The Alice '65 frames for the first 2000 words...

Chapter One

Getting Dressed

 Oxfords Brushed

Adam Pulls on Mac

 Heads for train 

 Reads on Train

 St. Pancras

Merryton College

 Adam Arrives

 Sir Robert Butterworth

 Merryton's Research Library

Tracking Down When Volume Written...

But So Lost in Research...

 Question Asked

 "Sorry? What was that?

Library in School's Old Chapel

Adam Enters

Adam's cubicle -- # 3

Winding down...

I think my interest in this blog is at an end. I just don't have anything left to say on it. Maybe I'll start another one, once I get going with A Place of Safety...but as of now, it's done.

My thanks to those who followed me.

Here it is...the last...

Final six frames...

Adam startled to learn Elizabeth doesn't like to read Henry James, even as she's cataloguing some letters he wrote. She doesn't take kindly to being questioned.

But he realizes she's not a book person...so is willing to help her learn to be one, if she's interested.

BTW, the mark on his chin is a scrape from a rugby match; Adam likes to play on weekends.

Now comes separating and numbering them and prepping them for the slide show.

Such fun this will be...

All done...

I've got 60 frames, repeating a couple means 62 edits to cover ten and a half minutes. Or dissolves. We'll see how that works. I still need to go through to make sure of consistency in everything, but the images now have flow and I think illustrate the story nicely. We'll see if it does any good.

I wish, sometimes, I'd never strayed from art. I know I'd never have been the next Picasso or Rembrandt or even Sergeant or de Kooning, but I'd have felt like I was achieving something. I have my books, sure, and I'm proud of them...even the ones I didn't do 100% right by. Once I'm gone, those will still be around, even though they aren't selling at even a fraction of what Steven King sells.

I'm proud of several of my scripts, but those...those are not something to leave behind. They're dead if they don't get made into a movie. Meaningless. My characters are left with nothing unless I turn them into books, as well. Which I plan to do for many of them...However, at the rate I work, I doubt I'll get them all done.

But my art...I was building something with that. I'd done commissions...sold some of my work. Was building a reputation. I worked in visual merchandising and it fed into me doing more art after office hours. A few pieces of mine are in private collections, and that's while I was still late teens and early 20s. I graduated High School at 17 and didn't start college tillI was 21. In those 4 years I was setting down a path to be a real artist.

Then came film. I stupidly thought I could translate my artwork into movies, like Alfred Hitchcock did. But it was too different. Too collaborative, and I've never been good at collaborating on my work; it feels like compromising lessens it. It only took me 35 years to come to terms with that reality. But then...I never was a fast learner....

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm an undiagnosed Dyslexic...

Closing in...

Six frames left to fill in for A65. I'd post the ones I did today, but they're all out of sequence so would be confusing. Halfway through I realized I needed another couple of set-ups so put them in, numbered them correctly, and noted to myself what goes where when I get down to making them into individual jpgs. I'll still need to go through the whole series for consistency, but it's nice to be so damn close.

Of course, now I'm conflicted about posting it on YouTube. They've been letting right wing scum attack gay men and women and post videos calling for all sorts of shit to be done to us, saying it's freedom of speech. I'm a big First Amendment person, but hate speech should not be tolerated. Period. It goes way beyond opinion into intimidation and violence and that is not acceptable. So I may look into alternative venues...maybe even see about setting it up on my website, if I can.

It got kind of intense at work, today, considering it's the end of Firsts, London's Antiquarian Book Fair. I wound up with one of my slow-building headaches but had to take Tylenol, which barely works, instead of Advil because I've been close to a couple of nose bleeds, again, and Advil's not good for that.

I'm also caring for the office cats till Monday, next. Nice little beasts but they can be demanding. Fortunately, I like cats so just pop some Claritin and smack one of them around while the other watches, judging us. Good tension release, usually.

