Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 84

In Kingston, NY

I made it down in decent time, mainly because I packed a lunch to eat along the way and only stopped to pee. And walk around a little. I'm in a Chrysler Voyager and it's like riding in your easy chair, once the cruise is on. The thing's a barge in size, but very comfortable.

I worked out a small issue on APoS, specifically in Book One but also Book Two. I acknowledged that it's important the reason Brendan eats the first meal he's aware of at his aunt's -- a chicken drumstick well-fried -- using a knife and fork is because that's what he does when he's invited into Joanna's house. He's escorted her and her friends home after the celebration fleadh and let her parents think he's a Protestant from the Fountain area of the Bogside so invite him to dinner. Joanna's brother, Charles, is suspicious, but Brendan puts up a good front and deliberately eats a chicken leg in the same way he saw one of his repair clients do.

He fixed an elderly lady's television and she shared the remains of a chicken dinner with him. He was fascinated by how she picked the meat off the bones by using only a knife and fork, so he jokingly uses that to make himself seem even more refined than he really is. Everyone's surprised, but it works...and when he heads home it's with the request he call, again. But then Charles remembers where he's seen Brendan before -- at the bus depot cleaning his hands in snow in the gutter -- so chases him down with some friends and starts to beat him. Brendan manages to get away almost unscathed.

The dinner at Joanna's is all input, now. And I added a note on the first title page to figure out the best place to add Brendan seeing how to eat chicken.

As for Kingston, this is one of those towns were getting anywhere means circling around and around just to cross from one side of the main drag to the other, and it will never be known for its cuisine. I finally had dinner at a 5 Guys and bought lunch for tomorrow at Target. It worked, fortunately, since we'll be 40 minutes away from anyplace with food.

Another job on Monday

Driving to the Poughkeepsie area, tomorrow, in a minivan loaded with packing materials. It's for a job we thought we had 2 days to complete and three people to do it, but found out...yesterday...that we only have one, and today found out I'll only have one assistant. Even better? We have to transport all the cartons we've packed away on Monday because the house has been sold and there will no further access to it. Which might mean a 12-hour day. So nice to have no warning in advance.

To add to the turmoil, one of the people in the office contracted Covid. Probably got it when flying back from San Francisco after the book fair. She's vaxxed and wears a mask, like me, and still got hit. She's doing better, but nowhere near 100%. This comes after my sister in Texas came down with it. She's had to take a couple weeks off work and do the meds routine, and apparently it's rough. However, she's better now. I've been fortunate so don't want to poke the fates. Masked, vaxxed, and still negative...so happy.

Today was more paperwork and preparation for this job, so no writing done. I'll be getting onto it when I return. I also updated and double-checked my financial condition and I maintaining. I had to pull some out of savings to cover my bills until I get reimbursed for SF, LA and Houston, but I can always put it back. What's hurting is my credit card interest is up to nearly 20% on one card, to which I owe a shitload of money, and 15% on another. I may look into shutting them down and paying them off in smaller amounts once I stop working.

I've watched the first 3 episodes of Vera, on BritBox. It's a British murder mystery series set in Newcastle and thereabouts, with Brenda Blethyn as Detective Chief Constable Vera Stanhope. Sort of a female Columbo but with a team of officers around to help her. Sharper and more demanding, I like her, and the crew around her are okay, but this season the directing and writing are tired, incomplete and repeating previous story plot points. And while there's always been a hint of self-righteous cruelty in the final revelation of the killer, in many of the previous episodes, it's become more glaring and I don't like it. It's almost sanctimonious in how it's handled.

I guess cozy British mysteries like Miss Marple, Midsomer Murders and Agatha Raisin are more my style.

Psycho-Kyle, qu'est que ç'est?

I crashed into...no...no...I drifted into one of my black moods, where nothing was any good and I didn't know what the fuck I was doing and felt like I'd wasted my life following the one thing I should never have bothered with -- writing screenplays. Because I have no idea how to really do them. And here I was still fucking writing a script to achieve nothing. As if I had no control over my direction in life. As if I were a junky and writing for film was my drug.

