Travel day...

Long drive down to New Jersey for a packing and pickup job, but still managed to get through another chapter of APoS, once I go to the hotel. Only 5 chapters left to do, but one of them needs a lot of work, I already know. Still...it's closing in on completion. I hope.

Tomorrow I'm starting on shifting Cari's Kills into a novel. I began it once, with NaNoWriMo, a few years back and didn't get past 14,000 words before I had to stop. Too much was going on with work and life, at the time...and it wasn't making any sense. I also think I was ignoring what the story was really about and too set on keeping it kind of Hollywoodish.

Now? It's a female-based erotic story about guilt and how it causes people to do stupid things that hurt themselves. I don't know how much I'll be able to get worked into the first draft of it, but at least I can lay the foundation.

Carli's guilt stems from abandoning her daughter because she was way too young to raise a child. Hell, she was still basically a child, herself. She kills some of the people involved in her daughter's rape, but finds it does nothing to minimize her self-loathing. Only when she connects with Zeke does she start to feel human, again...but by that point it may be too late.

Zeke feels guilt over not doing anything to stop the rape or help Carli's child deal with it. He's been in jail; he knows what she's going through. It's not until he and Carli get together that he starts to loosen up and face the fact that he didn't know what was going on and was afraid of being rejected by his friends if he did anything about the rape. He has nowhere else to go.

This is not going to be a pretty story, so I don't know if it will ever become more than an exercise in writing reprehensible characters who have their good reasons for what they do. But we'll see how it turns out. I've gotten positive responses about Curt, from How to Rape a Straight Guy, despite him being a double killer and rapist, at the end. Maybe I'll pull it off.

Never hurts to try.

Whispers in my brain...

My books are having a bit of a fight, right now...the ones I want to write. I was thinking of reworking Blood Angel into an erotic horror story for NaNoWriMo, next month, but Carli's Kills is pushing hard to take my attention. It desperately wants to be an erotic tale, with Carli being the kind of woman you just cannot say no to...and I'm kind of thinking I won't...

The inspiration for Carli was Lucy Lawless, who takes crap off nobody. Carli's out to kill the men who raped her daughter and drove her to suicide, but some of her reasoning is seriously flawed. She's feeling guilty because she joined the army, grew to be a deadly sniper in Afghanistan and pretty much abandoned the girl to be cared for by her grandmother. So she's also trying to purge her guilt for not being there when her daughter needed someone.

One of the guys involved with the gang that raped the girl is Zeke, who works the bar of a cantina owned by the biker gang's boss, Dax. Zeke is an ex-Marine who was hit by an IED in Iraq, losing a limb. He was inspired by Alex Minsky, who had that happen in Afghanistan. Alex's tattoos cover the scars left behind by shrapnel from the bomb. Zeke wasn't part of the rape, but the gang is made up of his friends so he did did nothing about it. Now he feels guilty.

It's Zeke Carli pushes into bed, and they get hot and heavy in glorious detail...and decide to get the hell away from everybody. Granted, she killed a couple of his friends, but he doesn't know that...not yet...but Dax is suspicious...

It might be fun, because Zeke's called Hot Tatts by a nearby college crowd due to being so damned gorgeous. And Carli's not above a little molestation, if need be.

I'm feeling good about this because I only have just over 100 pages left to go over with APoS. But it's starting to get pretty dark, so CK might be a good antidote to that.

The beginnings of love...

Brendan begins sneaking meetings with Joanna...

Charlie reported to his parents who and what I was, so no question I’d not be welcome coming to their door to ask her out. But I did not see her around town, after that. I found out her number and called a couple of times, but every time it was her mother answered and I had to bark a gruff, "Sorry." Then ring off.

Finally, I came up with the bright idea of writing her a letter...and even better, putting it in an early Christmas card. But I couldn't use my return address; that would cause all manner of trouble.

For the first time in my life, I wished I had someone I could talk to and confide in, but I knew better than to ask Eamonn, for he could not keep a secret, and none of me Chinas were adult enough to help. Especially since she was Protestant. They would make a full riot over that, alone, not to mention I was after a girl.

But then I overheard Mr. Curran from up the road telling a mate, "I use my work address, not things like that, never home."

"I don't even put one," was the reply. "And I have me sister mail it, from Newry. No tracing me that way.

 Well...that was the answer, and dropped down to me from heaven above. I hurried up to my room and spent the rest of the day writing the letter...over and over and over, must have been a hundred times before I settled on:

Hi, it's Billy Corrie, "as known." I know I'm just a Catholic lad and have no right to ask this, but I wonder if you'd like to have tea with me, some time? Like at the Diplomat? Just to chat. Nothing special. But I did enjoy the day we had, and hope you did, too. Sincerely, Brendan...Kinsella (my real name) PS Here's my real address if you want to reply.

I'd met a couple of lorry drivers so asked one if he'd post the card from Belfast, once he got there. He agreed, but first wanted his fluids checked. "She's been runnin' warm," he growled.

I looked at his engine, right there, and saw he was low on both oil and coolant. "I think there's a leak," I said. "These shouldn't be so far gone."

He nodded, bought me the oil and coolant and I refilled them. I didn't see any other issues, but that doesn't mean anything. Not really.

Two weeks later, I was all but certain she'd laughed off my letter and tossed it in the bin when I got a card from her. It's good I was home when the post came, for Ma noticed it and huffed, "Who's writing to you?"

"It...it's a card, Ma," I said. "Might be from one of the drivers I helped...with his lorry...you know."

She gave me a scowl that said she didn't believe me, but before she could say or do another word, I raced up to my room and opened it.

The card was lovely. A winter scene in an English village, with sparkling sprinkles on it...and inside was a little note.