I've learned the art of making turkey Reubens on pumpernickel. Butter the bread, slop on carved deli turkey, 2 slices of Swiss Cheese, some sauerkraut, and slow-fry it on a skillet till the bread's toasty and the cheese melted. Add some Russian Dressing and It's almost as good as the ones I used to get at Canters, in LA.

God...Canters...I haven't been there in years...

Bitchin' can be badass...

Seems complaining about myself, yesterday, unblocked me and reset my equilibrium and I got a bunch more frames done. If all goes well, I'll be completely done in the next couple of days.

So continuing from where Elizabeth arrives for work, she and Adam discuss her having a weekend in Paris...

...then she can't get her computer to wake so he suggests she do a restart. She heads for the kitchen...

...and he gets to work, has his lunch, checks the time for his meeting with Vincent...

...and finishes another book, which he takes to a room they call The Dark Chamber...

I have more frames done but they're out of order. I realized I'd lost the track of the story and did some renumbering.

Watching Vera seems to help...

Biorhythms...

I went into one of my crash and burn modes, yesterday, and am just now pulling out of it. I forced myself to finish roughing out the last of the frames for A65...and I do mean forced...but today had to put everything aside to give me time to regain my equilibrium. When I work while in a mood like this, I hate what comes out and wind up trashing it, so better to just step back, give myself time to settle, and focus on nothingness, for a while. And remind myself all I did was rough the sketches out, not fill them in; they can be adjusted, if need be.

I hate it when I get into moods like this...where I question every aspect of my life and kick myself for every mistake I've made...but I did manage to diminish it by re-reading the ending of The Vanishing of Owen Taylor. Jake dealing with his mother in a phone call he dreaded making, and the aftermath of it...those few pages reminded me I do know how to write and can create something powerful, when I work at it.

They didn't kick away how lost I am when it comes to dealing with trying to sell my work. Get it known. Everything I've tried in the way of promotion has brought back minimal success. I'm still in the red on every one of my books except How To Rape A Straight Guy. Deep in the red on a couple of them.

I tell myself making money wasn't the point, and it isn't; I set the percentage paid to me very low to keep the price of the books from being too high, so breaking even was always going to be difficult. And normally I don't care about the income from them...except when I get into a black mood like this and want to chuck it all.

At least I'm past that and now stand a bit above apathy. It helped that I watched more episodes of Vera while doing nothing else...though I will say, I'm not buying second hand DVDs again. I bought this 7-season set through ebay and of the 12 disks I've seen, so far, 3 needed cleaning and 4 had dings on the surface that caused major glitches. I can usually get past them but it's irritating, doubly so right now.

Oh well...I've got 32 frames filled in and another 27 to complete. Funny how working on the visuals kept changing the angles and flow of the piece...but once I've backed away from being hyper-critical, I think it'll be ready to go, soon.

Then comes the fun part -- the slide-show for video.

Adjustments will be required...

I now have 33 frames pretty much set for the slide-show. They'll need a bit of touching up to maintain consistency, for which I'll need a sharper eraser. My Magic Rub is all rounded edges.

But it's still flowing. Adam finishes his back-and-forth with Vincent, tells the book he'll not give up on her and sees his computer is still waking up.

So he looks around, sees a beam of sunlight filtering through a nearby window, then hears his co-worker, Elizabeth, storming in. It took a bit of searching but I found a good model for her face. I'll be working that in, next.

I've found watching old episodes of Vera as I fill the sketches in actually keeps me going. Not fast but steady. I really like the first four years, with David Leon playing opposite Brenda Blethyn. Not sure why he left, but Kenny Doughty just isn't as engaging. Too cool to the touch while DL was warm.

But...I have a lot more episodes to go through, so who knows...I may get this done, yet...

Productive weekend...

All my focus is on working up the best images possible for A65's slide show. Here are the next ones in the story...

Here's Adam thinking about the library and his research after recalling Sir Robert Butterworth...

And Adam getting so lost in his research he has to go through a 12-step process to return to this world...then nearing his work space at Merryton...

