Reworking some things...

I've decided to redo the paperback cover of Porno Manifesto, my second published book. This will be the third edition; the previous cover is 8 years old and Facebook and Tumbler have gotten all pissy about it. When I try to post it on there, now, they freak out and block it. I think their algorithm takes the knife in the model's hand for his dick, but they won't explain it or give me a way to appeal. So...I think I'm going to use this as the avatar and front cover, now.

Lord, I published this back in 2008, with Nacza Plains Press, who put a cover on it I truly hated. When I got my rights back in 2014, I arranged with a photographer to shoot the model with the knife then got a background image from Shutterstock. Now I'm going for a cleaner, simpler look in my books, and this works a lot better. At least, the feedback is good.

This is the book I adapted into a screenplay, and there were things I changed in it to better reflect today's world that I would like to put in the novel...but I promised myself I would not be rewriting my narrative work once it's published, no matter what. Except if I find a typo. So I haven't. It is what I wrote at the time.

Still...if anyone wants to back me in making the movie, it could be shot here in Buffalo for under a million bucks, I'm sure. No car chases or special effects. Not a big cast. We could even shoot it in Toronto, if you want...make it work even better. Or Montreal. Get some porno boys in? Any takers? Hmm?

As for CK...I'm getting the first indications the characters think they went a bit crazy on me and are settling down. I'm still leery of them, but we'll see how it goes. It just means APoS will not be completed this year.

I can live with that...if this thing with Ukraine doesn't start WW3...

Stepping back from writing, for a while...

I cannot come to terms with Carli's Kills, right now. This sudden implosion of the story has taken a serious toll on my self-confidence...to the point I wonder if I made a huge mistake shifting from art to writing. I'm caught in this downward spiral and don't know if I care enough about it to even try to change the trajectory.

That's not to say I reject the parts of my work that I do think...no, that I know are good. But those moments came from complete trust between me and the characters. I could not have written Bobby's suicide without finally just accepting that he was right about it and doing it, and letting myself grieve for him. I could not have helped Curt go from a wounded howling beast to a man finally understanding who he was without his willingness to help me and reveal himself to me.

It's the same in A Place of Safety. Brendan and I fight and he gets pissed at me for my wariness about the story, but he's still there to lead me into finding the depth I need to tell it properly. And what hurts me most about this sudden shift due to CK is how it's made me wary of returning to APoS. Made me fearful of it, again. Made me question my ability.

As I've said many times, I have to trust my characters...and I will do all I can to work with Brendan on his story...but it's been made into far more of a struggle...and I feel completely lost.

Part of this is may be due to the horror going on in Ukraine, and the anger deep within over how Republicans are dissing Biden and hurting the US over it. I was no real fan of Joe's when I voted for him, but he's done a tremendous job in the face of those bastards, and I'm now at the point I think I'd slap anyone who told me they were part of the GOP. now.

So the two are combined...maybe. I don't know. Events haven't affected my writing like this, before. So maybe I'm just looking for excuses. But the reality is, I just plain do not trust my abilities, at the moment. And I need time and space to see if I can rebuild them.

This is not going well...

What do you do when you stop trusting your characters? I've finally realized that I'm looking at basically doing a full and complete rewrite of Carli's Kills, changing everything the characters initially set themselves up for, and I'm pissed as hell. It's like I'm beginning from scratch...and I've already done that, once.

I went the direction I thought they wanted. Set the structure and timing pretty much down. Had the characters interacting in ways I thought they wanted. Wasn't crazy about some of the maneuvering I had to do to make things work, but it was going forward.

And I do mean they led me along this particular path. But now it's suddenly, Oh let's just start over? Let's not have Carli all THAT much of a killer. Let's take away Zeke's pain and just have him really upset at what's happened to a buddy. Let's not have Carli so full of guilt or anger.

I don't know what the story is, anymore. It's fallen completely apart.

This is the second time I've had this happen. First Dair's Window went off in wild directions, to where it was becoming Adam's story instead of Dair's...and now CK is going all kumbaya on me. Like they want to all smoke a nice peace pipe at the end that's packed with pot.

