the trip up the Hudson. If it wasn't 9 hours each way, I'd do it all the time.

Too busy, which is good...

Whirlwind day. A job in NYC came through for next week (talk about last minute) and two others look solid...one in Berkeley that'll be a part of history, another in NYC, again. All on top of the one outside Boston. Then there's one in Chicago that's beginning to look really iffy, because the company pushing it has gone on radio silence. I don't even know what part of the city it's in so I can't work up an estimate.

Once everything was done and dinner over, I worked on APoS...and it's taking a deeper turn than I expected but do want. What I'm now building on is Brendan's emotional reactions to what's happening to him, be it good or bad...and all of it has led to being very bad. In the chapter I just completed, he's brutally beaten for dating Vangie and suggesting he'd like to marry her. In Texas. In the middle 70s. In a part of the country that has one of the biggest chapters of the KKK. Not smart.

He's also begun to see the parallels between Derry's situation and Houston's attitudes. Is seeing betrayal in what happened to him, because it looks very much like he was set up to be attacked. Which sends him spinning into a deeper sense of loss and confusion than he's ever had. His reaction after seeing Joanna caught in the fire was psychic horror and brought about an emotional and mental collapse. But he's stronger, now, and is trying to make sense of it all.

As Everett, his gay friend tells him, he may be just 19 but he's "an old man in a young man's body." He's seen death and destruction lead to more death and destruction and already knows it's just a vicious cycle dragging everyone down to their doom. And try as he might, he cannot seem to break free of it. Now he carries scars that will come back to haunt him, both physically and emotionally.

Something I can finally see, looking back over my scripts, is how I focused more on the emotional content of them and worried less about the action aspects. William Goldman once famously said, "Screenplays are structure," and I understand why. They're the blueprints for the film. If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the screen, kind of thing. But I never could get past the deliberate simplicity of that. I think that's why actors tended to love my scripts...I gave them content to play, not just Save the Cat numbers to fill in.

Something like the Paint by Numbers sets toy stores sell, and which I could never get to look right.

Short timer...

I visited a friend who's now in hospice care. Cancer. Not discovered until he went in for an MRI to find out why his shoulder was hurting him so much. He wasn't even released from the hospital but was taken straight to a room and sedated and is now drifting towards the end. I doubt he'll be around more than a week.

His name was Vincent Botticelli, and he cut my hair. The only person I'd found in this town who could do it like I wanted it. I stuck with him for more than 10 years. Every two months we'd talk about old movies and actors and actresses and while I might have known more history, thanks to my background, he had a greater depth in his viewing. He loved all of the Italian cinema and we'd both seen so many classic Hollywood films, we would never have the same conversation.

It was great fun comparing Joan Crawford to Bette Davis in their respective roles. Same for film noir; lots of gossip and tidbits about the actors and the quiet cruelty of those films. No one was safe. Gene Tierney. Jane Greer. Robert Mitchum. Kirk Douglas. Burt Lancaster. Comparing looks and sexiness and beauty was a joy.

But to him, the whole of film boiled down to Ava Gardner. In this dress. In East Side, West Side, a 1949 movie starring Barbara Stanwyck and James Mason. He said the only time he'd ever considered going straight was when she first appeared in the movie. She played a character born to be murdered...and he loved her every moment.

He also liked to point out hairstyles and how inconsistent they could be from one moment to the next. Like Kim Novak's hair in Vertigo. Apparently, the process they used to make her a platinum blond, in 1957, was very delicate. If not properly cared for, it would quickly shift into a harsher shade...and it drove him nuts to see how often that happened. Like in the flower shop...scenes shot on different days then cut together had her hair inconsistent in its coloring. Now that I see it, I cannot unsee it.

I took him a printed copy of Ava, in a frame that could be set up on his night stand...but I doubt he'll really know of it. He was pretty done in by morphine. I did get to meet his partner (I don't know if they actually married, nor was I going to ask). He was a gentle man working in an art museum and so endearing.