Adam enters and sees the room...

He enters his cubicle and sees the Orlando Furioso he's been working on...

And remembers how deep he got into it, so much so that his boss, Vincent, came up to find out why...

I have more sketched out to fill in, but I was starting to get sloppy so it was time to quit.

Beginning to think maybe I can...

It's been a crazy week prepping for shipping dealers to the London Book Fair, but now they're all on board and will be en route over the weekend. Move-in for the fair is Thursday and I seriously wish I was going. They're having a deal at the Globe Theater with a Shakespeare First Folio, and there are other exhibits I'd love to see...but I'm stuck in Buffalo. Dammit. Guess I'll have to work on A65's slide show.

Which I have been. Here's some more of the frames I've sketched up, and I've been playing with iMovie to make sure I can do what I want to do. Looks like it'll be time-consuming but may actually work out. I don't have all the options up and running, yet, but I'm getting there.

Being alone in the office for several days will give me a chance to do work on the sketches. Just take my laptop in and materials and in the quiet moments, of which there will be many, get 'em goin'.

I want this up and running by the end of July, because starting on August 1st I'm focusing on APoS and getting a first draft done. No matter what.

I've also dome some more promo for the book...in fact, all my books. Sales have grown quiet and part of that may be from my neglect in pushing them. I bought an ad for my darker books on a website devoted to M/M stories. It didn't cost much; guess we'll see if it matters any. And other groups I belong to on Facebook got posts and some pushing.

My Anger and Anarchy site is just to let off my dark thoughts steam...and has come in handy a couple of times.

Beginning to come together, finally...

I spent the holiday weekend working on the audio slide show for A65...and it's finally working for me. Carrie Armstrong's doing the read and she has a nice storytelling voice. Very comfortable. Parts were just right, but there were hesitations and skipped words, here and there...still nothing major. I also found I left out a word at an important moment, but it didn't really change anything so I'm not going to freak over it.

Instead, I went through the audio word by word and made notes, mainly asking Carrie to try to make her renditions of the British dialogue more consistent. I suggested she do each character's comments in one straight shot then have it plugged in where it belongs. To be honest, I don't know if she can get that done, but it never hurts to ask.

I also clued her in on who to use for the dialogue -- Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter for Adam, Trevor Howard in The Third Man for Vincent, and Michelle Dockery in Downton Abbey for Elizabeth. The latter two aren't 100% but close enough...and as noted, long ago, having Daniel Radcliffe as Adam would be most excellent...

What's interesting is how reading it over and over and comparing what I'd already done in images to her read changed everything. I'm now up to 60 frames for a 10:25 minute piece, and feel this is truly as close as I can get it without scriptwriting it, again. So today I began working them into something more like a storyboard than rough sketch.

I'm going to try and do the first image as a pan down...

Then I have Adam heading out...

Then he gets to Epping Station, reads on the tube and exits at St. Pancras.

This feels like movement and provides a good connection to Adam as he heads for a new horizon, even though he doesn't know it, yet. I've been raiding all my photos of trips to London and the UK for backgrounds. They aren't in beautiful color, but this works just as well.

And they fit in with Carrie's comfortable storytelling.

First run of A65 read right...

I got the audio for my version of the beginning of The Alice '65 and it sounds 1000 times better than that guy who was handed the pages and told to read. Carrie Armstrong did it and it sounds a lot more polished. She skips words here and there, and her British ebbs and flows when speaking the dialogue, but those are minor issues that can easily be corrected. I think. Guess I'll find out.

Still...the story flows with her reading. No stumbling over awkward words. Good readings on most moments. A kindness to her voice that is part of Adam's makeup. I really like it. I'm going to work up visuals to compliment this reading, as best I can.

I didn't get any done during this trip. Everything took longer than anticipated and I found myself getting tired by the end of the day. I'm going to start doing some kind of physical activity to try and rebuild my stamina...and lose some weight...and I'll have a good three weeks here to get started on it. We start picking up US and European book dealers on Wednesday, next week, for the London Book Fair, AKA: Firsts...and I'll be the only one in the office for 10 days. So no travel jobs.