I also had a script collapse on me, once. This action-suspense piece about a mobster who has a witness against him killed, but the witness expected it and took out a contract on the mobster's son. Just not the one everybody knew about. He'd gotten a woman pregnant and she had the kid and moved across the country. The dead man aimed the contract at him...and a complete innocent is now Marked For Death. I got to the halfway point then BAM! Hit a brick wall. No idea where to go after that. At all.

Shit...maybe I'm not really a writer, except in a very limited genre of gay eroticism where the writing doesn't really count. Because I do not know what to do, now. I honestly do not know what to do.

Grady's Punishment

***Be warned...this has non-con and some sexual violence in it, though not as much as when I first wrote it***

It was still dark when Grady woke. And it was fucking cold. His head pounded. He couldn't focus his eyes. His mouth was brittle and felt swollen, and he felt like he'd been run over by a truck. Shit, how much had he drunk, last night?

Then he realized his face was pressed against something hard and rough and unyielding, and it seemed like it was still dark. A breeze was whispering over him, making him even colder, and...and... 

Holy shit, am I outside? 

Well, that made absolutely no sense because Grady did not sleep outside. Ever. He needed a ceiling above him with his back firmly against one of the four walls around him...and that was not happening, right now, was it? 

I mean, like, hell to the no. 

But there he was...face down, now feeling grit, sand and stones pressing into his ear. Did he pass out? Did he have a wreck on his chopper? Was he crashed on the side of the road? 

Aw man, had everything that happened with Stasi...was it just a dream? 

He tried to roll over but couldn't move. He flexed his arms. They were frozen to his sides. His legs wouldn't move, either. He tried to speak but his mouth wouldn't let him. It felt like...like a tube was shoved in it? And was strapped in place...and he finally realized... 

He was gagged...and his hands were bound, behind him, and his legs were tied side-by-side at the ankles and knees...and he was on his belly on the ground, and that made no sense! Then he felt someone pulling at...pulling at his jeans? Forcing them down his legs to his knees. Shifting him so that that stones and rocks and grit under him dug into his pecs and stomach and chin. 

Shit...am I being stripped?! Oh, no fucking way. 

He began to struggle...but all that brought about was a sudden, sharp smack to his ass. 

"Oooohhhh," said a low growly voice that sounded familiar. "Grady's wakey." 

He tried to raise his head to look over his shoulder but couldn't turn far enough to see anything. So he began to grunt and howl. 

Whoever was yanking at his jeans stopped and pulled at the waistband of his briefs. Which weren't the cleanest ones he'd ever worn. Dammit. Hadn't his mother always yelled at him to always wear clean underwear, in case of moments like this? Always? 

Shit. 

The waistband snapped back against his skin, then he heard that voice say, "Good morning. Remember me?" 

Stasi...shit! She's doing this to me? What the fuck's going on? 

He starting to breathe heavy, and the thing in his mouth wouldn't let him speak. He still managed to grunt, "What the fuck, bitch? You into some kinky kind of shit? Lemme go! This ain't fun!" 

She chuckled...and he felt her tear open his briefs then slap his half-naked butt, a couple of times...almost playful. 

"Kind of hairy," she said, "but not bad. You ever do nudes, Grady? Show it off for the boys?" 

Shit, this had to be a dream. Some bitch has kidnapped and was stripping him? Was she about to ravage him? Damn, all the times he'd imagined it and now it was really happening? Really? 

No, not really. Because now he had an idea of what was up. The money in his lock-boxes. Oh, shit...he wasn't scared, now, oh, no...he was fucking terrified, because Dax would kill him if she took that away. 

"Who the fuck are you? What you gonna do?" He talked slower, trying to enunciate. 

He was pretty sure she understood him, but all she did was grab his cheeks and spread them apart, then begin rubbing what felt like a club or bat or tube between them.

Oh, she's not gonna do that...she wouldn't...she couldn't! 

All she said was, "I guess it's only polite to let you know, Stasi's dead." 

"What the fuck?" Grady managed to growl, despite the gag. "What's this all about? What's fuckin' goin' on?" 

