Gabrielle speaks...

To my surprise, digging deeper into Léon's feelings as he sets off to find his sister and try to broker a trade for Dmitriy, Gabrielle has also opened up to me. Mainly because she was angry...something she rarely allows herself to be.

She got to Korea too late. The young naval office she wanted had already been killed in a skirmish with the Korean army. Her plan was thwarted so she made the Korean garrison pay, dearly.

When Léon locates her, he finds her almost melancholy. Upset with herself for giving way to anger. The last time she'd felt such fury was in the 12th Century, when her husband pledged their wealth and two-hundred serfs to the fourth crusade.

He was a baron, so she could do nothing to stop him. Instead, she made his steward a vampire, and while he was off to assist in the great campaign, they absconded with the remains of his treasury. He's still one of her retinue...Berenger.

"I will cut him loose, when I return," she told me. "He warned the Oyim of my plan."

"Did they need warning?" I asked. "They always seem to know what is happening as it happens."

"Not with me. And I will have no traitor in my midst."

"You would foist him on me, instead."

She shrugged. "He despises Dmitriy's proclivities. Being one of your retinue would be a most delicious punishment."

She also shows him sketches she made of the officer and talks of why she was dismissed from assisting in the making of the Bayeux Tapestry.

"My manner of sewing was different from the others. And our sister made great sport of me for it, calling me self-indulgent. Which I have no issue with. I see it as making my mark. Leaving a trail of what I have done, as with these sketches I made of him. He was very handsome. He would have made me a wonderful mate."

And this leads into her agreeing to take Franz...on the rebound, as it were.

Slash and burn...

I'm going through BA-4 cutting chit-chat over nothing. I had a long bit where Léon and Gregory discuss how to make their business better by using rail to Calais instead of Marseilles...and it added nothing to story except a vague bit of history.

Seems Marseilles was a hotbed of Republican fervor who were anti-Prussia and also anti-Napolean III. Nice to know, but so what? There went more than 500 words.

I'm up to the point where Léon is heading for Korea, via the Suez route. Gabrielle is en route there. to waylay a young American naval officer, who has the same blood as them. If that happens, any deal with her about Franz is off the table. Meaning Léon will not be able to trade for Dmitriy, whom he very much wants as his mate.

But even though the Oyim have forbidden any vampire to turn one of their victims without their permission, she intends to do whatever she damn well wants and dares them to punish her. She knows if she turns that officer into a fellow Blood Angel, the Oyim can do nothing to control her.

Overall, I'm trying to pump up the drive of the story, instead of letting it meander about in the fields of history. And also make sure my timeline is correct with historical facts. Can't be too ignorant of reality.

Unless I mean to...

Remembrances past...

I was chatting online with someone who had purchased a fine copy of Tom of Finland's work, published by Taschen, and it was nice conversation. Discussing what Tom's drawings  meant in the history of the LGBTQ+ community. Other gay artists we appreciated...and writers.

He had a huge influence on the look of gay men in the 70s and 80s. There's a foundation dedicated to his work in LA, in Echo Park, that has a lot of his materials on display.

Turns out the person was based in Germany, which where Taschen is headquartered. They've done a number of lovely books, but you cannot rely on them for accurate information. I bought three of their books on film...Noir, Horror, and 100 Great Films...and I've found occasionally the descriptions are just plain wrong.

Turns out they've just reprinted reviews written back when the films either came out or were in retrospectives, pre-1980, for the most part. So some of the writers were relying on memory, which is not reliable. But still...the mistakes could have been corrected.

For example, in Jörn Hetebrügge's discussion of Francois Truffaut's Les Quatre Cents Coups he claims Antoine's father catches him stealing a typewriter then it's actually the night guard who catches him as he's returning the typewriter he and a friend had stolen. Not because they felt guilty but because they couldn't sell it. 

A small point, but still raises questions about the accuracy of everything they publish.

BA-4 is working in my head, again. And Gabrielle came up with a comment I find quite awkward and yet honest. If Léonidès hadn't been gay, he'd have made a perfect mate for her. Never mind them being brother and sister. 

"We're Blood Angels," she tells him. "That's immaterial. We're all related to an extent."

His response is, "I'm glad to be who I am." And means it.

Horror of horrors...

I've lost half of my documents for Blood Angel. They're gone. Completely. I've dug through my USB memory sticks and an external hard drive...and the folders are there but nothing is in them. Not a goddamned thing. Two dozen completely empty folders.

The only fortunate part of this is...what's lost is mainly images and documents from the early phase of the story, dealing with volumes one and two. It was from just before I started keeping everything on those memory sticks to have easy access to them, since traveling on a plane made it impossible to pull documents down from the Cloud. Well...unless you're willing to buy second-rate WiFi on the flight. Which I am not.

Prior to that, I had saved everything I could onto my big, bad plug-in hard drive. But every BA folder dated prior to June 2023 is just plain empty. The only thing I can think of is the documents didn't get pulled down from the Cloud when I shifted them over. And trying to find them on the Cloud is proving to be impossible.