I missed out on one in Fairbanks, Alaska. It really wasn't big enough for me to do, cost effectiveness being the main issue, but I've never been to that state and would love to have gone. Same issue for one in the wilds of Oregon, though that one also had a solid deadline I couldn't have made, anyway. I'm not available to go traveling till the 17th of June and they want it on-hand by the 11th.

I did enjoy where I was packing, in Chicago. Great view of Michigan Avenue and Lake Michigan. The first image is from when a rain storm blew in. The second, an hour later...

Proving the old saying about Texas weather -- that if you don't like it wait a while and it'll change -- is true for everywhere.

Chicago is crazy...

Supposedly, this is a city that works...but I wonder in what way. When I arrived at Midway, I went to the El to get a ticket. They offered a 3day ride but gave no price for it. I knew I'd be taking the train to and from Midway and at least one bus trip, so I got one. I don't know how, but I wound up with 6 at $20 each and no way to get a refund.

Bt if I'd known a three-day ticket was that much, I'd have bought a single round trip.

The hotel I'm staying in is nice and close to the job...but it has no AC. Fortunately, this is not summer in Chicago, which can get damned hot...but there's nothing about that on their website, and there was nothing else available on a Saturday. Hell, I was lucky to get this room.

Then it poured down rain when I was at dinner, so I hopped a taxi to go to my backup hotel (I had to get two separate hotels for Saturday night, since I had a helper coming to work the job with me; we're both in the same hotel from Sunday night). I told him the address and that it was a Travelodge. He took me to a Holiday Inn, which was a mile away. He apologized and didn't charge me any extra for going to the right hotel, but it was irritating.

Of course, this was all on top of a massive drama on Friday, when my packing materials weren't delivered because the freight elevator in the building had broken down, and even though I'd called several times to see how the progress was on the delivery, and each time was told it would be brought back no later than 5, it never was delivered.

The freight company agreed to deliver it Saturday morning, for another $95.00.

However, today went well. It didn't start to rain till we got the location, and everything was ready to go. Packed 32 cartons, today, and had a nice lunch at a Belgian restaurant.

And this was the view from our work room, as it kept pouring down...

Finished one job, one more to go...

I packed a nice collection of original books by Josephus, in Kansas City. There wound up being more than I expected, so it took me working from 8-6 Thursday and 9-11 Friday to get it done, but I popped them over to a crating facility and had the afternoon free.

So I went to the Hallmark Visitors Center just outside downtown. Watched a slick movie about JC Hall, who started the company, and how it's still run by the same family. Of course there were the usual supremely sweet exhibits, but there were also...

...Original works by Norman Rockwell, who also made a lot of artwork for the company. This one was in response to a devastating flood in 1951, meant to show the city's spirit...

...And something I hadn't realized -- they also have original works by Winston Churchill. Apparently they even se up a traveling exhibit of his work, once he'd retired and begun painting in earnest.

I knew he'd painted but didn't realize how accomplished he was.

Then I took a quick trip to Independence, MO to visit the Harry Truman Library...and while it was interesting it was a bit too bland. Just a lot of info like you'd find in history books. Nothing surprising, even in the gift center.

So...now guess where my second job is happening...

Obsession...

Okay..........

If anybody knows how I can meet this man, please tell me. He has totally fucked with my mind and emotions, even though he's not my type and lives at least 4000 miles away. I need to meet him in person and find that he's a fucking asshole so I can get him out of my head. I can't even begin to explain it, but I watched the last bit of Sense8 solely because of him.

I know that's shallow of me and I don't give a fuck. I know it's ludicrous to even think of anything ever happening between us...outside of my imagination. As if that's not what I've been living on for the last 35 years, meaning why should this be any different? But Jesus fucking Christ, those eyes and that little smirk...they've branded me.

