No writing talk...

I'm trying to figure out a plan for the coming year, and not doing too well. I don't want to keep doing what I've been doing...writing in fits and starts while sitting around at home fucking around on the internet...but I'm sort of caught in this stasis where I just can't decide what to do or, if I do think I've decided, get myself to do it. I'm about as weird as it can get, sometimes.

It's become a chore for me to leave the apartment unless I have to, like for a job or doctor's appointment or to get my car looked at, even though I barely drive it now. I even have to talk myself into grocery shopping. Okay, I'm out of DDP and low on milk...so I have to hit the store. Dammit. I guess I should get some food to fix, too...

Can one develop agoraphobia out of habit? I've always been prone to anti-social behavior, which was excused as me being shy...but in focusing on trying to get past it I've found myself locking down when I go too far. And I'm remembering times in the past when I've flat out frozen in place when faced with something I wasn't prepped for.

Like this one occasion when I was in Grad School at UT-Austin...40 years ago. I was taking classes with Edward Dmytryk. He'd directed a host of Hollywood films and was one of the Hollywood 10 who were jailed by HUAC for not naming names. He was taking us through the process of directing a film...a short one, with him at the helm...and I was art director. I got everything together that he wanted and was all set, but one of the characters in the film needed to have tattoos. And since I was the artist of the group, it was up to me to do.

I was all set. Had the designs prepped. I did one tattoo on a female actor's shoulder, another on a guy's bicep. But this one male actor pulled his pants leg up for me to do one on his calf...and I froze. BAM. Couldn't do it. At all. And I have no idea why. Another crew member had to.

There have been other occasions when this has happened, and I cannot find a consistency to them. But they do seem to be more frequent now. Sometimes I can't even get myself to go for a simple walk without a long battle within myself. It's like I get writer's block in my own life.

So I'd like for that to end, in 2022. How? I have no idea, short of getting psychiatric help or a lobotomy. But even that's not promising. I'm just an old man caught in his habits and uncertainty...and sometimes that messes with my writing.

Hard to stop what you know is happening when you don't know why.

Introducing Zeke...

Building Zeke for the story after Carli kills Grady...this is Chapter 5 AKA: "Word Spreads Like Buttah"

Cantina Madriza opened for business at 6pm. The first hour was usually fairy quiet, so Rhonda would make sure all the tables and booths were clean and the pool equipment in place while Zeke checked stock and went online to put in orders for whatever was getting low. Big, bad, boss Dax was insistent about maintaining a certain level of stock, especially in beer. Hell, they had almost enough for a brewery, even though the only place they had to store it was in a cave directly under the bar. Of course, that was accessible by a trap door and a very steep ladder...unless one chose to take a half-mile trek to a very narrow passageway that led from the cave to between the rocks. While climbing with one leg wasn't exactly his strong suit, neither was walking long distances, so as much of a pain as it was, Zeke always used the ladder.

When he first started working there, he'd asked about putting a cooler behind the bar, but Dax wasn't in the mood.

"Damn joint barely breaks even," he'd snarled, "an' I'm gonna add cost to it? Fuck that."

Zeke had just shaken his head and backed off. It was Dax's joint, and he was living rent-free in the trailer, so complaints were not on the table. He just kept shifting the beer and wine down into the cave and used shelves under and behind the bar to hold plenty of the hard stuff. An apartment refrigerator behind the cash register held the mixers, and a small ice maker sat atop it. Fortunately, ice was not much in demand since the brews were the big draw, and it would be sacrilege to ruin even crap beer with ice. A microwave was at the other end of the bar.

The one truly modern aspect of the Cantina was...it had kick-ass WiFi thanks to a satellite dish, so when it was a dead night or he couldn't sleep, Zeke could fire up video games on his cell phone. His desktop was also connected to it, giving him access to all sorts of streaming stations. Heaving crates of beer up and down the ladder was a small price to pay for that. Dax also let kids from an Apache community down the road come in to use it for their homework. Oren, the guy who did the Monday-Tuesday cleaning, would let them in those days; Zeke did the rest of the week. Tables in the left extension were set up specifically for them. But they had to be done by seven, because that was when things would really pick up, and you didn't want kids around that.

Zeke actually enjoyed seeing them working at their tables. They ranged in age from six and sixteen, murmuring encouragement to each other, tossing suggestions about and tacking along on their laptops till suddenly they would notice the Cantina's witching hour was close at hand and have to scurry to get done and out the door. Where their parents waited, unwilling to even chance mingling with the bikers or college kids...and usually too poor to get caught up in the love of whiskey that so many had fallen prey to. All money was needed elsewhere.

He totally understood how that went.

Now, it wasn't like Zeke was born poor. That he knew of. It's just that he had been adopted by the Reverend and Mrs. Lindstrom in Chapel Hill, Minnesota when he was five months old, so had no idea who his mother or father were, or what his family line was. They had always refused to discuss it. All he knew for sure? The Lindstroms were both very blond and Nordic in their looks while he had skin that tanned even in the most overcast of winter days, thick brown hair that loved to go wild in humidity, and eyes that fluctuated between brown and hazel, depending on wardrobe and emotional state. He also knew they were of Swedish lineage, thanks to Mrs. Lindstrom's having a slight lilt to her voice.

Zeke had asked about it, at the age of seven, and in a rare moment of sharing, she had told him, "I was born in Stockholm but the mister was born in St. Paul. It was his parents born in Upsala, both."

"So where was I born?" he'd asked.

"Close here," was all she said.

Of course, he had known from an earlier age that he wasn't their biological child, but it didn't matter. By the age of eight he had decided that the Lindstroms being his legal parents made him a Viking.

Well...they had not liked that attitude and had tried for years to crush it. Vikings were heathens and vicious beasts and thieves who ransacked monasteries and poor little villages and on and on. Not only had their lectures not worked, they had made Zeke even more certain he was one of them. Finally, after the umpteenth lecture on the evil of the Vikings, he had responded with, "I gotta be something, and you won't tell me who I am so I'm them."

That had brought him a night without supper and a week of holy silence from them both, then the lectures turned to how he was an ungrateful child. How he'd been brought away from an orphanage (which one they never would say), and how they given him a warm home, food, clothing and a chance at a good life.

The thought that hit his brain was, they were actually trying to buy their way into heaven by taking care of him. Fortunately, by that point he was smart enough to keep the thought to himself.

He also understood the Lindstroms had brought him into a finer existence than he would have had, elsewhere. Granted, they were strict Lutherans well into their thirties who had been childless, and in truth they had treated him well-enough. So in response, Zeke had given them little to be angry about...aside from the Viking thing. He'd done well in school. Played on the football, basketball and baseball teams as well as ice hockey. Treated them with respect. Helped around the house. Had friends they actually approved of. Even dated girls they liked. Attended Sunday services at Mr. Lindstrom's church.

But never were they mom and dad; always Mister and Missus Lindstrom. Like they were his babysitters. The leash they kept him on was tight and the emotional support minimal. Never one word of praise or affection from them. At times he felt more like a pet dog than a child.

None of his friends were close enough to really talk to, about this, nor were any of the girls he was interested in. They all seemed to be part of some high school play he'd been cast in and liked to be done as soon as the curtain fell at the end of a game or class or date. No chat, please; we're non-Vikings. Still, a couple of them did remark that it looked as if he was being trained as some perfect manifestation of a human being. Like a robot. And it struck them as weird. Because even they could see the cold austerity of his existence, both physical and emotional, was absolute. This had built in him a cool sense of worthlessness that finally exploded when he was sixteen.

He had never been given much spending money. And he wasn't allowed to work after school, but instead had to focus on his studies when not at practice...or church. But being an observant young man, he realized one way of making money without appearing to hold a job was by having...shall we say, recreational drugs available for purchase. Pot, mainly, then some Ex and, later, GHB. He worked out, a senior linebacker was the main connection for most of the kids who were into that sort of fun. So Zeke saw to it they became buddies, which the Lindstroms approved of even though he was Catholic; after all, he was on the football team. That excused a great many sins. So when the guy graduated and went on to Notre Dame, Zeke took over his clients.

Then in his first outward sign of rebellion, he'd used his initial profits to pay for a lovely tattoo of a Viking face and helmet on his left calf. Knowing Mr. and Mrs. Lindstron had long insisted tattoos were signs of the devil, he'd worn nothing but long pants and jeans for months after.

