Turning into quite the beast...

 I have 23 chapters written for Derry in APoS. 318 pages and 74,000+ words, and I get the sense it will wind up close to 450 pages and well over 100K in wordage. I can see so much that needs to be in there, still, and parts of it read too superficially. Smooth and easy, without a sense of the location or the people. Meaning probably adding another chapter, as well, and working at least one additional rewrite.

But there are sections I'm very proud of, especially the last chapter, as Brendan's preparing to leave Derry, and his walk to Claudy. The sloppiest parts are in the beginning chapters, right now, and the one dealing with the Bloody Sunday massacre. That one's going to be hard to write, but it's very, very important because it happens just a few days before Brendan's 16th birthday. It breaks through his reserve and builds his anger, but he remains clear-eyed enough to see the IRA has become just as oppressive as the RUC could be. Sometimes more-so.

This image is of Derry in the early 60s, just as the city was beginning construction of the Rossville Flats, which will figure greatly in the Battle of Bogside. They'll wind up just to the left of the triangle made by two roads meeting, in the middle left side of the image. Brendan's home is in that line of houses just to the right of those roads, atop the hill.

I sort of lose track of a couple of his friends in the middle chapters, so that will need to be addressed, as well, since they haunt him in the Houston section and later. And one bit happens too easily; I need to work that so it's more realistic.

I still feel like I don't have the sense of the people of Derry, yet. I've watched Derry Girls, which is set in 1994 and 1995, more than two decades after the majority of the story, and it's geared to be a comedy...but I did catch glimpses of their hard-edged humor in it. That is going to be a bitch and a half to make work.

My job is cut out for me...dammit...