It's been a long time since I've felt this strong about someone in a movie or series. Those feelings...that intense attachment...I projected it onto my characters. My life was built around them. IS built around them. They are more real to me than real people...which may be part of the attraction to him. He's real even though he isn't, even as he is.

I'm remembering the point in UG where Devlin finally connects with the reality of what happened to one of the men who was raped and murdered, and how it nearly destroys him. Breaks him. Allows him to see what his truth is. It tears me up to even think about it.

And in A65, when Adam realizes what has happened and why he was sent to pick up this particular book, and how it cuts so deep...it cuts him free from his past and lets him see a new future. And he shows it in a quiet moment with his mother as he lets her know he's letting go of the past.

In those moments, it's like I'm more alive than I've ever been, in my real life. Same for my other works...each has a scene in it where the protagonist's emotions take over and point him to reality. Sometimes big, splashy ones...like when Damon realizes his son is more important to him than anything in the world; sometimes tiny and quiet...like when Jake tells Tone about who killed his uncle and how he feels evil; sometimes just a drive up a coastal road in the pre-dawn hours with man you hated and never expected to love...and with whom you've destroyed any chance of happiness.

Max Riemelt is my dream...and he's more real than my life...and there's no chance of anything more than that...and something in me says that's good. Why? I don't know.

Guess I'll have to put it in a book to understand...

New tactic...

Started from scratch and got 43 frames roughed out, with some being used a couple of times in cutting back and forth, making my A65 project feel more like a movie. All of the images will focus on Adam. Now I just need to go through and make presentable versions of them, scan them in, figure out how to shift them into video and edit them according to the rhythm of the reading. Nothing much.

What's funny is, I did initially write the story as a script. Once I made it into a book, I could see how incomplete and unfocused the script was. I had dialogue meant only to be cute or funny instead of push the characters along. You have more room for that in a book, but now that it's done I could make a better script out of it, if I wanted to.

Turning Porno Manifesto into a screenplay from a book helped me see how sloppy I could be when writing. I get all caught up in angst and agony and rewriting and reimagining and fighting with the characters...which takes my focus off the story's thread, at times. Maybe I should do them all this way -- write the story as a script or book, then translate it...then translate the translation back to whichever way I originally wrote it. That makes me focus harder on the storyline. I saw that because it also helped me get a clearer clearer idea of Dair's Window.

I'm thinking, if by some miracle PM winds up getting anywhere at the Nicholl, I could write APoS as a mini-series. I will have, at the very least, a first draft done before the grant initiates. I could take that into script format then make it back into a book...then make it back into a mini-series screenplay. And length wouldn't matter.

An English woman in my graduate screenwriting class wrote a 350 page script set during the Indian Sepoy Rebellion of 1857...Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz being her inspiration, surprisingly...and The Jewel in the Crown came along shortly after...which also had a massive script.

I guess working up storyboards has me dreaming about movies, again. Same for watching Sense8 and seeing massive holes in the script being covered by fast pacing and quick editing. That really fucking irritates me. I'm sticking it out to the end, but only because I want to see what happens to Max Riemelt's Wolfgang...

And because I know I could write better than that...

Whiplash...again...

Well...I worked half the day on building the best replacement for my discarded frame, and it was looking nice. I finally honed in on Adam heading for the gate to Merryton College, hemmed in by gray walls with there being brightness and colors beyond, and blue skies, and the chapel that his office is in with its stained glass windows...and OMG it was so...so...boring.

I'm a visual person. I used to do storyboards and even my crappiest straight pen to paper ones were more exciting than this thing. It's like the difference between a huge, star-studded Hollywood EPIC weighted down by its grandiosity as opposed to a nice, neat movie about a guy who goes through a life-changing event...think Ben-Hur instead of Marty.