Well, eventually Mrs. Lindstrom did catch a glimpse of it, and informed Mr. Lindstrom, and he'd demanded Zeke remove it.

Which was met with a blank refusal. Zeke had just turned eighteen and was under no legal obligation to do what the man said.

Things had deteriorated rapidly, from there. In fact, he was fairly certain Mr. Lindstrom had worked out he was selling drugs, and had narc'd on him. The cops convinced another sort-of-friend to buy some pot from him, and he was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. Fortunately, the judge had given him the option to join the marines, to get out of it...and he had.

He had neither seen nor spoken with the Lindstroms, since. And he was not sorry.

But now that ink was gone, along with his lower leg. He'd been riding in a Hummer in Helmand Province when he was hit. Two other grunts had died, and they damn near lost him, twice before they got him to the medical unit. Then came waking to find he was no longer whole, after which was months and months of painful physical therapy.

Every moment of it scarred into his psyche.

If the Lindstroms had been informed of this, he never heard anything from them about it. But he was sure they would have felt more than a bit of self-satisfaction at how their claim the tattoo was the mark of Satan had been proven true.

Sometimes threats work

By declaring I'd start drinking if I didn't have a breakthrough in this mental roadblock for CK, Carli and Zeke agreed to stop pissing around and I got some writing done. Part of what helped was me returning to page one and going through the stuff I'd written, already. I'm up to page 60...and Carli's fucking nuts.

Which I mean in a good way, unless you've done her wrong.

The opening is till pretty much the same, with her killing Stasi, but her seduction of Grady got a lot more intense and, dare I think it...fun. Until he's drugged and staked out in the desert, waking up as Carli finishes cutting his jeans off. Then she discusses circumcision as noted in the Bible, since Grady's not cut, before masturbating him. Finally, after he's cum, she shows him the video of Lara's rape...then circumcises him. And all that will be in the first 40-45 pages of the book.

Needless to say, this will not be a children's story or wind up in libraries.

But I sort of think that was the problem I was having with it. Carli wants to bust loose, and I'm scared of that. Same goes for Zeke. He's not a rapist, he's a decent guy, but he's also part of Dax's gang and helps in the drug-dealing. Not overtly or directly, but by remaining silent and hiding the money for Dax. So he's not a complete innocent. But he is the most vulnerable person in the story.

The first time he and Carli officially meet, it's after 2am, he's sitting on the porch of his trailer playing his guitar, wearing only his shirt and undies. He took his jeans off to remove his bionic leg. His dog, Loki, is there and he has an M-16 available for protection, but if he needed to run, he couldn't.

Then Carli comes up, and there's a strong suggestion she's thinking of doing to him what she did to Grady. Because she thinks he was there when the rape happened. But Loki won't let her near him, so she has to make up a story about being a student at the college and having PTSD...and back away...for now.

Not sure how they'll wind up in love, yet. Might be just as crazy as the rest of it.

Time for desperate measures?

I'm still locked in place on Carli's Kills, so if something doesn't break through, tomorrow, I'm heading across the street and getting a shot of bourbon or cognac. See if that helps. My own little version of a reboot, I guess. Except I rarely do it. I don't drink that much. A beer with dinner, sometimes. Occasional wine. But 99% of the time it's DDP or hot tea. I'm very low-key on that.

Part of the reason is, I once got so drunk I blacked out. It was in college, and I was working nights at a restaurant on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. After a rough evening, one of the waiters and I decided to see who could drink whom under the table. After 6 or 7 or 10 straight shots of vodka for me, with him doing scotch, we called it a draw.

I was closing, so I made sure everything looked great for the next day. Let out the dishwasher. Locked the door and made it to the ladies room before I hurled. I don't remember a thing after that until I woke up in my own bed, undressed, the next morning. Worst hangover ever. Probably alcohol poisoning. 

But if that wasn't bad enough, my car was parked in its spot by the front door. Very neatly parked. I had driven home like that. I could have killed somebody or myself. Freaked the holy hell out of me, so I cut it. Haven't touched vodka, since.

The closest I came to repeating it was when I was having trouble with a script, Find Ray T, many years ago. So I bought a six-pack of Corona...went through it in a weekend, so got another...and wrote the first draft of that script in 8 days. Buzzed the entire time, but not ever quite drunk. Fastest I've ever done it. And the structure of the script has stayed the same, ever since.

So maybe I need to do something similar with CK, because I am out of patience with this writer's block crap.

It's Christmas...woohoo...

 I am not in a festival mood...but maybe this will change things.

Okay, Santa Baby, let's get this show on the road, already!

Chaos extended...

Nothing done. Wheels spinning in the mud. Going nowhere. Finally gave in and watched Gosford Park, for the umpteenth time. It's one of my go-to movies. I also bought the new 007 and need to pick it up at B&N, tomorrow, preferably by noon since it's Christmas Eve and the whole damn city's going to be nuts.

GP's Synopsis, via IMDb.com:

Set in the 1930s, the story takes place in an old-fashioned English country house where a weekend shooting party is underway. The story centers on the McCordle family, particularly the man of the house, Sir William McCordle (Sir Michael Gambon). Getting on in years, William has become a benefactor to many of his relatives and friends. As the weekend goes on, secrets are revealed, and it seems that everyone, above stairs and below, wants a piece of William and his money, but how far will they go to get it?

This is one of my comfort movies, like The Big Sleep and Shakespeare in Love and Topsy-Turvy. A story I can come back to over and over and still enjoy. Robert Altman was robbed at the Oscars, that year...giving it to Ron Howard! Fucking OPIE! A journeyman director. Gag. I stopped paying attention to the awards or critics choices or even screenwriting classes, after that.

But that's the problem with awards; they rarely go to the one who deserves it. For example, I actually got angry when Sidney Pollack was given the directing Oscar for Out of Africa instead of Akira Kurosawa for Ran.

I also indulged myself in too much DDP, tortilla chips and Fritos bean dip as I watched. Not at all good this late, but it all made me feel a lot better. I'm not sure why I'm in this period of stasis except it has something to do with how Carli's Kills keeps blowing up on me, no matter what I do, and I want to be done with it.

Drives me nuts when this happens.

Quiet time of chaos...

I've had nothing to say the last few days so no posts. I did a quickie trip to Belvedere, IL about 60 miles west of Chicago to pick up some books, so didn't even take my laptop with me. I had my phone for internet stuff and a book to read for A Place of Safety. Flew into O'Hare on a dinky American jet, Monday morning...and out Tuesday morning on an even dinkier one. Both of which put a strain on me from having to sit in a cramped situation.

The drive to Belvedere was easy and minimal traffic. I got there on time, picked up 4 lovely antiquarian books, and left. Stopped at a toll road rest area to have an excellent Subway sandwich -- turkey club on white -- then on the way back passed what looked like a private ambulance engulfed in flames on the 90 West. So hot, even though I was in the middle right lane heading east, I could feel the heat. Fire trucks and cops were still en route to deal with it.

I continued on to a UHaul to buy boxes and got bubble wrap, went to my hotel and packed the books in as solid as I could. Then off to drop at Southwest Air Cargo...which was a chore and a half. Turned out, there was no signage to tell you where they are. I went to four different offices in this one building, asking, always being told it's across the building, before finally noticing a sheet of paper on an intake desk window that said they were around the corner; if I hadn't found it, then, I was going to drive 25 miles to Midway, where I knew its location.

Fortunately, I wasn't rushed to get the shipment to them...because I'd have missed any flight it was going out on, that night. At least I did get a dinner at Panda Express. I love their Beijing Beef and Spring Rolls with sweet & sour sauce. Then some hot chocolate from Dunkin Donuts settled me down.

The tightness of the return trip to Buffalo, and no drink service thanks to light turbulence so I started getting dehydrated, initiated a tension headache in me that did not go away before I hit the bed 14 hours later. Early. I used to enjoy traveling, especially air travel. Now? It's just plain hideous. I'd rather drive or take the train.

Anyway, today was a meander through the paperwork for the job and catching up on other crap, so no writing done. I'll dig back into Carli's Kills, tomorrow, now that I know what the ending is. Again. At least, until Carli or Zeke get pissy about it...again...

But I did get more of This Man's Wee Boy read, on this trip, and something that's striking me about it is the casual attitude people seem to have in the story about the riots and people dying during the first days of The Troubles. A child gets run over by an Army vehicle and killed, and there's more talk about the events sending people to the madhouse than the loss of a little boy. Like it's just another day in the life. 