Dear Brendan, I enjoyed our day, as well, and thought you handled what I now see could have become a difficult situation with maturity and grace. Meeting for tea at The Diplomat sounds lovely. I usually shop in Waterloo the evenings of Tuesdays and Fridays, often with Mother. Saturdays are with Angela and Louise, so I don't think that would be a good day. I hope to see you, soon. Sincerely, Joanna. P.S. Thanks to my childish brother, Charles, it may be best not to be seen with each other, just yet.

Maturity! Grace! I was beyond ecstatic. So after school was done, that Thursday, I made my way past the checkpoint to hang around Wellies, making sure all knew I was merely out to see if I could get a couple repair jobs from a local shopkeeper. When I told the soldiers of my abilities, they tried to test me, with one joking, “Here, me radio keeps dying off.”

I took a look the battery first, and quickly saw it was old and had been wet and was corroded. I used a toothpick to clean much of it and told him, "Get a new battery, and don't get it wet, this time."

His mate laughed and said, "Tol' yer it was cuz yer took in the sho'er, ya nutter."

But it turned out me having Blues on me was what helped most. Nothing like a smoke to make you mates with a lad but five or six years older than yourself.

Then I did my rounds, keeping a close eye for Joanna and her mother. It was close on five when I saw her crossing at the toilet and did what I could to make her see me before her Mother could notice. She smiled her smile for me, not looking my way but obvious enough, so I rushed to the Diplomat and ordered tea and cakes.

"A lady will soon be joining me," I said, grandly.

A few minutes later, there she came, dressed so much like she was the first day I saw her I took in a sharp breath. "I haven't much time," she said as she sat, breathless. "Mum thinks I'm looking at new shoes. She'll be looking for me, soon."

"I'm just glad you could come," I replied, just as breathless.

She fixed her tea with milk, only, and took but a single bite of cake in so fine and delicate a manner, I felt like a lumbering fool.

"Was there much trouble for you, when I was at your house?"

She giggled. "Charles tried, but in no way could he cause trouble for me. I just told my parents you were a fine young man who escorted me home, and I'd hear nothing more about it. Then I made certain Charles learned what real trouble was." She took a sip of tea then added, "He'll never bother me, again."

I chuckled. "I don't think I want to know what trouble you caused him."

"It's better that way." And her eyes twinkled of mischief.

"Is he your only one?"

"Brother? Oh, no. There's Robert, working in Westminster, and John, at some government office in Sheffield. Mum's from Liverpool and wrote a book about workhouses in the UK. It was published."

"Cool. You're the daughter of an author."

"Such as it is."

"Is that what you're going to be?"

"Oh, no. I'm working towards my Eleven-plus and aiming for university. I want to be a doctor." It was like her entire world was a galaxy apart from mine. "So what family do you have? A dozen brothers and sisters?"

"No, just...not half that many."

"You're not living up to that silly stereotype."

"Well...me Da's not around."

"Oh?" Another sip of tea.

"He's...he's dead."

"Oh, I'm sorry." And she placed her hand on mine.

I had to fight a giggle, of all things, and say, "Thanks. But it's been near four years so..."

"Still, it must be hard for you and your mother."

The concern in her voice told me she really meant it, and I near melted. "We...we're doing well enough."

"You seem like you're strong enough to." Then she gasped and said, "Just saw Mum cross the street. She's looking for me." She bolted to her feet and started away then spun back and gripped my hand. "Till next time?"

All I could was nod before she grinned and was gone.

We were able to see each other once a week, that way, if only for a few minutes. I would do my rounds. Return items I’d fixed or pick up new ones. Keep a close eye for her and her Mother. Then make sure she saw me before her Mother could notice and rush to the Diplomat and order tea and cakes. She would give her Ma some excuse and sneak over to where I’d be waiting, and I never stopped taking in a sharp breath at seeing her bolt through the entrance to join me.

I know I sounded a proper fool to her, talking about my mates in careful ways. Bloody telling her how I’d repaired an air nozzle at McClosky’s shop then complaining because his son, Diarmaid, took credit. How Eamonn was at Queens and doing well. How Mairead was back to her job and doing well, since Ma was keeping an eye on Michael Paul, and doing well. How my brothers and sister were doing well. How our new home was doing us well. How I was doing well. How helping the shopkeepers with decimalization was doing well. I didn’t notice my constant repetition of how well we were doing till she made sport of me by repeating it back. I’d laughed, in response, and said I’d take a course in public speaking.

What we never spoke of was how we felt about each other. I’d compliment her clothes, always different, always lovely. She’d say I looked smart, even though I was in the same uniform, every time -- jacket, shirt and bell-bottom trousers, a jumper. She liked the curls in my hair, now I was letting it grow. I loved the light braid she’d sometimes put hers into. It all felt so very right and wonderful.

Then Christmas came and I searched for days to get the right present for her and found it at Sproule’s on Carlisle. A gold heart pendant on a light chain. Cost me six quid, but when I slipped the box to her and saw her eyes light up when she opened it, I knew I’d have been happy to have spent a hundred.

She slipped it around her neck, whispering, “Oh, Brendan, I haven’t anything nearly so fine to give you.”

“You like it, then?” I asked, as if I needed to.

Her smile both chided me and told me without question she did. She dipped into her bag and pulled out a small package. “I had no end of trouble buying this when I saw it,” she said. “Charlie would’ve made a scene, he’s such a brat. I'll be so glad when he's off to RAM.”

"Ram?"

"Royal Academy of Music. Fancies himself the next Bach. Beethoven. Brahms. Maybe even Mozart. Never. I've heard his compositions."

I laughed and opened my present to find a lovely set of wee turnscrews within a small flap. I burst into a grin to hide how much it overwhelmed me.

She watched me, actually wary. “You mentioned trouble you were having with some smaller things you were repairing...”

“This is perfect,” I managed to whisper. “Exactly what I needed. Thank you.”

“Mum’ll be looking for me,” she said as she finished her tea, then added with a wink, “I’d best be in the music section of Wellie’s when she finds me, this time.”

