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.
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.
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