It's rather disconcerting.

Well, time to build a bridge...

What's funny is, it will be to an ending I wrote but no longer fits with the narrative. I'm closing in on 66,000 words and am at at the point where all hell is due to break loose...and I know I'll get close to 70K before I'm done. 

Maybe.

I'm not really happy with the direction it's taken. Suddenly, everything's gone in bizarre directions and I'm not sure what it all means...or how it will wind up. What used to be a clear, simple, straightforward screenplay is suddenly chaotic in the extreme.

And yet, it's not. It's unfolding in a logical way that just veers close to chaos and is forcing me to come up with moments to fit the scenario it's building. I've now got a bomb going off. A female sheriff about to make a major pass at Zeke. A proposition. The Arizona State's Attorney General involved. The FBI. A dangerous ex-con. The Arizona legislature. A drone being chased by hawks that think it might be dinner. Tire tracks in arroyos.

It's like I'm on the edge of letting the story go wild but still holding back in hopes of it making sense. I guess all I can do, right now, is finish this draft and then see what the fuck it is I just wrote. There ain't no tellin', no more.

But whine as I might, I am sort of enjoying the sense of anarchy about it...even if it is taking so damn long to write.

Not gonna make my deadline.

A packing and shipping job popped up, out of nowhere, and I'm flying to Chicago, Monday morning. Back Tuesday evening. So it looks like my original plan for finishing a first draft of CK by Christmas is back on, instead of getting finished by the 20th. Of course, what's positive is...I can read on the plane, each way. So in reality, I'm swapping days.

Today I worked through 3 chapters, at least, but I'm not happy with the last one I did. It's where Zeke and Carli finally connect in bed...and it doesn't flow. Feels forced. I'm not crazy about Carli's interrogation of Chase, one of Dax's drug dealers, either. So I may need to go back over those.

I know this is just a first draft, but if something's bothering me in the story, as I write, it stops me and I have to make it okay, again. I can't just plow ahead. I'm afraid it will wind up sending me in the wrong direction.

I read a great obituary, today, about Reny Mandel Corren written by her gay son, and it was completely irreverent about her, her life, her children, everything...because that was how she was. Six kids, three husbands, an affair with Larry King, no bullshit, dying in El Paso...it was lovely and kicked me in the butt to make Carli just as wild a character as she.

Which will have to be layered in through other drafts, I guess, because this bitch is still aiming to be tragic, and not in a Rocky Horror Picture Show kind of way. Though that might help.

Still on track, dammit...

I had to spend part of the day working up a schematic for a possible job, which kept shifting on me, so didn't get started writing till late. But I managed to get through a couple of chapters of CK and feel I'm still within my scheduled timeframe. I'm at the point where Carli's going to learn Zeke was not part of the rape, but other issues come up and cause her even more confusion.

She's borderline nuts. Beginning to see herself as the fallen angel of death. That would be somewhat psychotic, wouldn't it? Shall I start calling her inner voice son of Samael? Hmm...doesn't really work, for me.

She and I did have a bit of a discussion about one of her peccadillos...that of slicing tattoos off her male victims. I wanted to drop that part but she kicked and screamed and said I was being misogynistic.

"Women can be butchers, too, you know!"

Reminded me of Ilsa Koch, the Bitch of Buchenwald Concentration Camp, who was rumored to have Jewish men with interesting tattoos killed, skinned and incinerated, then their tattoos were made into lamp shades or the covers of books. Ed Gein also supposedly did this with skin from cadavers. I guess if you're going to be a crazy bitch, do it up right.

I have no earthly idea how this book is going to end, now. I've got three possibles. Zeke dies. Carli dies. Or neither of them dies. And each one would work within the story as currently constructed. So...we'll see what happens when I get there.

But I'm feeling very anarchic with this, right now.

How dark can you go and still be light?

Carli is really fucked up. And knows it. And doesn't care...which does bother her, a bit. But I'm at the point just after she's butchered another man...and she's only sorry about it because he wouldn't get it up for her. As in, an erection. Which would make sense. He's staked out in the desert, spread eagle, naked, and she's playing with a straight-edge razor blade. Also naked. After she's killed another man in the same way, that he knows of.

Did I mention this is getting to be a bit kinky, too?

She's still trying to decide if Zeke should be included in her quest for vengeance and punishment. She doesn't know if he was even there, the night Lara was raped. And him having only one leg tends to make Carli more hesitant about holding him as responsible as the others. But...she's not letting him go, just yet.

Still...the snarky aspect of the tone keeps popping in, so I wonder just how black and bleak I can make this and still treat it humorously? Oops...there goes a head rolling down the arroyo. Dammit. Now I have to go get it.

My two leads are still fighting for control of the story, and I'm letting them. I learned a long time ago not to get into a domestic quarrel. Neither one of them will appreciate you butting your nose in, and it will achieve nothing but make the fight go on longer.

A subthread that seems to be building in this story is the idea that sex is just sex, doesn't matter who you have it with. Carli even remembers being in Afghanistan with a Ranger unit as a covert sniper, and convincing the other guys they can get sexual relief from each other as well as from a woman. Even in a three way with her...when she wants to.

In fact, the reason Carli leaves the Army is because a Second Lieutenant decides she's going to be his partner, one night, and she breaks his nose. She's a grunt; that is not allowed. So she's given the option to take a general discharge or face a courts martial, and the does the former.

And now, with the help of her baby brother, who's a computer whiz, she's become Samael, the fallen angel of death.

I am getting CK done by December 20th

No ifs, ands or buts. Carli's joined in with messing with me and I'm not having it. She and Zeke can duke out their competing stories in the back of my brain once I have this draft done. I'm plowing ahead with it. Right now, it's 62,500 words long and I know I'm adding at least another 5000 to bridge into the ending. That's plenty.

If those two aren't careful, I'll shift Eldora, the sheriff, into being Edward and really add some kink to the end. Make him big, buff and beautiful, like this laddie, and have Carli contemplate taking him into her male harem. Which might actually fit the whole attitude of the story. But we'll see how my two leads work things out.

It's going to be a black humor-horror-thriller thing...just what, yet, I have no idea. The tone is on the snarky side and getting snarkier. Goofy, even? I've got one moment where Zeke and his dog, Loki, go into his trailer to search for Rin-Tin-Tin videos on YouTube. Just for the hell of it. FYI, there are lots of them, mainly from the 1950s TV show. Of course, Loki wouldn't be interested in Lassie; he's a doggie dog.

After this is done, I'm taking a break from writing and just doing reading till after the first of the year. I have a lot that needs to be done, in that arena, in preparation for the next draft of A Place of Safety. I'm honing in as much as I can on the ways and mores of Derry, between 1966 and 1972. I have a feeling I'll be doing a serious rewrite, here.

As if I've never done that before.

I love it when I hate that this happens...

Here I am, writing along on Carli's Kills, aiming to get it done by the end of the year and maybe start asking for feedback so I can publish it...and Zeke just did me a number. I was adding some background to him -- being from Minnesota, adopted by Calvinist-like Lutherans, raised to be stand-offish, a little jail time...and then he started revealing more. And more. And more. And suddenly he's running neck and neck with Carli in the importance to the story.

In fact, I think he's trying to take the damn thing over. Just like Adam started taking Dair's Window away from Dair, earlier this year. I can't have that, again.

I mean, I like Zeke. And I like how he's working with me on the story to make it deeper and darker, and even adding a bit of his own humor, but he's not the main character. Carli is. And she's already letting me know, If he pulls this shit, I'm pullin' it right back. And you know me; I can be hell on wheels.

So now I've got a balancing act going between them and what should happen next? My female sheriff, Eldora Parridge, has decided she's got a thing for Zeke, too. And might wind up fighting Carli for him. And it's feeling more and more like that cat fight at the beginning of Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill.

What do you do when your characters start fighting with each other to take over? Let 'em duke it out? That takes a lot of time and I don't have it. I want to get back to A Place of Safety.

Shit, I hate it when this happens...and love it.

Do Psycho Killers idolize anyone?

I'm seriously wondering, because Carli is, in effect, a psycho killer. She starts out pushing a woman off a 25 story balcony, in the book, and butchers 3 men a few days later.. I've gone this one bit where she approaches Zeke for the first time, but his dog, Loki, keeps her away. Suggesting she'd have killed and butchered him, as well...but that moment...being forced to backtrack...gives her enough pause to where she begins to feel something for him. And lets herself start to obsess over him.