And yes, I know -- it's rather grandiose of me to use that comparison, but that's how it feels. And gots lots of feels, right now. Because I can see where I'm limiting the project. It's going to take too long for me to work up 80 colored frames, so I'll just do 20 or so. And the colors have to be just right. And Adam has to have a consistent look and I want to jam as much into each frame as I can...and if the reading goes for 10 minutes, that's providing 2 whole frames a minute.

Why would anyone want to watch and listen to that? I couldn't watch the whole reading done by those idiots in Toronto because it was focused on one man (who had difficulty speaking the words, sometimes). What I was planning to offer wasn't much better. Well, the reading, itself, would be...

ANYway...I'm rethinking my strategy. Thinking maybe I should storyboard it like I do a film. Put in motion and lots of cuts and all that movie stuff. Give it life, even if it's just in pen & ink...or pencil. Break free from my chains of grandiosity.

So...just how obnoxious do I sound, now?

Recharging batteries...

Took the night off. Bought myself some new bandanas. Tried to have fish and chips at Wegman's but didn't; I really used to like theirs but they've changed how they work them and it's just not right, so went for BBQ, instead. Then came home, made tea and watched two more episodes of Sense8 as I ate a banana.

The storyteller in me gets irritated at the casual attitude to consistency and reality, even in the universe they're building. And I've always been dismissive of how much damage people seem to take in a fight and still keep fighting. That gets ludicrous more than once in this program, especially when there's a huge gunfight and no cops show up to stop it or arrest anybody. Breaks my suspension of disbelief.

BUT...I am finally buying into most of the characters. Brian J. Smith is beginning to find some depth in Wil Gorsky that isn't just in the script. I must be getting used to Jamie Clayton's dead voice because she's not as grating, but she cannot act except at one level. I'm not sure why they changed actors for Capheus, though I get the impression the first one might not have been willing to go as far as they wanted in the orgy scenes...and those do happen, now and then.

I'm still locked in on Max Riemelt as Wolfgang, and he is running circles around them all in the acting and charisma departments. The next-closest is Doona Bae as Sun Bak, the Korean woman who sacrifices herself to save her father's company only to be betrayed by her brother. She brings a lot of depth to her impassive expressions.

I've got 9 more episodes to go and maybe a finale...not sure about that. The last episode is 2.5 hours long so that might be it. But watching this has broken my self-flagellation cycle over the wasted artwork. I can see what I need to do, now, to continue the emotional connection of the frames and will get on it, tomorrow. In fact, I'm looking forward to working up the sketch and coloring it in.

Though I am almost wishing I'd found out about Max and used his face for Adam...but then, who'd believe him as a nerdy cataloguer? It'd be like when Audrey Hepburn pretended to be a Cockney guttersnipe in My Fair Lady and you just knew she was only biding her time until she could be the lady, again.

But then...Max might have the chops to pull it off.

MFSOB...

I am so fucking pissed at myself. I spent days trying to get this one frame of A65's right...coloring it, adding details, adjusting, erasing, shadowing, deepening to the point of overdoing it, staring at it trying to understand what was wrong...and it stayed wrong. It was all fucking wrong. It's not the layout of the image and what I've done with it that's wrong...it's the feel of it. It's like I'm putting distance between Adam and the reader.

My initial sketch for this bit focused more on Adam, but cut back and forth between him in another cityscape and him seeing the college and that wasn't right, either. Then I found the perfect look for Merryton College and went all squirrel and lost sight of how he's the center of the story. The whole book is from his POV and I wanted to keep that sense, even in these minimal sketches.

I checked through and everywhere else I did keep his POV, fortunately, so it was just this frame flipping me off. Now I need to come up with a better layout for it after wasting so damn much time on it. One that will add to the moment instead of simply reflect it.

I do like the castle I used as the model for Merryton. I may keep the gate. But my idea, now, is to have Adam approaching and show where he's going from over his right shoulder. Include the entrance to the chapel...maybe just beyond the gate. Add some buildings and students or something...if there's room. I dunno.

But there goes my Saturday.