Long drive...

I've driven between LA and San Antonio and Houston so many times, and that stretch between Junction and El Paso is deadly boring...but damn...between Chicago and Iowa city is mind-numbing. Open fields that may have been plowed or aren't being cultivated going on and on. Few truck stops and even fewer rest areas. And having Google maps keep trying to send me down toll roads because it might save me a few minutes wrecks your mental health.

I got the main job done -- 18 boxes off to the client, for delivery tomorrow -- but this one is more of a favor of an add-on, because it's going to be 4 boxes, max. But the donor can't pack this stuff, themself, so...I wind up drinking too much Dr. Pepper and chewing too many pieces of gum to stay alert while trying to get some thinking done about APoS...but Brendan wasn't having it.

The closest I came is him reminding me, once more, that the theme running through this story is about hopes and wishes and dreams and how they keep getting smashed. By events...by others...by themselves. Which is what happened with his parents. Which means a restructuring of his opening chapter...and maybe writing some of Eamonn Sr's stories. Maybe rework some from James Stephens' book...or make up some of his own. Have him share them with the family instead of just down at the pub in hopes of getting someone to buy him another drink.

Question is, how does that translate into his becoming a brute? And how do I work it so Brendan comes to learn about it, thus softening his memories about his father even as his mother is sharpening his awareness of her disdain for him?

It seems Rhuari, Brendan's younger brother, is the one shifting into a sort of creative mode by learning Irish in Book Two and starting to teach it in Book Three. And maybe Eamonn Jr becomes something of a wordsmith in his letters from Long Kesh, laying out a manifesto and talking about a political path to take.

I don't know...still ideas...