I don't believe in the religious versions of heaven and hell, but I do think there is more to the basic essence of the universe than we can ever understand. I sense it when a character in a story takes over and sets the path we're to follow. Takes me places I would never have gone. Never have gone. Lives I've never been close to living. Both real and unreal. And the love and the depth and the arguments I have with my characters are more important to me than any other part of my existence.

I know Brendan is from that essence, for I can think of no other explanation as to why I'm letting him lead me through the story of a lad I would never have known and whose life I would have no true understanding of. Call it the fates or a muse or insanity, it's just...this is proof to me that when we leave this world, there is another to be joined with, in some way, form or fashion. We meld with the universe, again.

I can only hope that Ava will be kind enough to help him in his transition.

Back to it.

Worked on the chapter where Brendan goes to Mardi Gras with Vangie's family, gets some serious sensory overload, and does go to mass with them for Lenten services. But then, when he gets home, he winds up in a vicious argument with his uncle over going without telling his aunt and uncle. The implication being they would not have allowed it. Seems white boys ain't supposed to be running around with black people. And never mind that Vangie's family is Creole; it's the same thing. Houston still has a small-town plantation feeling, even today.

So Brendan now sees himself as a sort of prisoner, because he has to keep a low profile and not get into any situations that might call attention to himself. He's overstayed his visa and could be deported back to Derry. He now senses there was more to him being snuck into the US than just kindness or a wish to keep him alive. But he has no way of finding out, short of asking his sister, Mairead, about it. And she won't tell him. Not sure where this part is going, just yet, but it's adding some interesting emotional depth to the story...and conflict within Brendan. Because this also means a rift with his belovéd aunt. She's backing her husband up, complete.

I'm also working up costing for a couple of jobs that may or may not come to fruition. I'm asking for more information from the clients about them, and I'm dealing with the costing of a job that will require another long drive. I like driving, but my agéd old joints and back and butt and legs ain't so happy with it. I'm also finally having trouble with my lower back. Serves me right for being so proud about how good that part of me has been.

There's even one job I may miss out, in LA, on because I pack the books too well, for transport. This one non-US auction house may send their people over to handle it, instead. Which would be a hoot. How're they sourcing packing materials and working out the logistics of flying it to another country? Which they have to do it they want it in a timely fashion. Ocean transport saves no money under a certain weight level and takes months.

Good thing I'm at the stage where I just shake my head at how fucking stupid people can be...including myself, far too often.

No drive; no thinking...

Back home after this latest job. I was expecting to pack 450+ books but the auction house's people took  the high end stuff with them when they made the deal and I dealt with the stuff that's under six-figures in value. Still  a lot to do, but I had help and since the shipment was being hand delivered to the auction house, I could pack a bit faster. Wound up with 19 cartons, including a framed item.

But it wore me out so even though I slept pretty good, last night, I still had to stop about mid-way home to nap so I didn't fall asleep at the wheel. As for the weather, it was cold and wet...then snowy...then sleeting...then pouring down rain and windy. The Voyager I drove had a monitor that lets you know what kind of gas mileage you're getting, and in this car it started at 15.8 mpg. I got it up to 24.1 by the time I reached the site, and 27.3 by the time I turned it in. All because of freeway driving and cruise control. I once had it all the way up to 28.2, but a strong headwind obliterated that.

I tried to talk with Brendan as I drove, but he told me we're at the point where I have to be working on what's already been written to see what needs to be done. So next is Brendan's trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and how it opens a massive rift between him and his uncle. Especially since he went with a Cajun family and is finding he likes the only daughter, Evangeline. Vangie. More trouble on the horizon.

It's funny. I both want the story to flow but worry that it's flowing too easily as things happen. If it's too predictable. When I start reading a book, if it telegraphs what its ending will be and how the journey will go, I lose interest and check the ending to see if I'm right. I almost always am.

So I don't want APoS to fall into that category for anyone, even though I want it to happen naturally, as time rolls along. But I don't want to input changes just for the sake of hiding what's about to come. So I just keep plugging along and hope for the best.

Won't know for sure till it's done and people either love it or hate it.