It started quietly, like a slow-rising flood, but grew deeper and deeper until I was quite...shit...lost and whatever self-confidence I had went hiding. All I could see was the mistakes I'd made in everything, and I nearly drowned in the belief I was screwing up Brendan's story. A story I've been working at and avoiding and hiding from, myself, for...well, to be honest, thirty-five years, since the first germ of the idea of the story came to me while I was living on Branard Street in Houston.

I didn't really do anything with it for years, just sort of poked at it. I was caught up in working on other projects...like Cutting Edge, a little action-thriller set in Houston, and adapting John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World into The Cowboy King of Texas. It was originally titled King of the Cowboys but after I won Best Screenplay at the Houston International Film Festival, in 1990, and got press for it, Roy Rogers' estate sent me a letter saying that phrase had been trademarked for him so I couldn't use it. My first real taste of being fucked over by the industry I'd stupidly decided to be a part of.

But I'm finally coming out of this mood. Back in recovery from screenwriting. I had a nice conversation with Brendan who told me, "If you don't write my story, it don't get wrote." Plain and simple. So MTK goes to the side. Dair's Window gets pushed back. And I focus on A Place of Safety-New World For Old and Return...and then the whole book, to work in whatever ideas and needs that come up.

I guess feeling obligated to my characters is what keeps saving me.

More jobs...fewer jobs...

Today was spent working on costing for a couple new jobs and learning two that I'd prepped were now put off for a couple months. It's hard to keep track of them all, but that's how it goes. Ebb and flow.
So this evening I started work on restructuring Mine To Kill into a serious horror script. I want it to be a scary as possible, so I'm slicing out anything that distracts from the moment.
Here's the opening...--------FADE IN: EXT. BELFAST, N. IRELAND HOSPITAL A/E CENTER - NIGHT 
An ambulance roars up, siren jangling. The doors fly open and EMS TECHNICIANS burst out with the bloody body of a WOUNDED CONSTABLE on a gurney. PSNI patrol cars (Police Service of Northern Ireland) follow. 
DR. MATTHEW THOMAS MacGREGGOR (good-looking medical intern) exits the hospital with a RESIDENT and CRASH CREW. They surround the gurney as several PSNI CONSTABLES rush up.
TECHNICIAN (Irish accent)Four gunfire wounds. Three chest, one neck. B-P's one-seven-nine over six-two. Pulse, four-four. One saline. Two plasma. Crashed, en route.
CONSTABLE ONE (Irish accent)Name's Campbell!
CONSTABLE TWO (Irish accent)Charlie Campbell!
CONSTABLE ONEA good man!
Matt waves them off as they approach the entrance.
MATT (Scottish accent)Station one, stat!
IRISH NURSEWe've somebody in there.
MATTGet them out!
RESIDENT (Irish accent)Call surgery for a consult.
Matt's hand rests on the constable's chest.
MATTBullet fragment's nicked his aorta. I got pressure on.
RESIDENTNo snap judgements, MacGreggor.
MATTNo, I can feel it, sir! You crack his chest, you'll see it.
INT. BELFAST HOSPITAL A/E CENTER - NIGHT 
Doors crash open before the speeding gurney. PATIENTS and NURSES scatter. CONSTABLES follow the gurney in.
TECHNICIANG-C-S -- two-three-one.
MATTHe's coding.
He tears open the man's shirt and --