I nodded and rose with her, and she smiled and hesitated then leaned over to let her lips give me the lightest of kisses on my nose before she rushed out, crying “Happy Christmas” as she went.

Oh, yes, it was. It was. The happiest of my life.

Question...

I'm moving right along on APoS...and may be asking for Beta readers to give a it a look, over Christmas holidays. I'm going to do a general call to people on Facebook and Twitter, maybe Instagram. But I know I'm so close to the story, now, I'll never be able to objectively deal with it. Thing is, it is going to be a good-size novel. I'm on the downhill slide, now, and I need to know what's working and what isn't for people before I dig into the next draft.

That said, National Novel Writing Month starts up again, on Monday...and I'm tempted to do some erotica, just to release some inner tensions. Question is, what? I have a vampire script I could turn into a nice erotic tale. Blood Angel. It's a bit hackneyed, however -- an 800 year old vampire queen obsesses with a young Jazz musician in post-Katrina New Orleans. It's got all the usual shit of he's The One she's been seeking since forever in order to take her place as Queen of Vampires...and it's kind of dopey.

So...I could make it just a lustful thing. She's after him because she wants to fuck with him, but in order for her to feel satisfaction...she'd need to kill him as they reach completion. Unless she turns him; then she's bound to him, forever. She isn't sure how she feels about that, even though she feels nothing except the need to have him again and again...

I used this scene from Matador as part of my idea for the story. This woman is a serial killer who seduces then murders men just as they ejaculate inside her.

Another possibility is Carli's Kills, about an ex-Army sniper who's out to avenger her daughter's suicide. She uses sex to get to the bastards who drove the girl to it. Then she falls for one who's not really part of what happened and all but rapes him...but by making him hers, that leads to his death.

Of course, there's also We-come, which would be erotic sci-fi horror. A critter's space ship crash-lands on earth and it uses people to feed on and use for energy as it sends off SOS signals to its fellow beings. Part of what gives it energy is the endorphins that explode when a human orgasms, so it forces both males and females to do so before eating them. Make it goofy and funny. Yum.

Hell, I don't know. I'm in a bizarre mood so I may wind up doing nothing. We'll see how it goes.

Needs more...

I finished another pass on the actual Battle for Bogside, that happened from 12-15 August, 1969 in Derry. I keep feeling like I need to add more, but what I've written is being resistant.  Here's a snippet of what I have:

I looked down at Waterloo...what I could see past the side tower block. I heard distant shouting echo up through the courtyard. Cries of anger. Cries of pain. Cries of laughter. From up here, it was like a living photo of some lost city in some lost civilization, found once again and illustrated with drifts of smoke that whispered by. Some came off the burning vehicles; some from the now ruined buildings; some from petrol bombs being thrown and gas being shot at us, still; some from God only knows where.

I was the only one on the walkways. I caught bits of movement atop the tower to my left. Caught hands whipping stones and petrol bombs over the side and down at the RUC, even though they were hardly about. It was too unreal for me. The space we'd been fighting so hard to preserve for ourselves suddenly looked tiny and meaningless, almost empty. I had not a clue as to how we could keep it.

Yes, we'd heard snippets of how tight the RUC was stretched by fighting in other towns. Word was people had been burned out of house and home in Belfast, by Protestant mobs in a sort of pogrom. That was how one broadcaster put it, but I'd need to look it up; I had no real understanding of the word...

No...no, Aidan had told me it was what was done to Jews in Russia, forcing them to leave their homes for new places. Yes, I remembered, now. And here, it was clear to me that one good push by fresh constables and we would be done the same, lose that little toehold we'd kept in our own city.

I wandered along the walkway. The elevators weren't working, of course. Part of the fight against us to lower our will. Electricity was occasional, at best. But it was only seven flights down...or eight. I couldn't remember, just then. I was too tired. Too unfocused to even think about it.

When I reached the group I was part of, I heard the stories of counterattack had changed. Westminster was sending troops. Sending the bloody army! Soon verified by radio reports. None of us liked the sound of that. Not a one. We didn’t trust they were coming to keep the peace. Too many of us knew how the British had been when dealing with the Irish, far too often in the last four-hundred years. But did we have strength enough left to fight them? No one wished to say the obvious aloud.

Then suddenly I noticed...there was nothing but silence.

Complete stillness.

Too much so.

I started to cough, nervous for the first time.

The smoke cleared, in full, and I could see all the way to Waterloo Place. From down here the street looked like a country gravel road, there were so many rocks and stones across it. But the barricades were holding. Stores that had been ablaze were now carcasses, still smoking. The air stank from the gas and lorries and busses destroyed by flames, some with still-burning tires. Why hadn't I understood much of the smoke I'd seen from above was due to them?

Or had I? My mind was fuzzy, at best.

I couldn’t speak, my throat was so caught by the foul air. I found even the thought of food made my stomach quiver in refusal. My fingers were torn and bloody, and I realized I’d not changed clothes since the beginning, so my trousers were rags and my shirt and parka were ruined. I was bloody exhausted, having caught only bits of sleep and a bite of cheese and bread here and there, between battles. And a sup of milk? Perhaps. I thought for a moment maybe, just maybe, I should go home and wash and get in clean clothes.

But I dared not leave. It was like the calm before a storm, this sudden terrifying silence. Not a word from the constables. No curses from the Prods. Not even calls from lads on our side. Not a whisper.

We were down on the number of bottles and petrol to be used. There were still rocks a-plenty and our own homemade cudgels and bats. We had a fine number of slingshots made from wood scrap. But the truth was, we were close to the end, and a fair portion of the silence was from our side of people not sure what would come next.

That was determined late in the day. First, were the rumbles of lorries approaching. Then came marching feet.

We held ready. Waiting. Fearing this might be the end.

Finally...we saw the Army striding in, proud and sure...and in formation.

Then they stopped and calmly pulled out wire barricades between us and the constables. And stayed there.

Stayed there!

Facing the RUC!

Keeping us apart! They were bloody keeping us apart!