He kept on and on with questions of the same basic nature as he felt that club press against his anus. All coherent thought vanished from his head as he bucked at her and fought to shift away, but she rode him like you would ride a bronco, laughing. Suddenly, the damn thing was vibrating and he felt the point of it pressing against his rectum...and...and... 

HOLY SHIT, IT WAS SLIDING INTO HIM! 

He bucked at her, even more, but all that did was help her push it even deeper. It was like she was splitting him in half, the soft humming and shivering of it tearing into his very being as he screamed and struggled but could not stop her. In fact, she used his twisting and fighting to help turn him onto his back, keeping that thing inside him, massaging him in places no one had ever gone, before.

His eyes were jammed shut in pain, so he only barely felt her pull at his briefs and tear them open to reveal his pride and joy, but he sure heard her sigh. "Oh, Grady, you're not circumcised."

What? What the fuck's that about? Who cares? She's fucking raping me and so fucking what if I still got my foreskin? 

He opened his eyes and finally saw the woman was dressed in a black leotard or onesie or whatever the damn things are called, with a balaclava hiding her head. Latex gloves were on her hands, and she held a travel-size jar of Vaseline. "I don't understand why all men don't have this thing cut off," she sighed, pinching and pulling at the foreskin. 

He grimaced and tried to shift away from her as the vibrations inside him kept shattering him to the core. 

She continued, with "It ruins the look. Gives a nice dick the appearance of a garden hose or an anteater. Gets dirty. Jews and Muslims have the right idea; just get rid of it." 

"Leave me alone. Leave me alone! Leavemealone!" 

He squirmed more as she pulled the foreskin back, making him moan, and not in ecstasy. "At least you're clean," she continued. "That's a positive. My mother's big on cleanliness. Causes cervical cancer, you know." 

And suddenly, she was stroking him! And she was rolling his balls with her other hand! 

What the actual fuck? Is she jacking me off? 

She kept on with, "The old testament hated foreskins, you know. I had to read the entire thing." She chuckled, then began to pull at him, hard. "Momma didn't expect me to notice was how stupid and male-centric it was." 

She kept running her hand up and down his dick. Rolling his balls with her other hand. Soft and easy but insistent. As for that thing up his ass, still shivering and humming...now he figured it was a vibrator. And to his horror, it was making him feel things he didn't think a guy should feel, in a situation like this. Like...like having his dick respond to her manipulation of him!? Oh, this was not to be endured.

 Except...much as he hated to admit it, this was feeling too damn good. Especially when she toyed with the ring in his left tit. The fire shooting through him made him clench his ass, slipping the vibrator in even deeper, rubbing rocks and dirt against his skin and pushing him harder against her hand. 

He was now fully erect. 

She stopped stroking him. He could do nothing but groan and shift as his dick flopped back on his belly, and look up to face a billion, billion stars. Not a single cloud, and the moon was full. Well, confirmation he was most definitely outside. 

The woman entered his field of vision and held up a gray backpack. Somehow he knew, if he could have seen her face, she'd have been smiling. Because that backpack had been in one of his Harley's side boxes. Which had been locked. It held the money he'd collected, that day, from Dax's pushers and dealers and suppliers. 

Dax is gonna fucking kill me.

"You think this is what I'm after, don't you?" she said.

He glared at her and tried to spit out a flurry of curses along the lines of, "You fuckin' bitch, don't you dare fuckin' do this to me, you fucking cunt, I'll cut your fuckin' tits off," and on and on as he struggled to free himself. Wasn't doing any good. He now could see ropes were also wrapped around his chest holding his arms in place. Dammit. 

"The cash is nice, but this isn't why you're here." She squatted down to flick at his penis, saying, "This is. Only, that erection didn't last long. Doesn't Grady have any staying power? Let's see what we can do about that." 

She shoved a hand between his legs, found the base of the vibrator was still just outside his rectum, and flicked a switch. It began to work harder and louder.

Grady shook his head and tried to scream. He bucked at the ropes, but all he succeeded in doing was crushing his hands and arms against the hard rocky ground. He cursed and howled and screamed and struggled but in moments, he was gasping from the pain. 