Zeke's an amputee, like Alex Minsky is, but I wonder if Carli even bothers noticing that. If maybe she's picturing him perfect in her mind's eye. Like this is him. A side of beef that looks very tasty.

Of course, I'm idolizing Alex, myself. What I see is a lovely man who did well with the hand life dealt him. Built himself up. Got his tattoos to make his skin his own, again, instead of that blast's. But I've never met him, so have no idea what he's really like. I just know, down deep, he's not an asshole.

There were occasions, when I was working at Book Soup, where I'd have to deal with Hollywood celebrities. And for the most part they were pretty basic. Sophia Loren came to the newsstand, when I was there, to pick up newspapers for her husband, Carlo Ponti, and was very businesslike. Jamie Lee Curtis and Gene Hackman got piles of art books and were extremely polite, but would not look straight at you. Winona Ryder came in and acted like you were unworthy of attention. But none of them ever struck me as simply decent human beings. They were more like constructs.

Keanu Reeves, however, always struck me as a sincerely pleasant guy, when he came in. I only dealt with him once, face to face., and that was the time it was cemented in my mind that I was right about him. This wasn't long after Speed came out, and it was cold and wet, for LA. And he was on his motorcycle. As he entered the store, two Japanese girls were exiting. They recognized him, of course, and stayed outside the store to watch him pile up a stack of philosophy books.

Book Soup's front is all windows with books set up at the base, so you can see into the store. As Keanu walked up and down the aisles, those two girls followed him, outside. Ignoring the drizzly rain. When he was done, I charged them to his account for delivery to his hotel, and he exited.

One of the girls scurried up to him, touched his arm and held up a camera, her face a complete question. He grinned, opened his arms, and let each girl take a photo with him. Then thanked them and left. Took a total of 30 seconds, but those girls bounced around for 5 minutes, overjoyed.

Somehow, I get the feeling Alex is that kind of guy. And that's what I want Zeke to be. Question is, will Zeke go along with it?

Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill...

Completely nonsensical and so poorly made it's laughable, but...Carli is saying, "So fucking what? They didn't let any man control, use or dominate them. That's me, too." And so be it. This is the opening. The full movie is available on YouTube.

I've seen it, and it's trashy fun. I just realized I have Carli coming across incorrectly in the second chapter. I put her in a blond wig, when she'd really rather disguise herself as Tura Satana, who plays Varla in the movie.

My favorite quote from the film? The old man saying,  "Women! They let 'em vote, smoke an' drive. Even put 'em in pants. And what happens? A Democrat for president!"

It was made in 1965 or 66...Johnson was president.

So much for salad...

I had a lovely poached pear, walnut and craisin salad on arugula with goat cheese and a nice light vinegarette  dressing for lunch...and it made absolutely no difference in my understanding of CK. So I had a burger and onion rings for dinner and figured out how to handle the ending. It was so simple, I'm kicking myself.

Don't worry about making it make sense. The majority of this story is off the wall, so why would I want to ground it in reality in any way, shape or form? Carli brutally murders several people. With reason, but she's not what you would call reasonable, and dammit...she's gonna get away with it.

So to put it simply, this is going to be a fuck you book. Like Porno Manifesto was my fuck you script. My books sell well-enough to make me happy and bring in a little money. Nothing like Steven King gets, not even in my dreams...but okay. I'm a niche writer of gay erotica; small wonder I'm not selling to Peoria or Salt Lake City. And considering how this country is going, my work may soon be a thing of the past.

Carli's Kills is very heterosexual, but I flip the script in it. Carli's close to a sexual predator while Zeke is the heart and soul of the story, instead of the man always finding chicks to slip onto his dick and a good woman to be the mitigating factor against his cynicism. I found by sticking to my original script and outline for the story, I was holding Carli back. Trying to be both edgy and middle-class.

Fuck that. This ain't that kind of story. She's Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill, not Thelma and Louise. That's probably what was wrong with the script. It worked okay, but nothing exciting or original in it. A bit bland, even, for a revenge thriller. Well now, the only moral to this story is going to be, Don't take shit off anybody.

We're getting to that stage in our civilization, so may as well go with the flow...

Dum-tastick...

I have officially lost the thread for Carli's Kills and cannot move forward until I find it, again. So I'm going through from page one doing a light revision and clarifying what the book's about...which is taking time. And is ALSO taking time away from APoS. Not cool.

But I'm locked in on this thing until I have a viable first draft. In the midst of it all, I'm also trying to find a way to describe the desert, of which I am not fond, in a way that builds not only an image but a feeling in the reader. 

Man...I can't deal with this. I have a mountain of ironing to do. And a dozen other stories to tell.

But! My fuck you script, Porno Manifesto, is a finalist with the StoryPros Screenplay Competition. I'd like to make it all the way, but I doubt I'll win; Shia LeBeouf also has a script entered and is a finalist, as well. Name and fame take game.

Maybe I need to eat more salad...

Just to see...

I jumped to the end of the story and wrote the new ending for CK, which is totally different from the direction I thought the story was going. I sort of like it...but not 100%. It seems a bit arbitrary, right now, not organic. I'm not going to slap a funky ending onto this book unless it makes sense.

A lot might have to do with the tone of how the story is being told. The first chapter's style would be right, if carried all the way through. An almost snarky attitude done with omniscience. I already indicate Zeke is close to being a sex object to Carli...but slowly becomes more. Turns out Eldora, the sheriff, also has the hots for him, and she does not like coming in second.

On top of this, the best part to me is how Zeke is missing a leg but becomes someone to be obsessed over. That, to me, is what makes it exquisite. He's not a perfect male specimen, but that doesn't matter in the overall picture. He's got a core of decency and loyalty that draws people like flies to honey.

I don't know what Alex Minsky is really like, but he seems to be similar to Zeke in the little bit I've seen of him. Videos. Gifs. On a talk show. I know he's happy with a wife, kids and a dogs on the east coast, somewhere.

I think I want Zeke to find the same peace. Question is, will it be with Carli?

What is wrong with me?

I've decided to let loose with whatever the characters bring me and throw it into Carli's Kills and see what sticks, and they are having way too much fun with this. All of a sudden, it looks like I may have a battle to the death between Carli and a female sheriff who's got the hots for Zeke. That one's name is Eldora and she's as crooked as they come...and is another woman who won't take shit off a man.

I think by the time this is done, I'm going to have one bizarre story of erotica, horror, suspense and female empowerment. That should be fun to try and sell. It would be my 14th book, counting David Martin and my one foray into mainstream biography, which was so bad it's now out of print, and I don't blame people for not buying it.

I was doing it as a favor, almost but not quite ghost-writing...and I could not get into the story. The character wanted to break free...but he was also the person I was doing it for...and that guy...well, he was feeding me his bio had serious constraints on me. So it turned out to be crap. He reworked with someone else and it's called French Connection Blues, and it's available at Amazon. So...

But since then, I've let my characters dictate a lot of what happens in the stories. I'll edit and rearrange things, but I don't censor them. And it seems that letting them run free with CK is building a story completely different from what I planned. For all I know, now, Carli and Eldora will ride off into the sunset together with Zeke chained to his bike and kept as a sex slave.

Jesus...how very Mad Max of me...

Doing what needs to be done...

I may have a new ending for CK. I always thought I knew what the ending was...but this one is intriguing. Flips the narrative. Still not sure about it, because at the moment the book is a complete and utter mess. The very definition of a rough first draft. As I go along, I find new aspects to include and sort of note them in the earlier parts, but not well. Right now, I just want to get done with it so I know how the story ends.

I'm reading through This Man's Wee Boy and it's fun. Tony Doherty is writing about his childhood in a poor section of Derry that no longer exists.  It was completely wiped out to make way for new housing...and to disrupt the sense of community in the area as a way of disrupting the IRA. Didn't work.

I'm also digging into the new Writers Market to see about possibly using this book to get an agent and a publisher. Huge long-shot, this, but may be my only chance. If it's put out by a large publisher, APoS has a better chance of being put into book stores and widely read.

I may even do it under a pseudonym. I don't like doing that, but I'm such a niche writer, with my other work, it may have hurt the sales of my books that are outside the niche. My poorest sellers are David Martin and The Alice '65. One's a fable aimed at kids; one's a straight rom-com. My best-seller is still How to Rape a Straight Guy. Should tell you everything, right there.