FLAMES EXPLODE EVERYWHERE! LIGHTS FLARE TO A HELLISH GREEN.
The wounded constable bolts awake and grabs at Matthew, terrified.
WOUNDED CONSTABLE (Irish accent)Don't let me die; I ain't ready!
Matthew's eyes jam closed and
EXT. SOUTH BELFAST STREET - NIGHT
Cold and desolate as the wounded constable rapes a WOMAN behind a dumpster. She fights him. Tears nails into his cheek.
WOUNDED CONSTABLEFuckin' Taig cunt!
He slaps her and tears at her breasts. Starts in on her. She gets his pistol. SHOOTS HIM IN THE NECK. Shoves him back and SHOOTS HIM THREE MORE TIMES.
His PARTNER bolts from a patrol car and shoots her!
INT. BELFAST HOSPITAL A/E CENTER - NIGHT
Matthew wipes his face. Smears blood over his eyes. The flames are gone. The wounded constable unconscious, again. 
MATTBloody bastard... 
Constable Two hears him, growls. The Resident glances between them as they roll into
A TRAUMA ROOM
They shift the constable to a table. The uniform gets shredded. Equipment is attached. Blood flies everywhere. Monitors show his heart beating then stopping then beating then...
FLAMES EXPLODE around the crash crew. No one notices.
They crack the wounded constable's chest open. His heart beats and bleeds. The Resident massages his chest. Matthew jumps in.
MATTStop! Bullet fragment! By...by left atrium!
RESIDENTHe's in arrest!
MATTYou're slicing his heart open!
Matthew shoves him aside and dives his hands into the man's open chest and
FLAMES EXPLODE FROM THE MAN'S TORSO. SMOKE FILLS THE ROOM.
EXT. BELFAST ALLEY - NIGHT
Bleak. Dirty shadows and cuts of light. A terrified YOUNG MAN races around a corner to a dead end. Trapped, he turns and raises his open hands in surrender. The wounded constable appears, unhurt -- and SHOOTS HIM! Kills him. Tosses a second pistol beside the body.
INT. BELFAST HOSPITAL A/E CENTER - NIGHT
Matthew growls but forces himself to keep working on the man's heart as
FLAMES ENVELOP THEM BOTH!
The man's hands grasp at Matthew, his voice a howl of pain.
WOUNDED CONSTABLENo! Please! Gimme another chance! I'll make amends. I swear!
Matthew whimpers, also in pain.
MATTI'm trying! I'm trying!
WOUNDED CONSTABLEYou're lettin' me go! You fuckin' bastard, you're lettin' me die!
MATTNo, I'm not...I'm trying!
The crash crew casts him quick glances but keeps working.
RESIDENTDoctor MacGreggor!? Doctor!?
THE ROOM GOES DARK. SILENCE FILLS THE SHADOWS.
Matthew rises to stand upright before the now-empty table, his hands dripping blood. The constable faces him from the other side, no longer injured, his uniform in perfect condition.
The woman who was being raped appears from the shadows, to his left, followed by the young man he murdered.
The man sees them, terrified. Backs away.
WOUNDED CONSTABLENo, no. Please! I'll make amends! I swear it!
The young man strikes a match. It fires beautifully. He hands it to her.
WOUNDED CONSTABLENo, no, I'm not ready. Please -- no -- no -- NO!
She flicks the match onto his uniform.
HE SCREAMS AND EXPLODES INTO FLAMES...and vanishes...
The smoke and fire are gone. The shadows disappear. The trauma room is back to normal.
Matthew stands there, his hands covered in blood, the body of the constable on the table. The room is silent.
RESIDENTTime of death, twenty-three-fourteen.
MATT ...No...no...twenty-three-sixteen...
The resident glares at him. Everyone else in the crash crew looks at him as if he is a ghost.