I couldn’t believe it. Some around me began to howl for joy. Some wept from relief. I couldn’t move. I just stood where I was and stared at them for I don’t know how long, letting it settle slowly into my brain that I could finally take a good long wash, have a decent sleep...and finally get around to working on Mrs. O'Connor's wall clock. I'd promised it to her for yesterday.

I wandered through all of those thoughts until I let myself understand and accept...that by all the saints are holy, we had won. The army really had made itself a barrier between us and them. They were holding our right to Derry as fact. They would keep the Proddies from our homes and families, and hold back the worst of their threats. They had come to protect us! 

We. Had. Beaten. The. Fucking. Loyalists.

We had fucking won!

Back in motion...

I finished inputting changes to another chapter, today, which puts me just over halfway through this part of the story. I'm counting in the fact that I will need to add a great deal to the chapter about Bloody Sunday and another incident that will hit Brendan before he departs Derry. Meaning this will be a good 500 pages of double-spaced Courier 12pt. I'm at nearly 104,000 words, and have little doubt I will hit 110,000 before I'm done. But it is what it is and the story is working,

The family has moved from Nailors Row, finally, to a newer house on Cliodhna Place, a street I made up. This image is from about 1970 and shows the gable wall that eventually became the Free Derry Corner, middle left in the blue circle.

Something that keeps coming up with Brendan is, he likes having a decent place to live. While on Nailors Row, even though the house was really derelict he did all he could to make it livable. Like he's nesting. This move, however, winds up positioning them close to where the Battle of Bogside happens. 

He's not a neat freak; he just wants to feel comfortable. And if that takes a bit of fixing up, here and there, so be it. He's also known by his friends and neighbors as the local Jew boy, because of how he is with money. Not sure what to do with that tidbit, yet.

I think when Brendan gets to Houston, he is going to crash into a punk phase. Mainly due to things that happen to him, there. I've got several notes about it, already, and it will carry over into his return to Derry.

I love it when the story takes off under me.

Close to madness...

Today was a weird one. I felt close to losing control a few times, over nothing. The only thing I could figure that might have triggered this mood was another of John Wayne Gacy's victims was identified by Chicago police...and it turned out he hadn't even been reported missing. His family cared so little about his disappearance, they hadn't even wondered where he was. But they had sent some DNA in to an Ancestry webiste to trace their own roots, and the cops were connecting with that as one way to track down the few unidentified remains.

The guy was 21 years old when he was raped and murdered. A nice open face. He was dumped in a grave with other unidentified victims of Gacy, and was only disinterred when the cops decided to go further with trying to ID them. Even now, there's some question as to whether or not he'll be returned to his home town to be buried, that's how little his blood relations cared.

I have something like that happen in my book Bobby Carapisi. One character is cut off from the family because he's gay, to the extent they wipe him out of their history, as if he weren't even born. It was a hard thing to write because I knew someone that had been done to...someone who killed themself because it finally became too much to bear.

At the time, people said his suicide was because he had AIDs...but he was handling that. It was knowing he'd die alone and buried alone that finally did him in. He arranged to have himself cremated and his ashes scattered in Lake Austin, so there would be no headstone. He joked that the lake's water was so damned cold, it might mitigate being in hell.

I wasn't part of that. I couldn't do it. I was weaker, then.

What being brought back to this did, however, was jolt me in the writing of APoS. The story is too goddamned polite. Brendan goes through hell, in it, and needs to better react to that. He laughed and brought me ideas on how to let him start breaking free of convention and gentleness. I need to find his music, and I'm thinking British Punk...but I'm not sure if that works for the late 70s. He's definitely not disco or pop or even acid rock. He wants his own sound, for the time. Something he brings with him from Houston back to Derry and becomes his armor...his protection as he regains his footing in the city.

Maybe I'll track down The Next, a punk band from San Antonio who played a lot at Raul's, in Austin.

Ideas are coming...

There is a moment I've written in APoS where Brendan and Colm are headed away from a demonstration that's been attacked by the British Army, and they get rousted at a checkpoint. Initially, I had it set up so Brendan keeps the both of the from being dragged off to jail by talking about fixing cars. He even gives a Paratrooper a quick guide on how to handle a leak in a Range Rover Defender.

It wasn't a bad moment, but it felt...I dunno...perfunctory, in a way. Then today, as I'm in the middle of doing laundry, I got an idea on how to make it more intense. By this point in the story, Brendan and his mates are 15. It's before Bloody Sunday, which happens a few days before Brendan turns 16, and Colm's arm has been hurt by a rubber bullet. Another of Brendan's Chinas, Danny, is now with them, even though his parents moved him to Armagh, to work for the Catholic Archdiocese. He shouldn't even be in Derry, at the time.

The British are rough with the boys, but Colm and Brendan are somewhat used to it. Danny is not. There are strong indications he was molested by a priest, so when one of the Paratroopers gets a bit too familiar, Danny starts to freak out...which is the fastest way to get killed. No one knows what happened to Danny, but Brendan suspects it and uses that to claim the soldiers harassing Danny have threatened to take him into a cell and rape him. And he does it loud enough for a group of people waiting to go through the checkpoint to hear.

This starts a situation building, and Brendan keeps adding to it in ways to let Danny know he's going to be all right. Finally, an officer comes over to put an end to the commotion and Brendan continues with the lie. Makes it sound as real as he can.The troopers let Danny go, and the catcalls and curses coming from the crowd convince the officer to send Brendan and his Chinas on their way. It's not till they're away from the checkpoint that Brendan realizes what he's done and begins to panic. Now Colm, who's been quiet through the whole thing, has to take control and lead him home, Danny right next to them. I like it a lot more.

This sets up Brendan's quick-thinking and willingness to use lies to cover for himself and his mates, even in the face of the threats of the soldiers. Which happens, somewhat, in Book 3.

Researching...