She began stroking him, again, one hand on his dick, the other back to toying with his balls, saying, "Y'know, Grady, men are pussies. I figured that out when I learned Moses was too weak-assed to circumcise his son, so his wife had to do it. Proved to me that women are stronger." 

She straddled his right leg, still working his dick. The vibrator kept humming on and on...and it working faster and almost angrier...rubbing inside him in ways that sent shivers through his dick and balls...to his shock, he found he was getting off on this. 

She pinched his foreskin, again. Hard. 

He yelped, then he started to whimper. 

"Something else to consider about this thing?" she continued. "1 Samuel 18:27. Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king's son in law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife." Still stroking him, she tickled the fingers of her other hand up from his balls and through his pubes to his now-heaving little belly. "When I read that, first question that hit my feverish brain was, Did Michal go to her brother, Jonathan, and ask him what it was like to be with David? What with all that love that surpasses that of women stuff, he probably had an inside track on what made Davie run. Man, even just wondering about that was somewhat sacrilegious." 

She caressed the eagle on his chest and toyed with the rings in his tits and pulled at the hairs on his pecs and tummy. 

He squirmed and tried to shift away but could not...just grew harder and harder. 

"What do you think? If I was a man doing this to you, would you be able to keep from getting an erection? I doubt it. As you mentioned, once, men can find satisfaction with either women or other men, in the right place at the right time." 

She kept working his dick, gentle but insistent. 

His ass clenched. He pushed against her. That fucking vibrator was feeling better and better. He was close...so close... 

"You...you fuckin' rapin' me..." he choked. 

"Oh, Grady, can a woman rape a man? Many say no, that men can only rape women. Of course, they also claim that men can't rape men, so there is that stupidity to deal with." 

He grimaced, the sensations crashing through him far too demanding to ignore or fight or even try any discussion with. 

She chuckled. "Kinky boy. You're just like this...well, this guy I once knew. Built like a brick shithouse, with a voice you could hear clear to the South Pole. He also had a wife and five daughters, and he loved a big black dick up his ass when he was fucking me. Is that you, Grady? Should I phone a friend?" 

She sat up, still rubbing his dick. Up and down and up and down, the foreskin now all but vanished. 

"He and I had fun, more than once, with this gorgeous lad named Kareem. He was cut. So was Sarge, who loved being the meat in our sandwich." She sighed and continued, "It's funny, but just thinking about Kareem...and his smooth skin...no tatts...hair in just the right places...a smile that could shame the sun...and an ass that would turn any man gay...just picturing him gets me going." 

She caressed the eagle on Grady's chest then pinched his nips, again. 

"And needy. So, Grady, you're not as taut as him, or big as him, but would you still like me to fuck you? I could get undressed..." 

Grady was beyond rational thought, by now. Just breathing heavy, half from fear and half from outright horniness. He managed to growl, "You're fuckin' rippin' me off and you wanna fuck, too? That's fuckin' crazy. Get this thing outta my ass! This is fuckin' rape, you fuckin' cunt! I'll get your ass in jail and fucked every night, bitch!" 

She chuckled, shifted back and began pulling harder on his dick. 

He grunted. 

"So you don't like it when you don't get to consent? You get to do what you want, but if anyone does it to you, oh...not nice." 

She pulled, even harder. Stroked faster. He groaned...then he felt a surge explode in his groin and fire up from his balls to the base of his dick and he jolted and gasped and clenched and tensed and...and...oh shit, he ejaculated. His cum splashed back onto his belly and dripped into his pubes as he cried out like a dog finishing inside his chosen bitch. 

No, no, no...it ain't possible. She's got me tied down in the middle of the desert and she still got me to cum? How the fuck could that be? 

Then she pinched and twisted the ring in his left tit and he fired, again. Clenched his ass and shifted his hips into her hand and whimpered and gasped. His breath was sharp and ragged. And oh my God, the pleasure washing over him was way beyond belief. It was like the first time he'd jacked off. Sensations danced over every cell in his body, from his groin straight to toes and even his ears. He had never experienced an orgasm like this, before. He nearly blacked out from its his force...its near perfection.

