Derry, Northern Ireland

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

Saturday, September 15, 2018

Bloodied but unbowed...so far...

The last few days have been a battle royal with Brendan over A Place of Safety. Today was the biggest. I worked out a way to have him arrested twice after returning to Derry from Houston and it not seem like repetition. It was rolling along great and he was in honest danger for specific reasons while being beaten by constables, one of whom was a former friend, and him getting away from them worked well enough, but then the only way I could figure him truly escaping them was to hide in a church...and I slammed headlong into a brick wall. Because if I did that, it cut out 75% of the rest of the book.

He doesn't put back together the gun he hid for his brother, Eamonn. He won't be at home when his mother starts dying. He won't see his second ghost after returning to Derry. Nothing more till he's caught by the British, and then it would be totally different from what I had.

It took me forever to finally accept he had to have another way to escape the constables...and I worked it out so it makes sense, even if it is a bit too easy, now...but that little shit made me bleed for it. Hell, I've ended each day with a headache, this week, thanks to this story. By the end of the evening, I couldn't face typing anything more so let the blog go.

And probably my glasses. My thought is, I need stronger ones.

I think Brendan believes the changes I made in the beginning chapter -- gutting a lot of the chat about who's who and how many kids and all that shit -- means those details will be removed, completely. I'm just shifting them to later. Things to learn as the story goes along, like someone who's just made a new friend and is learning about them in steps and stages. I want them worked in naturally, not force-fed to the reader. That kind of thing is boring.

So I wonder if he's stopped trusting me. Maybe he never did, completely, the way he keeps testing me. I dunno. All I know is I now have 42 pages reworked and ready to plug back into the story.

And they fucking hurt...

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