Today was spent gathering details about Derry. My main focus is from February 1966, when Brendan's father is found dead, to October 1972, when he leaves Derry for Houston. The trick for this entire section of the story...which will be a book unto itself...is to keep it his perspective while still maintaining some awareness of the culture and Derry's people. This is why I'm doing so much reading and researching; I want it to come across as right as possible to someone who's lived in Derry all their life.

I've already been told that's impossible, and it came from a man I befriended online who actually has lived through it. He shared some info with me, but his attitude is I've set myself up for failure because I'm not from there. And no matter how careful I am, I can't possibly get all the details right.

His comments were part of the reason I've had so much difficulty convincing myself I should plow ahead. I have just enough of a writer's ego to think I can tell the story well, but not enough to get over the hump of well not being good enough.

So...I bounced around a lot and had arguments with Brendan as he kept pushing me to do it. And I'm now at the point where it's actually going to get done. I will have the first volume of this trilogy out in 2022, hopefully followed by the Houston section the same year. Because...as he keeps telling me...it's HIS story, not the city's. Nor is it a biography or historical fact. It's historical fiction, and if I put too much detail into it, I will make it unreadable.

I was in Austin when James Michener had his crew of researchers come in to get him information to put in his novel, Texas. And they got him tons. If there's anything Texans love, its stories about themselves and their glorious past. I tried reading the book when it came out. I made it through maybe 200 of the 1000 pages before I gave up. It kept putting me to sleep, there was so much to it.

If there's anything I do NOT want to do with A Place of Safety, it's put people to sleep with an overload of detail.

Dismal day of nothing much

I am getting to where i do not like to fly, anymore.My trip to Portland was a series of mishaps, thanks to American Airlines, and a lot of angst that was really unnecessary. And expense.

My flight leaving Buffalo so delayed, I was going to miss my connection to Portland so had to change flights, then buy a seat on the new flight because the cheap ones were all used up. My flight leaving Portland was late and hit DFW's runways at the time it was supposed to be at the gate.

But then came 15 minutes of taxiing to get to that gate, and then I had to change terminals, and I was hungry and needed to pee, but managed to get to the gate as my group was boarding. All set to depart on time...except the plane had mechanical issues and had to be swapped out, so we had to de-plane.

And then change terminals, again. I'd never been to DFW before, but found they have a shuttle that travels over the tops of the buildings to switch you around. The good thing is, I found time enough to hit the men's room and get a grilled cheese from Panera. I finished eating just as my group was called.

THEN, I was seated next to a couple of old women who were MAGAts. they honestly thought Marco Rubio was smart and the former guy did a lot for the US, like control China! I wound up watching Rocketman so I could drown them out. It was that or toss a fit and wind up on a no-fly list.

The movie was interesting, and Taron Egerton was good as Elton John. It took up most of the flight time, and finished when the old ladies were dozing. Wore out their jaws, I guess. But we didn't arrive till way late and that totally messed me up so I didn't get to bed till 3am. Made today worthless.

On top of it...I'm coming down with something...in my nose and throat...and think it's just a sinus issue. No headache and just my usual old man body aches. But I'm playing it safe and getting a Covid test on Sunday, at Walgreen's. I do not want to wind up a carrier of that crap when I'm supposed to go down to a house where elderly people are and pack their books, next month.

My one real accomplishment today was getting a cover arranged for my copy of Russell Stetler's Battle of Bogside. A fake Brodart made from a sheet of light mylar and some strips of paper, to protect the dust jacket. I'm behind in my schedule for reading, now, but between this nose and my crankiness, I wasn't going to retain anything, anyway.

Still...as they say, Tomorrow is another day.

Nature's resilience

I was in a part of Oregon that was hit hard by wildfires, last year, and while there were barren hillsides with nothing but tree trunks left to remind you a forest once covered these mountains, I also saw trees with scorched sides still sprouting green. A lot was destroyed. You can still smell traces of the smoke, and piles of burned logs were everywhere. I lost count of how many place I passed that had one been homes and now were just free-standing chimneys, or where new houses were being built. But there was still so much left, it startled me.

This is the area I was in, the driveway off the road. The house was spared but a shed holding irreplaceable archives was destroyed. And looking up I could see where branches that were once thick with leaves were now barren. But above them, the trees continued to grow,

When the climate finally turns completely on us, the planet will continue to build and grow and develop. We cannot destroy it, no matter how hard we try. New species will come up from the depths of the ocean to take over the land. It may take millions of years, but it will happen, and it will be as if we never existed. It's only our unimaginable arrogance that lets us think otherwise.

I finished Eamonn McCann's book and have copious notes from it, to reference. Tomorrow's trip may be spent reading Battle of Bogside. I tried to start it on the trip here, but zoned out so watched Cruella on American's entertainment system. Hmph, re-imagining Cruella DeVil as a hurt orphan who just wanted to design clothes but then went out for revenge over the death of her mother. Spread over more than 2 hours. Amazingly produced and the costumes were amazing, but the script was very ABC...

I went to Powell's, in downtown Portland, after I was done and found a couple more books I wanted. One deals with the British Army's excuses for its atrocious actions in Northern Ireland, as written by a British officer. This should be interesting. The other is another account of the hunger strikes of 1981. That's not as demanding, at the moment, because it's happening in Book 3, when Brendan returns to Derry.

So...tomorrow to home...

Back to A Place of Safety

 I've submitted both Porno Manifesto and Find Ray T to c a couple of places, to see what happens. Just a start. FRT is my mainstream piece while PM is my fuck you piece, and I'm having fun with it. The response will say a lot about how I should proceed.

So now I'm back to working on APoS. First plan is to finish Eamonn McCann's book while on my trip to Portland, then dig back into The Battle of Bogside by Russell Stetler. I really should get a Brodart cover for the latter book; the dust jacket is very worn.