"Was that good for you?" she asked, as she wiped his cum on his face. "Did you enjoy it, you little cunt?" 

She could tell he had. 

"I'm not after the money," she added.

Then she held up a gleaming single-edge razor blade. It reflected the moonlight. Looked as evil as anything ever had. She caressed his chest with it. Around his nipples, one after the other. Trailed it down treasure trail over his belly. 

"Can you guess what I'm really after?" 

He whimpered, confused. He was soft, again, so she gripped his foreskin. Pinched it tight. 

He tried to squirm away but she had too good of a hold. 

"I'm after giving you pain," she growled, "like you gave me." 

Then she pulled the skin out as far out as she could... 

Twisted it. 

Felt for the head of his penis. 

Cast him a smile of the purest delight...

And sliced the blade through his flesh.

And despite the gag, Grady’s choking shrieks of pain filled the empty, endless desert night.

Digging in...

 I've worked through the 1st 70 pages of Carlli's Kills to set up the new direction it's taking. Not a lot of change...until Carli kidnaps Grady. Now? No more exposition about why. She now wears her black leotard and balaclava, and lets him think she's attacked him for the cash he's carrying. He's collected from the gang's drug couriers and has plenty of it.

There is now a vibrator being used. She also quotes 1 Samuel 18:27 as she prepares to circumcise him. I figure I'm going to go all in on this and have fun with it. She's raping the men who raped Lara...who I'm thinking of making her sister instead of her daughter and remove all the uncaring mother angst in this thing. It was becoming a bit overbearing.

Problem is...now the title's a bit off. I need to think about that.

I can't do a lot of work on it right now because I'm also brushing up on export license regulations in the UK, for the NY Book Fair, next month, and prepping my taxes for my CPA.

So that's all for now.

Need a distraction...

 The Kiffniss is a South African musician who records various sounds, mostly from animals but not all, and makes songs out of them. Love what he comes up with...

I got nothin' else to say, right now...

It's official...

I'm reworking the middle of Carli's Kills. Dammit. But I like the off-beat aspect of a woman out for revenge who doesn't actually kill any of the guys. Just tortures them in very cruel ways. I may still have one die...but I won't know till I'm in the middle of it.

Won't be as huge of a rewrite as I feared; mainly just adjusting and shifting emphasis here and there...and removing some of Carli's doubts and self-reflection. Also, bringing back the razor blade I was having her use in place of a knife. I think that's actually scarier.

I also think I'm not going to have Lara commit suicide. She's emotionally damaged by the rape, but the video winds up causing a deep depression to the point of catatonia. Meaning I'll be working in moments between mother and non-responsive daughter. And grandmother.

And some of this back in. That's what I'm really missing...the men subjugated in ways that will really cause them the same turmoil as Lara went through. Less reason for Carli to slaughter the rapists and more reason to show them what rape really means.

The legal bullshit used to keep from doing anything about the rape remains, with lawyers protecting scum. And Eldora still holds back because she's on the take, from Dax. But more politics involved. And less wordsmithing to keep things going while still making sense. I'm aiming for a cleaner, colder, crueler line...with quips.

I think. I won't know if this is any better, really, until I write it.

Here we go, again...

Carli's Kills just blew up on me, and I'm currently trying to make certain I'm not falling into one of my moralistic attitudes with it. In this version, she wouldn't kill any of the guys...just Stasi, at the beginning. But she does take revenge by hurting them in a way most men will hate, but doesn't necessarily lead to death. It sounds like a good idea...but it also sounds like I'm slipping into careful territory, and that's not what I want.

So I'm taking a bit of time off from the story to let this thing wander through me before I begin rewriting. I've had occasion before, where I get into overhauling a story with a new idea that would make things a hundred times better only to realize it's bullshit and the characters are fucking with me. Meaning I'm leaving them to it to make certain I'm not going to waste time, again. Because this would be like redoing half of what I've already written.

However...it might clear up some of the trouble I'm having with the story. The timeframe and doing a dance to keep Zeke from figuring out Carli's a killer. I want him nice and sweet and innocent, but not dumb. It's also entirely possible this will cut about 10,000 words out of the story, so I can avoid half of my tap dance with Eldora and Dax and all that crap.