I may test using a pen-name with CK, see what happens. Not put it on my website but only deal with FB or Instagram. Dunno yet. That's way in the future.

Head to brick wall...

The processes of a writer never make any sense to anyone but the writer. It took me till after six, today, to finally figure out the next step for Carli's Kills and come to terms with the ending that the story demands. This included me writing some dark poetry on my tumblr page and reminding myself every hour on the hour that I have to do what the story wants or it will not be happy.

I finally understood I need Carli to be making plans for her and Zeke, even though they've only been together one night. And even though she's lying to him and keeping secret the fact that she's killed three of his friends. Quite viciously, too. But she's begun to back away from her thirst for vengeance and is seeing she probably did something that cannot be excused.

Shit...why am I trying to make this into a Shakespearean tragedy? It doesn't rise to those standards. What was that definition I read about tragedy once? Something like...A hero brought down by their own flaws? I looked it up to find:

What are the characteristics of Greek classical tragedy?

• tragic hero. at the center of a tragedy is its hero, the main character, or protagonist.
• tragic flaw. an error in judgement or a weakness in character such as pride or arrogance (helps bring about the hero's downfall)
• Catastrophe.
• Chorus.
• Central Belief: fate.

I dunno about this...

Not a day for writing...

It's been a long day of getting nothing done. No reading. No writing. Unable to focus or even think, really. All I want to do is wander, right now. Let life whisper past as I float along, like a raft on the Mississippi. I think I overwhelmed myself, this morning, by considering all the tings I have to do. So damn much. Books to write. Minor eye surgery to pay for. Maybe moving. I'll never get all of it done. Can't. I'm not a fast writer. I'm not erudite. I do okay.

I guess right now I'm making myself work up some breathing room in the face of feeling suffocated by inadequacy. I need to get out of this. It's after midnight and I'm feeling very dickish.

Maybe I'll watch this, tomorrow.

No telling when...

I have no idea when I'll be done with CK. It just expanded itself, a bit, so it doesn't feel so rushed. Initially, I had it take place over 6 days, but now Zeke and Carli want more time together, and the Sheriff wants more time to investigate the murders Carli's committed, and Dax needs more time to plan his counter-attack...and now it's happening over 8 days. So far.

I have to let it play out, which it's doing at its own pace. I'm up well over 54,500 words, and still expect to top out at 60K...and that's fine. When I'm done, it will be my 3rd unfinished novel, not counting the ones I started but have yet to achieve 1st draft.

I've always had a hard time completing things, and this is no different. I have to kick myself into writing, sometimes, because I let myself be easily distracted. And get bored with the process...or lose interest in what I'm working on. I'm way better than I used to be. I now see that hump of You don't really give a shit about this so why keep pushing it? coming and can speed myself up and just roll over it. Slowly sometimes. Barely. But still, getting to the other side happens quite often, now.

It finally did with APoS. I'm reading This Man's Wee Boy to give me a greater awareness of Brendan's life in Derry up to 1972. I have to be careful not to copy anything, but there it is. I have half a dozen other books written by people who lived during that time to read and reread, as well. And notes sent me years ago. The whole 9 yards.

My one issue now is, I really need to be in Derry for a couple weeks so I can read through the Derry Journal and get down things like the weather on particular days, and what movies are playing, and what the prices are...stuff like that. But being broke, that's not exactly in the cards, right now.

I may also be getting surgery to lift my eyelids, which just got approved by my insurance, so I need to find out what my co-pay will be. If it's too much, it ain't happening.

Still working on CK

I think I'm about 80% done with Carli's Kills, and I'm keeping at it till the end. Right now I'm up to 52,290 words, and I know when I do the next draft I'll be adding more, so this will be a decent enough short novel.

Don't know how it will work out, once I get down to honing it, because right now it's all over the place in style. Starts in black humor, slips into a seduction that becomes horror, digs deeper into Carli's and Zeke's characters like a dramatic study, then becomes suspense, then action, then drama, then suspense, again...and I've now finished my first full-scale bit of M/F erotica. After this is straight suspense/thriller stuff.

Carli questions Chase, one of the gang's dealers, and she's beginning to see what she thought had happened with Lara isn't necessarily so. Dax knew what he was doing, setting the girl up, but the men she killed probably did not. This is where I finally describe the rape, in full. It was pretty tough and vicious, so I broke it into two parts...some presented as background, some where Chase tells Carli about it. So this is where she decides to bring Dax down, legally, instead of just kill him...then goes to find Zeke.

He's got a target set up behind his trailer and lets Carli shoot his M16. Then she comes on to him, gets him going, drags him into his trailer, all but throws him on the bed and has at him...almost like she's raping him. Difference is, he's neither drugged nor unwilling. It gets pretty raw, and I think I'm going to polish it up to where it's sexy, not lewd. Then she and Zeke share secrets...and it looks like they're connecting.

Thing is, while he's open and honest with her, she's lying to him about why she's in town. And her plan to get Dax busted for drugs does not work out, so all hell is going to break loose.

With Zeke is the one most in danger.

National Novel Writing Month Challenge achieved

Carli's Kills is now over 50K in words. It's not done, not by a long shot. I probably have another 8-10,000 words to go to finish the story, but it's met the threshold and I got my badge.

This is #13, and of those, I've published 7. Which I guess is good. I have some I want to return to and finish polishing up for publication. And in truth, this is the second time I've tried to do CK as the challenge; last time I didn't make it past 14K before things grew overwhelming. This time I didn't have any excuses.

I'm at the point in the story where Carli and Zeke finally go to bed. And she is not a passive partner. It's going to be raw and rough and fun for them both, because she's finally learned he was not part of what happened to her daughter and, in fact, is the only one who feels guilty about it because he didn't do anything to help Lara before she killed herself and thinks he should have.

The scene I'd made such a joke out of, in the script -- where Carli interrogates Chase, one of the drug dealers -- shifted and, instead, became a tough moment where Chase thinks Carli's going to kill him. I did a little play on the shower scene in Psycho as the lead-in...but it gets tight, after that.

I'm going to finish this draft then get back to work on APoS.

New edition of Blown Away

The reason I signed up with Netflix was to see the first season of Blown Away. It takes place at the Croning Glass Works, where several glass blowers compete for a prize and to be called the best in show. There were 2 seasons with 10 episodes each, and they just released one with a Christmas theme that brought back five of the glass blowers who'd almost made it on the previous series. They were all fun to watch and required a skill I do not possess...and not once has my favorite won. Dammit.

I went to actually visit the Corning Glass Museum twice, thanks to these shows. It's about 150 miles from me and you had to wear a mask thanks to Covid, but it was worth it to see not only the amazing history and beauty of glass, but also actually watch them make some items. I've posted about it, before, on Facebook, so no need to, again.

But that visit did help me figure out the sort of artwork my main character in Dair's Window is doing. Dair Llewellyn does portraits of people in layers of fused glass (AKA: Gemmail) on various plates of clear glass, with light behind them, to give them a 3-D feel...almost holographic, because their expressions change as you move around them. This piece is what showed me it can be done. It's Pont de Grenelle by Louis Gilis, which is cut glass layered and fused in a light box.

Dair's Window is the story I was working on for much of the first part of this year and it exploded on me. Dair is a stained glass artist, which is different from blown glass, but watching Blown Away got me into understanding how one can use glass to make more than just cups, saucers and Christmas decorations. I now know what it is going for and will eventually return to it.

FWIW, I'm almost done with CK's challenge. Just under 3600 words to go to hit 50K. It won't be finished at that point, and I will finish it...then it's back to APoS and then...onward and upward.

Here I go again...

I'll probably make the 50,000 word threshold for NaNoWriMo's challenge, this year, but Carli's Kills is going to be longer. Not sure what to do about that, because my plan was to start back in on APoS, December 1st. But I hate to leave something unfinished, like this...and I will be close to the end of a real first draft.

That's mainly because the story has taken on a life of its own, now. I've had two occasions where I'm following along with the original script and padding it out in narrative form...and suddenly I have to dump hours worth of work because it's taken off in a whole new direction. Changes make themselves into plot points and the whole Carli-Zeke dynamic is growing scarier, to me. She's fluctuating between wanting to love him and wanting to kill him.

But Loki is still standing guard. And he doesn't trust anybody with his guy...so maybe things will work out.