I HATE this new setup. I prefer to have my files kept on my laptop's hard drive. Period. But Apple didn't give me that choice and now I'm fucked over by it.

At least I had printed out the important ones and put them in a ring binder, so they aren't a complete loss. And everything I've done since volume three is on a dedicated thumb drive, so I don't have to worry about that. I also double-saved it, as well, on the external...and verified the documents are in the files.

But shit...I fucking hate the techies who thought this shit was a good idea.

Here we go again...

I don't like the direction BA-4 is taking. It's bland and nice and has a little sex in it but is close to boring. Things happen in good order yet are almost predictable. Which I do not want.

I'm halfway through the redo and think I may chuck the rest of it. Léon's angry with how Gabrielle treated him in their meeting, so he's telling me he wants to watch her turn Franz into her mate.

I can't decide if Gabrielle would accept that requirement...or if she'd refuse. Or if he doesn't bother telling her and just cloaks himself, hangs outside her window, and does the peeping tom route. Which would actually be fun to write. Throw in a curious cop and the snottiness of Gabrielle's retinue...

It would also set up what happens in BA-6, which takes place in New Orleans, post-Katrina. Gabrielle finds her one true mate in Tristan, a damaged lad who plays horn in his father's joint. At one point she's convinced him to join with her...but before she can seal the deal by turning him, they're interrupted. And now he's wary of her.

BA-6 is in screenplay format so already written. BA-5 is story format, plotted out and taking place in the early years of WW2, in Poland with Russians as the bad guys. BA-7 is modern day and filled with danger and betrayals, but only plotted, not written.

So I may need to start from the beginning and rework all of BA-4 to suit that. What I don't like is the amount of work it will take. Well...not so much the work as the time and focus.

Today, I was also dealing with tax prep, and have that 95% set. And no jobs till the second week of April. So we'll see if I can use my time more wisely than usual.

Work required...

Whipping BA-4 into decent shape is proving to require more work than I expected. I had the full section written in first draft and it's pretty straight-forward in the telling of the tale...but I keep finding inconsistencies and spots that need changing to match up with the preceding section...and cut more paragraphs.

I did a fair amount on the flights home, which were on time...albeit packed solid. I always get an aisle seat unless the flight is under 90 minutes; that's so I don't have to bother people when I need to go to the toilet. But it's tight. SW now charges extra for the emergency row seats, which provide more space. I used to pay for Business Select so I could snag one of them. No more.

Upon landing I was feeling good so got my car, decided to get a DPZ and grab a salad at Panera's. I stopped at a convenience store for the soda...and as I got out of the car somehow my cargo pants leg got caught on some part of its door and tripped me. Fell flat. Not really hurt, but my pants ripped open at the leg pocket.

That kicked me off center. But still got my DPZ and kept to the plan. I got to Panera and ordered the Fuji Apple Salad, but with turkey instead of chicken...and they were out of the apple chips that go with it. I was almost put off but went ahead with the order, and it still tasted all right, but not quite the same.

By this point I was in a foul mood. Like the universe was telling me something. I'd planned to stop at a grocery store for some things but decided I'd better just go home. 

I did that because I was veering into my self-flagellating mode...and fighting to remind myself that I wasn't a complete failure. That I'd done right by certain people. Like Kelly. I'd given him money to keep him off the street for eleven years. Over ninety-thousand dollars, total. Took me to the point of bankruptcy.

My sister also pitched in. I have no idea how much it cost her, but it wasn't that much less. She bought him a second-hand RV to live in and paid for his dental and cataract surgery. I focused on rent for his RV lot and running money. Just $700-750 a month. It wasn't till he got early Social Security that he was able to get state aid for a real apartment, and that was thanks to a nephew.

She and I did right by him, including paying for his cremation and interment...but I still had to scream that at myself to beat back this growling sense of not having done enough...all because I fell and tore my fucking pants.

Maybe I need therapy.

Life is changes...

Dear God, I peopled out, today. The memorial at 10am, lunch at Schilo's and dinner at Rudy's after sitting around and watching a series on Prime that used a sort of AI rotoscope to make the actors graphic-drawn characters. I'm now in my hotel room finally relaxing.

I did some of the same, yesterday, after my flight landed. Sister picked me up and we had dinner at my nephew's, where I got my first mosquito bite in years. Dammit.

(BTW, this image is from TwinSauce, twins who do great clips of dances; I just don't know if it's Paul or Mark.)

Don't get me wrong, I love my family. But I'm happier off by myself. Which is half the reason I like living in Buffalo. No one to bug me, up there.

Tomorrow is back to home. Hopefully. TSA was fine going into Buffalo's airport and might not be bad going into San Antonio's...but I'm changing planes in Nashville. Never done that before. Fortunately, ICE is not prancing around, there.

Shit, I wish I had money enough to leave this country. Live in Canada, Ireland or the UK. I've even thought about Norway, but I don't know the language, at all, so even though I can show lineage back to 1656, I don't think that will get me in. And my SSI isn't enough to pay my way.

I've got a fair amount of work to do to fit BA-Long Journey into what BA-Revelation set up. It's mostly continuing the story as if Leon had turned Franz and found him to be uncontrollably evil. No longer the case.