I don't know why this is happening now, after I've put so much work in on it. I thought I was paying attention to what the characters wanted. But I watched an interview with Lucy Lawless about My Life is Murder, and she pointed out that it's a light, fun show with a bit of murder in it, then added there were plenty of dark crime series out there and she didn't want her show to be one of them. That we'd been through enough darkness, the last few years.

I could see her point. And if this turns out the way it's suggesting, it will still be very off the wall and funky; just not as dark or wicked as I was planning. I guess we'll see what happens.

But no matter what, Zeke will still be its heart and Carli its protagonist on a mission...though not necessarily one from God.

I Hate Writing...sometimes...

I don't know how the hell people can write books so fast and easy. Am I just crap at it? Have I stupidly convinced myself I know how to tell a story when I can barely construct a group of sentences that make any sense?

I reworked the last two chapters and went over them, today...and what I did was sloppy as hell. Things are said that need to be said at that moment for the story to continue. Too much information is jammed into dialogue. Too much dithering when I dig into each character's mind...and it was awful. It read like a preliminary draft instead of a revision of something that had already been reworked four times.

Not the whole thing...really. Just the action from when Dax returns to the Cantina to the end of the next to the last chapter. That's when everything explodes. Like it was shorthand for who's doing what, where, how and when, and the reader can just fill in the blanks, themselves...and never mind those blanks are a mile wide, each.

I'm probably just tired. I spent most of the day setting up my storage space and checking out a mattress and finding a pallet to put on the floor of the storage unit then shifting boxes into it. On a COLD day with a nasty wind and probably -100 windchill. If I don't get pneumonia, it'll be a miracle.

I'll work on it, again, tomorrow...and Monday and Tuesday and keep at it till I can figure out what the hell is going on here and the damned thing works.

And now Zeke is just telling me to calm down because this part is coming together. Whether I can see it or not. I just wish I could get it done...

Hmm...I've always got him in jeans, but Alex usually wears shorts, showing off his bionic leg. Maybe I need to rethink some things I'm doing in the story...

The Joy of Writing...

It comes from keeping it as real as you can while it's completely unreal. Especially in fiction-writing of any kind. You fight to build a world that has meaning and grace and provokes thought while maintaining a core of truth and honesty...and who the fuck am I kidding? I just wanna have fun playing with my fantasies and spitting into the wind without it flying back in my face.

That's not so easy to do...not when your imagination is as warped as mine is. Right now, I'm trying to feed my inner growling thing a story where a woman is more of a man than the men in the piece, while a man is the heart and soul of it. Totally turning the whole damned aspect of basic storytelling on its head. And feeling somewhat bruised and battered by it all.

It took me finding this lovely image to remind me that there may be others who feel the same. Who might accept my cock-eyed vision of life as one deserving of acceptance in place of the real world. I need to remember that I'm writing a fuck you book...like I've written a fuck you screenplay. Freeing myself from the demands of generic writing. Screw conventions and normalized storytelling; this baby's not going down that road.

The protagonist in Carli's Kills is a woman who abandoned her daughter to the care of her less-than-beloved grandmother and went gallivanting all over the world, screwing around and treating men like live dildos, for the most part. She did like some of them, but they're toys to her. And no judgement allowed about that. In fact, she's proud of it.

Then she meets a lovely lad who brings her back to earth from her lofty heights...and doest't so much tame her as let her see there are other possibilities in life, and sometimes it's better to share them than to kick out and do it all on your own. She's not a bad woman; she's just hell on wheels, and God help anyone who tries to run her off the road.

I've felt moral judgement creeping into CK. Well...guess what? That's what's going out the window on this next draft. Carli wonders about her choices, but doesn't feel they were wrong. She was never meant to be a mother; religion and the law forced her to be.

And she just plain does not accept the whole idea that she was meant for nothing else.

Newly updated ending...

Did some restructuring and rewriting and redoing of the final confrontation and last chapter of CK. Wound up adding 6 pages and the story is 84,700 words. Carli's now in the middle of it instead of acting like a deus ex machina. One of the bad boys gets away but Carli lets him. Not because she's done with killing but because she's got a different focus, at the moment, and tracking him down would take away from that.