I think I know how it ends, and right now I hate it, but so far the story is leading to that. Wants that. Demands it. So I'm going to make it as gut-wrenching as possible. Meaning I'm probably killing it as a fun little read for summer. No simple erotica here for women to dream about.

But you do what the story wants or it comes out like crap, so...

Thanksgivng.

 Nothing serous to report, today...just too much turkey...and yams...and green beans...and...you get the drift. So here -- enjoy the truth about Thanksgiving.

Theme music for Carli's Kills...

Romance de Amour has always been Zeke's theme. In the script he's playing it on his guitar when he first meets Carli, unaware she might be planning to kill him. Only his dog, Loki, is at his side, protective and wary of her...and she cannot get close. It's the same in the book, now...but more intense. More dangerous. More meaningful, I think.

This is an extended version of the song that works beautifully into the theme of the story.

I first heard the melody when Charro played it on a late night talk show. She's always been such a character, but when she plays the guitar, it becomes an extension of her soul.

Typical...

I spent half the day working Zeke's back story into Carli's Kills...only for it to explode in my face. I wasn't paying enough attention and started adding in details that didn't belong there. Making Zeke half-Indigenous and half-Anglo and complicating his estrangement from his family in silly ways...so I hit a glorious bout of writer's block.

Took me a couple hours, a bit of depression, some serious banging of head against wall time before finally just removing everything I'd done to get to where I could hear him, again. Simplified the background, a lot. He's adopted. Doesn't know who his birth mother is. And the people who adopted him act more like his guardians than parents. A very strict Calvinist upbringing in central Minnesota by the Reverend and Mrs. Lindstrom...and that is what he calls them. Not mom and dad. It finally leads to an overwhelming sense of dislocation and he rebels. And things went downhill fast.

I've got just over 14,000 words left to write in seven days in order to make this month's challenge. Hopefully, there won't be any more days like this, because those put me way behind. I just have to keep listening to the characters...and staying true to them. It's when I work at making things cute that I fuck things up, but that's the screenwriter in me.

All the books I read on that style of writing emphasized character traits instead of human beings in scripts. The hero is a good man but flawed and has a personal tragedy in his background...and his dog or snake or parakeet loves him, anyway. She has a past filled with secrets and trauma but finding the right man will unlock them and help her heal. That kind of shit.

Small wonder I never made it as a screenwriter; I don't know how to make such nonsense work. But something I am proud of? Every actor who ever read one of my scripts loved them. I gave them people to work with, who weren't easily categorized.

Just trying to keep it real with CK, too.

Grady's last ride...

 Grady's heading for the woman's place for a night of fun...he thinks... 

-----

The midnight sky glistened with stars and only a hint of a moon as the Mercedes C class zipped down The 14, as silver and sleek and silent as death. Well, silent relative to Grady's Hog. He was having all sorts of fun playing tag with the car. Rushing ahead on the straight, narrow road. Pulling in front. Letting the car whip around him, the woman laughing as she flipped him off. They were joyous, together.

More than once, he would draw parallel to the driver’s door. And she would beckon him closer, smiling. And he would edge to within an inch of the speeding car. And she would reach over to caress his inner thigh...and tickle his crotch.

He almost lost control of the bike the first time, he was laughing so hard from the surprise of it. Hot DAMN, he wished he hadn't worn briefs. They kept his package from being as impressive as he thought it could be under a woman's touch. Instead, he'd shoot ahead, doing a wheelie in excitement...and they'd do it, again.

Until in the middle of another wheelie, she laughed and hit her brakes, then did a sliding turn to rush through a gate and race down a gravel road.

Grady realized, slammed the Hog into a skidding turn and raced back to the gate, snarling, "Shit, shit," at least a dozen times. He chased after her, roaring far too fast over dirt and rocks as he fought to catch up to the billowing dust. He could just make out the red glow of the Mercedes’ taillights through the muck...until they went bright and vanished.

A moment later, he drew up to an isolated house that looked as if it were hiding from the world. Beaten, dark, surrounded by nothing but scrub, even in the shadows you could tell it hadn't been painted in a good thirty years.

The Mercedes was parked by the front door, the woman leaning against it, watching him glide up. He stopped behind the car and got off the bike. Dust now covered his front, from head to toe. He beat most of it away, pulled off his helmet and removed his goggles to look around, not at all impressed.

"Didn’t know anybody lived in this shack," he said.

"It’s nicer inside," the woman said as she pushed away from the car and started for the door.

"Oh, fancy? Should I hose-off, first?"

She looked at him, seeming to chuckle. Even in the pale starlight her smile was lovely. "You could wash your face. Use some mouthwash, too. Or would you prefer another beer?"

"Shit. You gotta ask?"

She linked a finger in his belt and pulled him in through the side door. He giggled.

Inside, the furnishings were cheap-ass everything. Not even on the level of Ikea; more like 50s retro bargain basement. She led Grady in, and he grabbed at her, as best he could, pulling her close for a kiss. She broke away, saying. "Let me get those beers. You can use the kitchen sink, for your face. Wash your hands, too."

"What for? I wore gloves."

"Even more reason."

He giggled.

She backed into a kitchen. He yanked off his jacket, dropped it on the floor and followed her in.

The kitchen was as old and beat-up as everything else, including the linoleum floor. Reminded him of his grandmother's place, in Lytle, outside San Antonio. About to crumble into dust. He turned on the faucet. It grumbled and groaned but clean water soon poured out.

She pulled a couple of Dos Equis from the ancient fridge.

He grinned. "How'd you know?"

"Told you, Mexican beer's good."

"What’s your real name?" Grady asked as he ran soap up his arms.

"Call me Stasi," she said.

"Hmph. Knew another chick by that name. Bitch was crazy."

The woman grew still. "Aren't we all?"

He used a dishcloth to dry himself as she offered him an open beer. He took it, and barely held onto it. Gave her an embarrassed shrug then guzzled some.

"So...what do I call you?" she asked. "Asshole?"

He backed her against the counter and pressed against her, one hand groping a breast, saying, "Grady. Mmm..."

She chuckled. "Oooooh...Grady’s hungry."

"Been a long time since I ain’t had to pay for it."

He tried to kiss her, but she put her own bottle to her lips, teasing him. "Oh, it’s gonna cost you," she murmured. "Just not money." Then she set her beer down, reached around and grabbed his ass to purr. "Oooohhh...nice. Big. Round."

He giggled and almost got a kiss in before she leaned back, ran her hands up his sides and grabbed the throat of his shirt.

Now he gasped. "Careful, this is my saint shirt."

"Saint shirt?"

He giggled as he said, "All holey."

She laughed and tore it open to reveal an elaborate tattoo of geometric designs covered his chest.

"Oh, my," she whispered. She ran her fingers over it, tracing some the design before pinching at his tits.

He gasped, deep and shocked. "Oh, shit, shit, girls do that to guys?"

"Depends on the guy. Have you had a dude do this, to you?"

"Fuck no. I mean, one tried, but..."

"Don't you like it?" She twisted his nipples, soft. Almost erotic.

Every sensation he could think of rammed through every part of his body. "Fuck...love it...when you do it."

"Cool. Any more tatts to play with?"

He pulled her close. "Stasi sees...real soon."

She licked her lips and dribbled beer down her front. He gasped and dove down to lick it up. Which led to him nuzzling her breasts. Rubbing his nose in her cleavage. "Oh, fuck," was all he seemed able to say. "You in a corset?"

She nodded. "Adds to the moment, don't you think? I've got high-heeled boots, too...if you're up for that."

She ran a hand up the inside of his thigh to emphasize her intention, groping him, in full.

Oh, was he ever. He leaned back, a little and let out a long slow sigh of the deepest pleasure before guzzling more beer.

She unbuckled his belt. Undid the button on his jeans. Shifted them to his hips. Then she pinched his tits, again. Toyed with the hair on his chest. On his poochie little belly. Up his arms. He pulled her tight and ground against her, about ready to pop out of his briefs and...

He grunted, confused. He leaned on her, trying to keep his balance. His heart was going a mile a minute and his head spinning and nothing was making sense.

She pulled away from him, fake concern on face. "Oh, Grady...too much too soon?"

"Just feel weird," he muttered, "and...and...what the fuck? That beer..."

"Wow, Grady, have roofies been used on you, before?"

He stumbled back, just beginning to understand. "Roofies? Me?" He was able to make out she was grinning at him. Just standing there. He grabbed the kitchen counter and tried to move to the door. "Fuckin’ bitch...what you...what you doin’?"