One interesting aspect of having taken some time away from the first book is, getting back into it I'm beginning to take a different view of Ian Paisley, the man who led the intransigent Orange Men/Protestants against the Catholic push for civil rights. I'd viewed him as a demagogue, a radical sociopath in the manner of Mussolini, more than Hitler or Stalin...but I'm beginning to see that isn't exactly accurate.

Paisley gave voice to a group of people who'd been told all their lives, and all during their parents' and grandparents' lives, that they were the true owners of Ulster. They'd been given deference and bribed with homes and jobs for generations, to the point it wan't so much expected as just the way things always were and should be. It wasn't even habit; it was their world, and Catholics wanting to share in it was seen as an attack on the very fabric of their society.

Which is part of the reason they did so much to actually hurt their chances for peace by toppling one centrist Unionist leader after another, and why they felt it was all right to attack a group of peaceful kids walking down a country road. They saw them as a danger to all they held dear. Giving even an inch would have been unthinkable to them...and so they destroyed everything they thought they were protecting. It wasn't until both sides were worn out by the death and destruction that they came to terms with the new reality. Only took 30 years.

We can see the exact same thing happening here, with the former guy (I will not use his name) tapping into the same sense of fear and frustration in too many people in the US. Mostly white, but not all. Mostly poor and ill-educated, but not all. And you can see it building to the same conclusion -- violence and death, thanks to ineffectual leaders and the conniving politics of too many in state legislatures and Washington.

To my horror, this should prove quite interesting...

Finally...

 Not only is FRT done and formatted correctly all the way through...it's 115 pages long and I'm happy with it. I now need to figure out what I'm going to do with it. First thought was competitions...but I'm so out of that I'm not sure what's worthwhile, anymore. Research must be done.

I'm also sending my script version of Porno Manifesto out to a couple of gay-oriented production companies to see if they'll go for it. I worked up a synopsis --

Alec Presslea had friends he enjoyed, a career in IT that he loved, and his favorite bar (and bartender) not far from his condo. He had even escaped a toxic relationship in another town. He was perfectly content in his world...until he was gay-bashed by a carload of young men and almost killed. That is when his life took a turn towards chaos.

Once known as Mr. Vanilla, suddenly there were moments where, if he saw an attractive young man, a vicious animalistic urge would take him over and he'd become a creature on the hunt. The lustful intent in these episodes spooked him, but before he could get help to understand what was happening, he learned the police were shielding his attackers. Why? Because one, Freddy, was the son of a prominent, conservative judge. That is when he let the beast inside him take control.

Alec tracked Freddy to a college fraternity and quickly worked out that four other members had been part of the attack, that night. He stalked the guys, giving each of them a nickname -- Mafia, Soccer, Surfer, and Quarterback -- and used his technical abilities to sneak cameras into their fraternity house. He recorded their every move. Plotted and planned. Even prevented them from doing another gay-bashing.

At the same time, Alec began developing a manifesto to respond to the haters in the world. To confront any man who attacked him and his GBLTQ+ community. To answer a punch with a slug. Even force their abusers to become one with them. As part of his plan, he even joined one of the fraternity's parties and viciously raped Mafia, in his own bedroom.

A few days later, Alec convinced Mafia that Soccer was the one who had forced himself on him, and talked him into doing the same thing back to him. Then he manipulated the videos that had been recorded to make it seem as if they were just having sex...and posted them on Porno Manifesto, a website he'd developed that claimed all men were into gay sex.

Everything was going exactly like he wanted. However, even the most carefully laid plans for revenge wind up hurting the innocent as well as the guilty, something a part of Alec understood. Problem is, the rest of him was way beyond caring.

All that mattered was his Porno Manifesto.

 I guess I need to do the same for FRT, too.

Slowly...slowly...the end draws near...

Man, I'm fighting to finish FRT in FD. I'm at page 81 of 115 pages, and the program has gone complete squirrelly on me. I can work with it, but it's requiring a lot more effort. Line by line effort. Also, none of my keyboard shortcuts are working, so everything is point and click on the mouse.

I've gotten to where I don't only save it, I do a save as to reopen it and make certain it's being saved right. Doing this type of reformatting is tedious and mind-bending...but I'm getting there.

That said...I do like how solid the story is. And the characters are working with me to make it better. Something that happened, today, was a moment between Damon and his current girlfriend, Celia. It was supposed to end on a quiet note...but instead she got pissed and slapped him. And it made the moment work just right, because he was being a shit to her...albeit for good reasons. It also factors in better, later.

I could see turning this into a book. Explore Damon's background more, like with his parents. I toss off their influence on him with a couple lines in some dialogue with Graham, his director friend. That could be a whole chapter unto itself. And how his relationship with his ex-wife deteriorated, not from hatefulness or dislike or even falling out of love, but from a shifting of priorities on his part and her unwillingness to let that define her.

I love it when the characters do things for me.

The Writer's Law...

When you say, as a writer, that you will only make a couple of small adjustments to a work...maybe add in a line or two to help clarify the piece...you will quickly find you're fooling yourself. There is no such thing as a small adjustment when working on any project. I've reminded myself of this while working on Find Ray T.

My plan was to add a few lines of dialogue and expand a little on a moment 2/3 of the way into the script to heighten its humor...but instead the fates decided to fuck me over. Apparently, my old copy of Final Draft is screwed up. When I found the latest version of FRT, from 5 years ago, it opened up nice and easy. But the second I made a change, half my formatting fell out of whack.

It was insane. Suddenly, my dialogue was mixing in with names in half the the script. And no matter what I did...from shut down the program and reopen to save into a RTF so I could upload into Word to putting in page breaks to keep the bad part from infecting the rest of the script, nothing worked. So in order to make the minimal changes, I'm having to reformat each line. Scene heading. Action. Character name. Dialogue. Section by section.

I'm about 35-40% done, and it's tiring...but it's also giving me the time to smooth over other sections of the script that could use it. Removing superfluous words. Heighten other moments. So this counts as a new draft. When I am done, it will be sharper, cleaner, clearer, and (hopefully) funnier...and Damon more complete a character. Perhaps even believably heroic, at the end.

