Derry, Northern Ireland

Derry, Northern Ireland
A book I'm working on is set in this town.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

The death of plan-making

I think I finally learned not to make plans, because invariably when I do something happens to mess them up.  This evening I was going to focus on POS...but my internet service decided to mess with me, to the extent I couldn't get it to even acknowledge it had ever even been on my laptop.  I'm just now back to normal and answering e-mails...thanks to Verizon keeping me on hold for over an hour.  63 minutes, to be exact.  It's amazing, the customer service you get from these high-tech, totally automated everything companies.  Does not bode well for the future.

BUT...looking back over my posts I'm finding myself slipping back into Mr. Whiney mode, and I don't want to use this blog for that; I write in a journal for my ennui crap.  So...back to POS.

I happened onto an interesting bit in Stuart Neville's "Ghosts of Belfast" that will help in section 3 of the story.  I even dog-eared the page so I could find it...and don't think I'll share it because I want the whole situation to be a surprise.  But it's got me thinking I may get a better idea of the sociology of Northern Ireland if I read fictional books written by the people who live there.  I'm aiming for one by Gerard Brennan, who lives in Belfast.

It seems Belfast is ground zero when it comes to crime fiction in NI.  I've yet to see a blurb about a story set in Derry, though one short story in "Requiems for the Departed" was set there.  The problem with that story was, it was really just an outline for a novel.  Seriously, the writer packed so much into it there were none of the gentle details that make a story come alive.

I did get some fascinating material from a book titled "Strong About it All..." discussing the experiences of rural and urban women, both, at the hands of the security forces.

Oops, gotta run -- Brendan's calling.

(Hm...apparently I'm still having internet trouble, because the damned thing won't let me correct a spelling error.)

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