She tripped him.

He collapsed to the cracked linoleum. Smacked his head, hard. Tried to talk but his words dribbled into nothingness. He rolled onto his back to see...

She towered over him. She pulled off her hair.

Grady gasped. Oh, fuck, it was a blond wig. She’s brunette.

Then she undid her shirt and opened it to reveal a bustier was pushing her breasts up. It also accentuated her curves. She shrugged it off. Now wore only jeans. She let out a long, slow sigh of relief as she stretched. She was still lovely, but now looked almost completely different.

She smiled down at Grady...and it was one of the scariest smiles he had ever seen...as he drifted closer and closer to some weird unfocused darkness...and the last words he heard were, "Now I’m naming names," before he passed out.

CK grows and builds...

This is a bit that comes just after Carli's killed Stasi. When I wrote this as a a screenplay, I had Stasi falling 25 floors to the ground then cut to Carli smacking the pool balls.

-------

Wednesdays and Thursdays were usually quiet and easy, which suited Zeke fine. Some regulars would come in. Some buddies. And sometimes they'd talk. And sometimes he'd join them in a beer. And life would be good, for a moment.

But this particular Wednesday night, that's not how things were going. There was an energy in the room that troubled him, and it emanated from the woman playing pool on the table closest to the bar. She was tall, well-done in every way, thick blond hair cascading down her back. She wore a tight pair of jeans that emphasized her glorious hips and rear, and a loose shirt unbuttoned just fare enough to show off a nice set of breasts. High-end cowboy boots finished off the near-perfect ensemble. She was playing alone in a way that showed her body off, and which made Zeke wary. She was up to something; after several years at this bar, picking up on trouble had become like a sixth sense...and she radiated trouble.

But no one else seemed to notice, though Rhonda, the Cantina's waitress, did act like she wasn't there. Poor Rhonda. Plain hair, plain face, probably twenty pounds underweight to pull off the jeans-mini-skirt, tie-dyed t-shirt tied at the waist in a way to give her a midriff, doll-like boots on her feet, and heavy emphasis on turquoise jewelry on her wrists and around her neck. If a woman came in who wasn't attached to a biker or a jock, she had to be forced to serve them. And it looked like that was how it bout be, tonight.

Except it didn't look like the blond woman was ready for a refill, yet. She'd been nursing that beer for an hour as she played game after game. Zeke had no problem with that, at first, but then a couple of his buddies, Grady and Spit, had arrived.

Grady was one of those linebacker types who used to be in top shape but now was gone to seed. He kept his head shaved, was never outside without his sunglasses, and seemed to have nothing but t-shirts and crappy Wranglers to wear, along with an ancient pair of Dingo boots. Only his bushy eyebrows gave away the fact that he was red-haired. An ex-marine, like Zeke, he had been in a chopper crash that burned his hands and arms. He could use them, thanks to the surgeons at Brooke Army Medical Center, in San Antonio, and rehabilitation crew at William Beaumont, in El Paso, but only with limited success. Elaborate tattoos covered the scarring, right down to his nails, with a fleur de lis also tattooed, above each ear.

"Those hurt and bled like a motherfucker," he'd told Zeke over a couple of Dos Equis at a cantina on Avenue Lerdo, just across the bridge in Juarez. He swore the beers tasted better over there.

"Why'd you do it?" Zeke had asked, eyeing them.

"For the fuck of it," Grady had sighed. "Remind me what pain is." He flexed his fingers as much as he could. "Remind me there's still so much fuckin' pain in the world."

It was at Beaumont that Zeke had met him, while learning to use his new leg. Grady had just taken him to get his first post-op tattoo, to hide some of the scarring.

"It hurt much?" he had asked as he took another swallow of beer.

Zeke had just shaken his head. "I had a tatt on my leg. My calf. Knew what to expect."

Grady had chuckled. "You're a good kid."

"You ain't so much older'n me."

"Ten years, motherfucker. An' two lifetimes." He had leaned back to gaze at the slow-moving ceiling fan. "Ten years an' two lifetimes."

They had watched over each other, ever since. He was the one who had gotten Zeke the job behind the bar; he knew the owner from basic. Helped him set up in the trailer behind the place. Helped him learn to ride a bike, even with one leg. Now Zeke had been here going on ten years. Ten years of solitude and peace.

And blessed loneliness.

Grady lived in an old ranch house with Spit, who might turn out to be attractive if he would lose half the weight he was carrying...and not carrying well. Clothes a size too small. Hair long and always looking like it needs to be washed. Tattoos on his arms but nowhere else that anyone knew about. Well, anyone but his Rubenesque biker girlfriend, Katty, whose outfit was also a size too small and whose hair was so bleached, you knew it was sanitized.

Neither of them had ever offered up their real names, and Zeke wasn't one to care, and so it was what it was. They both rode Harleys and sported leather wrist bands and jackets and belts with buckles the size of Texas on them. It was a wonder Spit's didn't cut into his gut.

The three of them had taken up residence in their usual booth near the pool table, and Rhonda had taken their usual order -- Coors for Katty, Michelob for Spit and a bottle of Dos Equis for Grady. Spit had maneuvered them into the booth so he could watch the blond woman do her thing around the table, and chuckle like a growly hyena at her every move. Katty noticed and was not in a good mood, thanks to it.

Another red flag to Zeke.

Then Spit got up, snarling, "Gonna take a piss." But as he walked past the woman, he grabbed her ass and chuckled, "Sweet cheeks."

Before either Zeke or Katty could react, the woman whipped her pool cue up between Spit's legs.

He cried out, grabbed his crotch and fell over...then howled in pain. "Aw, fuck...fuck...my back...fuck..."

"Oh, shit," sighed Zeke as Grady went to Spit and helped him up, with Rhonda's assistance.

The woman stood there, watching them, impassive, cue held in a way that she could use it as a weapon, if need be.

"Now you done it," Grady said to her. "You hurt Spit's back, and him havin' to work, tomorrow."

"His name fits," the woman said.

Grady helped Spit settle back into the booth, where Katty swatted him, angry.

"Ow!" he yelped. "Baby, my back..."

But she wasn't having it. "It's your own damn fault, asshole."

Grady sighed and looked at the woman. Saw violet eyes gazing back at him and lips caught in a half-smile. It had been a long time since he'd had a woman look at him, like that, especially one who was actually nice to look back at.

"Now you know his name," Grady said. "What name fits you?"

She gave him no response.

"O-kay," Grady sighed, "Let's pay that game. What name fits me?"

She looked him over, like a jackal would eye its meat, and chalked her cue. "How ‘bout a game?" she asked. "Winner names names."

He held up his hands. "Ain’t so good with pool."

She smiled, actually amused. "Let's say I spot you a couple balls." Then she blew chalk dust off the cue. 

O-KAY. Grady picked out a cue. Set his beer beside hers. Offered a drag on a joint...and she took it. And toked it. And held it for a nice long moment before letting the smoke drift through her pursed lips. 

Grady actually shifted under his tshirt and jeans in a way that was filled with expectation. "Stripes or solids?" he asked.

She shrugged.

He looked the table over. She had already dropped two of each, so he leaned across, struggled to set up his cue, shook a little but then smacked the white ball...and dropped a couple solids! That was a first. He looked over to ask if Zeke had seen it, but the guy was busy prepping an order for Rhonda. A couple of college jocks in designer slum-wear were seated at a table, focused on their phones. Texting twerps. 

Grady felt a twinge of jealousy at how easily their fingers moved over the tiny keyboards. Hell, he had trouble typing on a regular computer. But then he noticed Laila, a biker chick with boobs and curves in leather everything, hair the color of cotton candy, was circling in on them. He chuckled. Those boys were about to find themselves on the ride of their lives, and their daddies' credit cards would soon be maxed out. He hoped Laila would take pictures; she loved controlling the little twerps.

He turned back to the woman, saw she was eyeing him, waiting, her mouth slightly open, her tongue poised just under her upper lip. He gulped, felt more than a stir in his dick, lined up too quick and shot...and missed. He was getting flustered, and also a bit pissed he'd worn briefs, today. Harder to show off the equipment, and while the rest of him was kind of sloppy, Grady was proud of the most important thing he had to offer.

She let out a sigh, casually leaned over the table and dropped one. Then she rounded it, completely, eyeing the balls as she chalked her cue. She stopped next to Grady, nodding. Gave him a side glance. Grabbed hold of his beer and took a nice, long swallow, her eyes never leaving his.