I've cut about 600 words, so far...which is making it better. It will be around 18,000 words, which is in line with the other parts.

I'll need to start considering a cover image, soon. Maybe after this pass and before I start the next edit. Going through BA-Revelation, I found a couple of typos. Not good...but not surprising.

At least I did my duty.

In San Antonio...

On the plane down, I read some of Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy and he said something in it that struck me, hard. “I have seen too much to believe too much.” It speaks to me in ways I haven’t felt since I read Voltaire’s Candide, many, many...many years ago. 

The more you see of people’s actions, the less you believe anything they claim or say. The more you think no one can be fully trusted, no matter how decent and moral they seem, because you’ve seen how their own history puts their claims to lie. 

The Catholic Church lied about its priests molesting children for decades, all around the world. They'd move the offenders from one parish to another without warning, yet they still try to lecture others on what is moral and correct. And too many people go along with it, attacking the church’s victims. 

 That monster in the White House is practicing genocide against the Cuban population with its embargo, just like Stalin did to Ukraine in the Holodomor, a hundred years ago. No oil allowed into the island for months, killing the energy infrastructure so hospitals cannot function and food is spoiled. People will die of disease and starvation, and no one cares. Same for Iran. It's obscene.

People are being told not to trust vaccines that have saved untold numbers of lives over the centuries because some nut job says they should, just like people were convinced by the church that cats were in league with the devil, seven or eight centuries ago. So they killed them or ran them off...and were overrun with rats carrying fleas that passed along the bubonic plague. Which wiped out up to half of Europe’s population. 

It goes on and on and the more I learn about history the more I see us committing the same stupid mistakes, over and over and over. We don’t learn. We don’t try to be better. We only look for new and improved ways of committing the same attrocities as our forbears. And we’re so fucking good at it, we think we’re advancing instead of just coughing up more and more death and destruction. 

I think I’m turning into a curmudgeon...if I wasn’t one, already. What keeps me from losing total faith is my characters and stories. I try my best to do right by them, and sometimes I manage...sometimes. 

I just read Blood Angel 3 - Revelation and like how it turned out, so now plan to work on the next part in the series, sub-titled A Long Journey. Where Léonidès goes looking for Gabrielle in hopes of trading Franz for Dmitriy. He goes to England then Korea through the Suez Canal and via Hong Kong and China...and finds she is as much of a bitch towards him as ever. 

...Sisters...

More travel...

Off to San Antonio, in the morning. Getting up at 7am (ugh!) to be at the airport by 8am in case TSA is going to be a problem...since my flight's not till 9:35. But I'll have a book to read and my laptop.

Three hour layover in Baltimore then a nearly 4-hour flight to SA. Getting in about 5pm, central time. The return trip is about the same, just changing planes in Nashville, instead. I'll be nice and cranky.

There may also be a trip down to Washington DC in July, but as of now that's the only other trip on the horizon. Which makes me happy. I used to love to travel, but it's become such a chore...as well as so damned expensive...I'd sooner stay home.

Being done with Taking Nicky brought on my usual vague depression at the completion of a project. Since I'll be too busy to worry about starting anything new till I'm back from SA, Tuesday night...maybe not even through the whole week...I'm hoping to just skate past it.

I'm so tired of how things are in Washington and around the world. Seeing the monsters on the loose, everywhere, and knowing how many jackals exist to support them. It cuts deep. Hard. 

As I was inputting this, Henry Fonda's speech at the end of The Grapes of Wrath was playing on my phone. I'd scrolled to another video clip and when that one was done, this followed. From 1940...and not a damned thing has changed.

He was robbed at the Oscars...even Jimmy Stewart said so.

Meta confusion...

Yesterday's post on Blogger was hidden behind a warning wall and I have no idea why. They claim I violated the community standards, but won't tell me in what way. There is nothing sexual about it. No nudity. I don't threaten anyone or call for violence in any way. I mention my fear Felon47 will live to be a hundred, but that's it.

I thought it might be due to the image I initially used was of a shirtless man in jeans, seated and holding a beer can...and for some idiotic reason the algorithm thought he was holding his dick. But replacing it with two men kissing didn't change a thing...so I just made it a shirtless working man.

I am so fucking sick of this nonsense, where you get spat upon with by technology with no recourse except to take it or leave in a huff. Supposedly, I can ask for an appeal, but there's no place on the site to do so and the email is one of those no-reply ones.

And it's not just on Blogger this is happening. I like to stream Metropolis, a music program on KCRW. because it comes on at 10pm, in LA, Saturdays. But they've updated their website and it is now extremely difficult to find the latest show. 

The backlist is completely out of order, by date...and some don't even have a date overtly posted. You have to go into the file to see when it aired.

I've sent emails asking about it and complaining, and I don't even get a response. And that's with me being a monthly donor.

I'm like the black cat seeing all the tricks being pulled by the orange one and wondering WTF? Maybe the world has moved on to some other plane of existence from mine and I just haven't caught on, yet.

FWIW, Taking Nicky is all uploaded and as of tomorrow will be completely available.