A bit of space...

This round of jobs, with more for next week, took me over and proved to be exhausting, not just physically but mentally. But they also took my mind off APoS and let me see there are places where I can make connections between what happens in Derry as Brendan is growing up and in Houston, now that he's a war-wounded lad trying to restart his life. Once I'm done with this draft...if ever...I'll have aspects to go back to Derry and add.

For example, in New World For Old Brenda eats pan fried chicken leg with a knife and fork, like you would a breast. When did he learn to do that? Who showed him? Why would he even think to do it that way? The obvious answer is, that's how Joanna would do it. But the only time I have them getting together, there's nothing more than cake and tea involved. I can work that in and it would add to her magic, in his eyes, just not sure where or how, yet.

I once got a job making backgrounds for a party to be held at the King Ranch, in South Texas, because when I was interviewing with the man pulling it together, he offered me dinner. Fried chicken. This was long ago, before I understood that chicken and I do not get along. It was all drumsticks and wings and thighs mashed potatoes and gravy and biscuits and stuff. So Southern. Pick 'em up by hand and gnaw on 'em with your teeth. Only I didn't. I used a knife and fork, which startled him.

You see, when I lived in England as a child, a Scottish couple across the street from us would sometimes have me over for tea. It started when my mother had her first nervous breakdown, and I'm sure my stepfather was relieved he had only my little brother and baby sister to deal with, and not this finicky little redhead. Even after she came home, it continued about once a week...but usually just over tea and cucumber sandwiches with butter or cream cheese.

Anyway, on one occasion they roasted a chicken. They took the breast and gave me a drumstick. I was fascinated by how they ate with the fork in their left hand and knife in their right...so I copied them, working the meat off the bone with the knife and fork then keeping the fork my left hand to put it in my mouth. They were amazed.

So was I, really, and it marked me as an oddball when we came back to the States, but I still eat that way. No one else in the family does; just me.

Damn, I'm seeing so much of Brendan in me, and me in him in many ways. As it should be, I suppose.

First feedback on APoS-Derry

They haven't finished reading it, yet, and noted there is a lot of jumping around in the first chapter so got a bit lost, but otherwise reaction is good. They like the characters, especially Brendan, and the sense of place I manage to bring to it. Makes me feel better...and more secure...
I spent a little of today roughing out an idea of Brendan's home and neighborhood, up by Nailors Row. Just scribbles, right now, but I might post something inked-in once I have a chance. It's on a hillside, I already knew, but these sketches gave me a better idea of the slope to the house and its yard. 

I finished job #2, today. Wound up with 20 cartons, which will then go into a crate for shipping to London. Tomorrow is getting it on its way and having dinner with my architect nephew, whose latest building is in GA Document 162.
It's the Orange County Museum of Art and he was one of the project designers. He's with Morphosis, one of the premier architectural firms in the US, and does amazing work. He's very self-deprecating about his abilities, but has always had self-confidence issues. He's doing better (helped that he and his now-ex-wife are no longer together; she constantly put down his ambitions and abilities while offering zero support) but still needs a boost. I hope this gives it to him.
I'm checking with Hennessey & Ingalls Books, tomorrow, to see if they have a copy in. It only came out in January and is published in Japan, so may not. But I can still order one.
I'm so happy to see him doing well.

LA is a great big freeway...

 I spent half of yesterday on the freeways going places to see friends...and I don't know what's going on, but suddenly half of the other drivers are going below the speed limit instead of 20 mph over it. Three times -- twice on the 101 and once on the 5 -- I got caught behind some minivan or pickup truck that was going 55 in a 65 zone. And It was hard to pass them because of the others on my left whipping past fast enough to make my rented Corolla shiver. Mondo bizarro...

I worked up a rough sketch of the front of Aunt Mari's home, in Houston, to help me better visualize it for Brendan. I may do one of the back and his pool house, too. And then there's his two homes in Derry -- off Nailor's Row and then Clíodhna Place off Abbey Street. I did a map...but more visuals to help me is better.

In the never give up category...I have a horror script called Mine to Kill that I couldn't get to really work...until yesterday. The protagonist is an intern who's an empathic-intuitive, times a hundred. He knows what's wrong with people before they know, themselves. The antagonist is a veterinarian whose husband is emotionally abusive and cheating on her. He's in a car wreck and the intern tries to save him because he can see the man is being dragged to hell...but it's no good. The vet blames the intern for letting him die and decides to bring her husband back to life using the intern's blood and organs.

I wrote it first as a script years and years ago, but it takes forever to get going. All the back story and explanation and grounding it in people's actions...and while I pulled off some truly scary moments, it didn't hold together. Until I had the idea to change the whole structure. I have a short ghost story I wrote about a young doctor learning he is damned good at his job because he saves the life of a young man who's been dead for twenty years...and it's not being used in any ways, so...

If I adapt that into the first act of MTK, to establish the intern's abilities, then jump to the man dying in a car wreck and reveal his abusiveness as his wife fights to save him, it might work a lot better. Something to think about...