And I will do no more screenplays. I'm sticking with books, from now on.

Find Ray T

I found my last Final Draft version of the screenplay and have it in a PDF, as well. I have a couple pages of notes to filter into it, but overall it's still a solid script. I don't know why no one wanted it...but I feel that way about several of my screenplays, so it's probably just me.

I think I'm going to use Derrick Davenport, who was a Playgirl model in the mid-90s, as the image for my lead character. The story follows Damon Payne, a hot young actor, as he is forced to help the Russian mafia locate a snitch hiding in the witness protection program. The man had written a book about his life of crime and Damon played him in the movie version. It's an action-comedy with lots of running around, but it's also about a young man about to lose his way before finding out what's most important in life -- his ex-wife and his child. High concept, but not that high...

I once read the copy of Speed that sold for a million dollars. That was high-concept. It was written by Graham Yost...and it was just plain awful. Jack is introduced going after his aunt's chihuahua, because it's ventured onto the edge outside her 10th floor window and people think he's a jumper. Harry winds up being the bad guy. None of the passengers on the bus have personalities, and Annie doesn't fare much better. The studio bought it for the bomb-on-a-bus idea.

Story is, they were in preproduction before they realized the script was unfilmable and called in Joss Whedon to do a page one rewrite. Which he did, brilliantly. But got no credit. I'm sure it helped that Jan De Bont worked with him on adding visuals and was willing to let him play with the characters. And the truth is...you can tell who knew what they were doing by looking at what they've done, since.

Graham Yost has worked mainly in TV, with middling success. Nothing memorable. Jan De Bont came out of music videos and commercials and did a couple more films, but mainly he's stayed a DP. Joss Whedon wrote and made Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Dollhouse, Angel, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Justice League...and dozens of other fine works. He's said to be an asshole, but in the film biz that can be seen as an asset, not an issue.

I guess the point of this is, people are always saying the script has to be good to sell...but Graham Yost sold a crappy script because it had a good idea. Other writers have done the same thing. I never had an idea like that. Mine focus more on the people in the story, not how off-the-wall it can be. I would never have come up with something like Face/Off, and I'm too locked into reality to allow the stupid plot points in films like Die Hard 2 and The Rock. Hell, there's even been a movie about sharks in a tornado (I know the original writer) and that was a phenomenal success with numerous followups.

So I guess I just don't know how Hollywood and the audience work.

Back from Hudson Valley...

This trip was quick and dirty, and I'm not really done with it till tomorrow, when I turn the car in and finalize the archives for shipping. But it went well enough. It's just a long drive, and half the rest stops on the thruway between Syracuse and Buffalo are closed or being torn down for rebuilding...so that adds to the length of it. Fewer places to pull out for a moment and break things up.

But...both days were lovely, and the scenery amazing. This is of the Hudson River, from the 9D heading up  to Newburgh. In the foreground you can see the railroad tracks Amtrak uses to go from NYC to Buffalo...the same tracks used in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest.

I did get some interesting notes for FRT's rewrite. I just need to find the last version I did in Final Draft and load it onto my desktop. My FD file is too old to work on any newer computer. Irritating, but I'd stopped writing scripts so felt no need to update it.

I haven't stopped on APoS. I'm letting the information I've gathered from War and an Irish Town filter in, blending with Brendan and his life. I don't want to start adding in details for the sake of details or opinions that he wouldn't have had. That can happen too easily. The main thing I'm aiming for is the utter cluelessness of most people involved, and the arrogant stupidity of the British Army commanders, who think something that didn't work before, in India, will work in Northern Ireland.

But first things, first -- redo Find Ray T and decide what to do with it, then.

Returning to my time...

The last week has been madness, work wise, so I don't have the focus to write or even really blog. I decided that today as I was driving to Fishkill, NY (my overnight stop) I would think about APoS and how to increase its depth and humanity. Instead, my mind got caught up in an old screenplay I wrote -- Find Ray T. Why? I have no idea...but I was coming up with ways to make it funnier. I think. I don't really know, since my humor is not necessarily the laugh-out-loud kind.

So I made notes on that. And am being goaded into sending it out, again, once I do a rewrite for jokes and such. It's a good script, I know that already; but no one ever wanted my screenplays...except for friends...and even then not really. I'd get the positive feedback and Yeah, let's do this kind of stuff, but nothing more. It took me many years to realize I am not a good screenwriter. I'm too possessive of my work.

FRT is about a hot young Hollywood actor who's forced to help the Russian mafia find a snitch hiding in witness protection. The actor played the guy in a movie about his life and how he turned state's evidence, and mentioned in an interview he'd met with the snitch. If he doesn't do it, the Russians will kill his ex-wife, his child, his starlette girlfriend, and everyone else he ever knew...just as he's about to start a huge new movie.

This is the script that made me begin wondering if I should shift from writing scripts to books, only. Partly due to an experience I had when I posted it on TriggerStreet. That site was set up by Kevin Spacey and was an interesting concept -- to get your screenplay read and critiqued, you had to read and critique two scripts that were assigned to you. Screenplays with the highest scores got a blue star and consideration for production, if I remember right. It's been more than 15 years.

Well, I did my part and FRT got a good reaction. I achieved a blue star with it. The day after that happened, I got the worst review of my life on anything I have ever done. Blistered the script, line by line. It must have taken the guy hours to do. I lost my blue star. The one positive thing is, it was so over the top in its criticism, I actually couldn't take it seriously, though he did make two points that I felt were good.

So I rewrote the script, uploaded the new version, and got a blue star, again. BAM! The next day I got another vicious review. Not as harsh as the first one but still a negative. This one confused me, so I checked to see what other reviews the guy had done...and they were all pretty much the same. I checked the first guy, and he had hit other scripts just like he'd hit mine. Not one positive critique between them, that I could find. What was more? Neither of them had posted screenplays to be critiqued.