"Mexican beer," she said. "Good taste."

Then she leaned over the table, her hips nudging his, making him hold his breath in fear he'd scare her off with his giggles...and deliberately missed her next shot. She rose, gave a little girl pout and said, "Oops."

O-KAY!

Draft 3 is done...

I finished draft 3 of APoS, and I decided to add the to be continued bit to make sure people will know the story does not end here. So far, it's 524 pages in Courier 12 point, double-spaced. 119,690 words. And I am emotionally exhausted. I always knew this story would be draining, and it has lived up to my expectations.

I'm still nervous about actually capturing the essence of Derry's society, at the time. How they spoke and acted with each other. Now that the story's set, I can concentrate on making that better. I have a few memoirs from the area to read through in more detail. We'll see how it goes.

I'm taking tomorrow off from writing, then I'll dig into CK on Monday. I have a lot left to do in that book, but it's going to be nice and light and fun, in comparison. A woman using men like sex objects. I know straight guys dream of this, but not in the way she does it. I don't think...

Not being a straight guy, I'm not sure.

I mean, I've got one scene where she ties a college guy to a chair, naked, and toys with him for information. He's the one who reveals Zeke was there when her daughter was raped, but it looks like he didn't know what was going on. I don't know how I'll handle that, yet. Zeke's not a goody-two-shoes, but neither is he a villain. He's a guy who is just...there...with no-place else to go. Almost tragic, really.

One chapter left in this rewrite...

I will have this draft of APoS done this weekend. It's closing in on 120,000 words, so it's a real novel. I just did the part where Brendan takes Joanna to see the circle fort, Grianan Aileach, atop a nearby Donegal hill, and he reveals he's planning to leave Derry. He knows his history and can see the place sliding into chaos, and wants no part of it.

At the fort, he feels free and open and can talk with Joanna like he talks with no one, not even his best mates. People are recognizing he's not one to spread tales, unlike his brother Eamonn...who doesn't do it deliberately. Things just slip out when Eamonn gets angry or excited. So it's hurting him now that he's part of PIRA. But Brendan can be trusted.

So far I haven't come across a book dealing with the catastrophic way in which British Forces set in motion the next 10 years with their heavy-handedness. Almost like it was deliberate, it was so stupid. I've read some who think it was just British arrogance that caused this to happen. Their certainty that if they worked the plans out just right, they would succeed.

But history shows that doesn't work. You can have the best plans ever, with each detail in just the right spot, but expecting hundreds of men to carry it out with precision and without anger or fear or any human emotion? It's always going to go wrong. And it did on Bloody Sunday. And the British being idiots, they assumed they could control the narrative with their press releases...but that didn't happen. Too many people in Northern Ireland had friends and relatives in the Republic, and word got around.

It's the same, today, albeit a lot faster. The people in power don't understand how pervasive the internet is and how there are always methods bloggers and hackers can use to get around even the most stringent safeguards and censorship. Right now, Chinese officials are trying to manage the disappearance of a tennis star who made allegations of sexual assault against a high-ranking politician, and they're finding it is impossible. One woman vanished...and the Chinese censors can't keep it quiet. They've lost but just cannot accept that reality.

The 60s brought about the beginning of the end for control of the information flow by those who would oppress others...and the Troubles exacerbated it.

APoS moving ahead so...

Here's a taste of Carli's Kills. Jake still thinks Carli's suffering from PTSD...and she might be...so after a second conversation where they learn a bit more about each other, he invites her on a midnight picnic to his favorite spot in the area.

---

The Harley thrummed to life, its deep growling engine ready to go, now, now, now. Zeke looked at Carli, waiting. Loki looked at her, wary...but also waiting in his dog seat. She slipped the helmet on and slung a leg over to sit behind Zeke and hold onto the back handles. Her knees were touching his hips and thighs. Shivers raced through her. Confusing shakes that made her catch her breath.

"You can hold my waist, if you want," he chuckled. "I promise not to take advantage if you don't."

She laughed. "Didn't want to seem too forward."

"You never rode a bike, before?"

"Ten-speed."

"Yeah...this is a little different."

She slipped her arms around him and he set the bike in motion. Smooth and easy. Nothing crass like the hogs, the night before. Just another light thrum...and in moments they were whispering down the road.

Carli almost gasped at the gentleness of the wind as they zipped along. The tenderness of it. The elegance. She looked to the left to watch dark scrub and even darker mountains in the distance almost appear to be pacing her in ways that seemed too real to be right. To her other side, the space was more open, the dark cacti and bushes extending all the way to the end of the world so they could meet the sky. Looking up revealed the deepest, blackest velvet gleaming with stars enough to put the overwhelming lights of the LA basin to shame. And with it all was the soft silence, punctuated only by the gentle engine as they sped along.

Without thinking, she lay her chin against Zeke's left shoulder. Strong and yet so welcoming. The leather of his jacket seemed to rejoice in her presence...and the smell of him...the casual masculinity of him...she felt close to drunk from just breathing him in.

He wasn't solid around the waist; she could feel a bit of a tummy, even through the jacket. She could also make out his belly button was a little innie...and feel the top of that buckle and wonder how he kept it from cutting onto him. On top of this, she noticed he did not cringe or tremble at her touch. No discomfort. Just him as anchor to keep her on the bike.

But the emotions running through her were intensifying. This moment...this pinpoint of time...she felt as if it were poetry. Like it was the world as it should be. One person connected to anther and surrounded by peace and understanding. Clear wind caressing them both. One pressed close to the other in a way that grew more and more sensual as the ride continued. It made her almost happy.

How long had it been since she was with a man? And not just one used to scratch an itch, but one she felt was worth being with? Liam? Her laughing Aussi, who'd been named after that Irish actor and had a lot of his look and attitude, but with dancing eyes and a perpetual grin instead of that sad sack aura. Probably came from being raised in Brisbane instead of Dublin.

She had joined his Aikido classes in LA, and watching him demonstrate his moves was like watching art come to life. She also knew from the start he was ten years her junior, and was seeking a career in Hollywood...but was finding that since Covid all doors were closed to newcomers unless they came with more than just a nice face. And Liam's was very, very, very nice.

Oh, was he ever nicely built. Trim and easy, walking like a panther instead of a lumbering ox. She had suffered a few too many of those. But Liam? Liam had been like a cat that loves to curl itself around your neck and shoulders, and just sit there, purring...especially after sex and just before sleep.

Initially, she had thought he would just be fun for a night, so had put out the hints of interest. He picked up on them and asked her to stay after class, one day...and three months later they were still an item. But then he'd got a part in one of the Marvel Universe films shooting in Australia because him being from there would help the production with its tax breaks, so had packed up and moved home.

Yes, there had been a number of bed partners since then, but she had missed Liam. His hands knew where to go to drive her wild. His lips had always done exactly the right thing. His body next to hers had felt real and alive instead of perfunctory. And drawing her fingers along his lightly tattooed back, and that ass with the perfect tan line from surfing, just the right amount of hair on him to caress and not tickle...no one had pleased her nearly as much, since...since...a year ago?

Jesus...had it been that long?

She looked at the back of Zeke's neck, what she could see between the helmet and jacket collar. Tattooed on one side but not the other. Skin clear and clean and smooth. Hair cropped close so you could even see the base of his skull. Liam's hair had been too long, and brushing it up or to the side only made that area look dirty and ill-kempt.

She wanted to touch Zeke's neck, but something told her this would not be viewed with a positive light, by him. True, he had invited her to hold him close, but he had also set up other barriers, and for now it was best to respect them.

For now.

This amazingly lovely, beautiful, elegant ride would be enough, for now. Free and alive and not a care in the world. No past to hold them, only an unknown future of promise and grace.

If only it could last forever.

Much too soon, Zeke slowed the Harley and turned to pass through a dilapidated gate onto a dirt road. Carli could just make out they were approaching an outcropping of rocks in the near distance. She felt lost but not the least bit unsure. Something told her to the right was the east, so they were heading north. At a slower speed, yes, but still rumbling along as if on a magic carpet.

She looked back over her shoulder at Loki to find he was watching her, still wary, his eyes all but screaming, You try one fucking thing wrong with my boss and I'll rip your throat open.

She chuckled and thought, Don't worry, puppy. My blood lust was satisfied, today. And I got a feeling your boss will be safe from me.

At least, I hope so.