Synopses are helpful

I've been working my ass off the last few days but yesterday the shipment got off and is en route to its new home -- and it took me all day, today, to recuperate. I'm finding even just packing the books and humping the boxes half as much as I used to is wearing me out twice as fast.
This little picture shows how they looked on the base of a D-Container, before I finished putting the container walls around them. I packed every one of those brown boxes; 58 of them; 70 boxes, total, into 3 containers.
Tomorrow I'm off to LA to do 20-25 cartons, but in larger boxes and with more care, since they are traveling outside the US. After that, another 4-5 cartons then it's off to home, and a week to rebuilt my strength.
But...this evening I did manage to do some work on APoS and the summary of chapters for New World For Old. Saw some spots where I could clarify aspects of the book, itself, and work in more details...not just in this part of the story but also in Derry. The more I work with Brendan and his memories of his time there, the more I see how to add cross-references to the story.
Something else that's helping me is reading a book called Milkman, by Anna Burns. Just not in the usual way. I do not like the book. Apparently it's about a young woman in Belfast who's suddenly being stalked by a member of a paramilitary for no reason and hates how the gossips have decided she's his girlfriend and probably sleeping with him.
I was reading it to get a clearer vision of the society of the time...but OMG, is it tedious. I got to page 25 and not one character has a name, yet, not even the main one. They're referred to as maybe-boyfriend and third sister and Milkman and the like. So I'm finding it damned hard to empathize with her.  Yet it won the Man Booker Prize in 2018.
I'm probably being unkind and demanding. After all, 25 pages isn't much to go on and I normally give a book till page 100 before I quit, so I'll probably keep going. But it's like an assignment, now, not a pleasure.
But at least I can stop worrying if my book will be tedious or surface; this thing is as deep as skim milk spilled on a kitchen counter.

Still agent hunting...

I sent this off, today, using a form the agency has on its website. And found my first rejection in the Junk folder. Very nice and polite but no means no. Still, I keep pushing forward and adjusting the letter each time to make it better.

-----

I would like to submit my three volume novel, A Place of Safety, for possible representation by ________. It is the story of Brendan Kinsella, 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.

The first volume begins in 1966, with the brutal murder of Brendan's father when Brendan is but ten years of age. He then navigates a difficult relationship with his now-widowed mother and forges his own path through a society in thrall to history and the Catholic Church. 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 
He also forms a relationship with Joanna, a Protestant girl...a relationship that must be kept secret for fear of reprisals. From both sides. This section is currently 132,586 words and 581 pages long (double-spaced, in Courier 12 point font). I also have a chapter by chapter synopsis. 
Volume 2 is set between 1973 and 1981 in Houston, Texas. It starts with Brendan in a catatonic state, situated with his aunt until he regains his senses and follows as he tries to rebuild his life. In volume 3, his mother is dying so he is called home during the hunger strikes of 1981, where he finally accepts his destiny. I am currently working on a third draft of Volume 2 while Volume 3 is in second draft. 
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 am hoping _________ can assist me with this. 
Thank you for considering A Place of Safety. I believe it would be a great match with your interests. I look forward to hearing from you.
------------Oh, FWIW -- KDP backed down on Carli's Kills and it's now available through them in paperback. More on that later.

Waylaid...

Been a rough few days just trying to catch up with everything...and I'm still not. I did a fast trip to Brockport, yesterday, in the snow to pick up some archives. All were in bankers boxes but they weren't ship-able in that fashion, so I brought them back to the office and set them into slightly larger boxes then took them to Southwest Air Cargo to head out. By the time I was done, I was exhausted.
Part of the issue was the actual driving in poor weather. It makes me tense, to say the least, especially since I'm in a rental car with my own insurance covering it. It's less me I'm worried about than the other idiots on the road going 70-80 in sleeting conditions while rigs are going 55. It was a 50 mile drive but took me an hour and a half, each way.
It also took all my concentration, so I didn't really think about APoS as I'm toodling along. Not that I need to, much, right now. I'm in a section that I have a good idea is pretty much in order. I've got one chapter to add about the trip to Austin for the punk band, later on, but it's flowing that direction. Brendan's about to go through some brutal changes, again, and I want them to slip up on him.

Today was paperwork day, finalizing the costing for two jobs I have...one of which starts on Wednesday, in San Francisco. Meaning I'm flying there Tuesday. And in the office Monday to help with the book fairs happening over the next two weekends. So absolutely no writing getting done till I'm back in 10 days. And that's if the potential job in Houston comes through. Not guaranteed right now; the client is balking at the cost. A million dollars worth of books and they're whining because we want to crate them for protection.
What ya gonna do?