I laughed, now. These were assassination reviews. I mentioned that on the boards and the moderator bawled me out for it. Said I'd made it too easy to identify the culprits, and that my reasoning for this was nonsense. It was pure coincidence this happened. I didn't buy it, but what could I do?

I left the script up and did my bit, as I was supposed to. And got a blue star, again. And BAM! This one took 2 days. This time I went on the boards and spoke about what was happening -- that someone was gaming the setup and had worked out a way to cut down top scripts, probably to help promote a friend's screenplay...and I got bawled out, again, by the moderator.

This time I argued back, but they refused to think that anyone could have worked around their safeguards in order to leave negative reviews and threatened to bar me from the site. I pulled FRT off, instead, and dropped them. I could see where this headed and I wasn't willing to put up with it. Plus by this point I was working on my first book and finding I liked being in control of every aspect of it. Within a few years, I stopped writing screenplays, altogether.

I've thought about shifting the script into a book, but it's not at the top of my list, not at all. So to have it suddenly pop up out of nowhere is a surprise, especially when I'm in the middle of working on book 1 of APoS. But I've learned the hard way, if I ignore a project, everything else gets screwed up. Meaning...when I get home, I'm rewriting FRT.

If I can find the old Final Draft edition I did...

How typical...

 Well...first off, on Tuesday I got a booster shot for Covid. Pfizer. Last one gave me chills overnight, but I'd forgotten it still took me a full 48 hours to get back to feeling normal, again. So yesterday was not a good day for writing. What made it even worse? Two jobs came calling...one taking me to Las Vegas for a hand-carry, the other hopping over to Chicago to pick up a client for Firsts London's book fair. All very scramble, scramble, get it set, now.

Before the day was done, the Chicago job got canceled because they found someone actually in Chicago to do it...so I had to rearrange everything for the Las Vegas job, which was made difficult because cars are hard to come by at the rental agencies, there. My two mainstays were both out of stock. I only got a hotel set up, today...and I'm heading out tomorrow. Jesus.

Then another job came in, driving downstate in NY to pack and ship out an archive. ASAP, please. That's set for next Monday/Tuesday...so there's where my day went, today -- working up costing, arranging for transportation and accommodations and making sure the timing would work...and the following week I'm in Portland.

This always happens when I get heavy into writing or rewriting a book. I managed to get through a little of APoS, today, but found the chapter I'm working on needs to be split in half. One part would be the lead-up to the fight for Bogside; the other would be the actual fight that, for the first time, established a part of Northern Ireland as being under Catholic control instead of Protestant. That infuriated Protestants.

One good thing about this set of trips is, it will give me time to re-read Stetler's book, The Battle Of Bogside, which was written only a few months after it happened. It's long out of print, but I managed to find a copy at Walled Books in Derry, a few years ago. I'm tempted to leave my laptop at home, since I won't reallyhave time to fire it up and don't want the extra weight to lug around. I'm not checking a bag, just taking my rucksack with paperwork and a change of clothes stuffed in.

God, I'd feel so disconnected, even though my phone connects to everything...and means no blogging till Saturday...

4 January 1969

I'm through the point where the People's Democracy march is attacked at Burntollet Bridge, outside Claudy. Brendan's brother, Eamonn, is on the march so Brendan sneaks away from home to try and connect with them, but he is unable to until after the attack has happened. Eamonn is seriously injured and in Altnagelvin Hospital when Brendan finds him.

This image is from the attack, one of the marchers, many of whom were hurt but still carried on their walk up to the Guildhall, which is another 6-7 miles away. I've read reports of anywhere from a dozen people needing hospital treatment to 80. I kept the numbers of this part indistinct, for all that matters is the two brothers and their reactions to what's happened.

I have another angle of it tacked to the bulletin board above my work table. Looking straight out at me. Demanding I finish the story...as I'm trying, now, to do.

I hate to call this a coming of age moment for Brendan, but he does begin to see things more clearly and is unwilling to accept the lies and manipulations from not only the Protestant side of the struggle but also the Catholic. Still, he's only 12 and trying to figure out his way in the world so is confused and uncertain about it all. He just knows people he's trusted are not being honest with him, and it makes him back away in order to give himself time to better understand.

Become even more of a loner.

More and more...

I'm finally up to 1969 in the story. Feeling better about it, but there is still a lot of background I'm missing. Thing is, since this is being told from the viewpoint of a 10-12 year old boy, so far, there's only so much I can put in and have it stay real. Plus Brendan is a loner, with just a few real friends. Keeps to himself a lot. Perhaps a bit autistic. His mother keeps referring to him as being simple, even though he's more than capable in many areas.

He is aware of the growing anger and restlessness in Northern Ireland over the discrimination practiced by the Protestants against them. People are talking...organizing ways to end it. Parallels are drawn with the civil rights marches and protests against the Vietnam war in the US and the May Day riots in France, where younger people are pushing for change, and the old guard just does not want to give way. Once power is tasted it become addictive, so they're fighting back in brutal ways.

It's spooky to me that so much of what's happening in the US is like a repeat of what happened in NI in the late 60s, leading up to the horrific violence of the 70s. The rich are fighting any change in the status quo and the media is going along with them. Fanatical "Christians" are forcing their views down other people's throats, despite us being a secular nation. There was even an attempted coup started by a megalomaniac who is out of his fucking mind, and the law won't do a goddamn thing about it, except arrest the grunts who carried it out and give them slaps on the wrist.

The more the world changes, the more it stays the same...except we are now in a time where Mother Nature is basically saying, "The hell with that. You won't take care of my planet? I'll take care of you." I wouldn't be surprised if the world's population starts decreasing in the next few years, from famine, catastrophe and war...even as the rich think they will be able to buy their way out of the consequences.

Maybe that's the real reason Bezos and Musk are reaching for the stars...evade responsibility while they still can...