Dammit.

Anyway, I'm going to print these new pages up, do a red pen on them the input everything this weekend. I don't think this is ready to be read, yet, so will give it one more pass. Try and make it read better. Right now it's pretty basic grammar....composition...

Something I've been wondering about is doing some pen and ink sketches illustrating moments in the book, like used to be done int the 19th century for major authors like Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Perhaps one per chapter, which would mean eight of them. Not sure about that, yet...but I could do something like this for the chapter dealing with Grady's death...which could be fun.

I made a cheese soup, for dinner. In a crock pot. Just 2 cans of Campbell's version, diced Roma tomatoes, chopped green onions, butter, and 8 Velveeta 3 cheese slices. Mixed with water. Turned out tasty and made a total of 4 meals. I can even use it as a dip for chips, if I choose. Been a while since I've cooked like this

What's nice is, in my new place I'll have more space in the kitchen. A fridge with a freezer that will make ice and store a number of meals and meat. I'm looking forward to it. I've set up a storage unit, just a 5x5 since all I'm putting in it is boxes of papers. I'll have to find a pallet to stack them on, because I don't want them on the ground.

Maybe I can find one at the facility.

New digs...

Today I spent nearly 3 hours applying for...and getting...a new apartment in a Senior Housing building. 9th floor. Subsidized rent that will shave a couple hundred off what I currently pay. Moving in the first week of April. For this, I'm getting a new bed...full size...and furniture for a living room. Which pretty much wipes out my first year's savings but will give me a space to live like a person instead of an overgrown college student.

And...I get a view...albeit to the west. Meaning evening sun in the summer. Not promising for keeping cool. But it's time to move. I've been in this place for 12 years and it's okay enough...but I'm ready to move on.

The manager was running late, so while I was waiting I worked out a quick new outline for the ending scene in CK, to make it more intense. Better. Scarier. Shit, I dunno. Just not so flat and easy. I want it done before I move so I don't have to deal with that after I'm in. Then I can start back on APoS fresh and clear. I'm even getting an official desk instead of using a card table.

I'm also getting a storage facility for my boxes of papers. I have no need for those to be on-hand, anymore. And I'll be dropping my 323 cell phone. I'm never returning to live in LA, and it's money out for nothing.

I know I keep using images of Alex Minsky as Zeke to illustrate this blog, but he makes me happy. I follow him on Instagram and know he's found himself a good life...and that also inspires me. I think it's when I saw him in his new world with his dogs and wife and what looks like a toddler that I started backing away from killing him at the end of the book. That would be too bleak and nihilistic...

...And that's not what Zeke is about, to me, anymore.

Out of it...

So much work, today, all on the office computer that hates me...I'm pretty much brain dead. Got done at 6pm and just now beginning to even consider contemplating reality. Can't lay this off on old age; I've always been like this. After a rough day my mind takes a break from me for a while and all I do is veg.

I'm hoping in the background of my imagination I'm working on the ending of CK, so it will be kick ass instead of meh.  Right now? I haven't a clue as to how to make it better.

It's funny, but I've fallen in love not only with Zeke but Carli...which makes no sense because I'm totally gay and have never even come close to being with a woman. Doesn't appeal to me, at all. But Carli being such a take-charge kind of bitch is throwing my sexual makeup into confusion. I think maybe I'm losing that aspect of her in the finale.

I mean, Lucy Lawless is not one to suffer fools or put up with shit...and if she's my model for Carli, I need to up my game. Right now, she just sort of pops in and saves the day after everything else has happened...and that's an insult to all the characters. It needs to be a hundred times more intense.

But right now my brain is nothing but mush.

A little anarchy never hurt anyone...much...

Worked all day, and I do mean until 8:30pm, so no chance to do anything with CK. Not even thinking...

...Except, I really have settled in on the idea that I want this story to keep from falling into the usual moralistic crap that pollutes so many films and books. The Hero does some bad things but is really good and redeemed in the end. Sometimes they're also punished. And this piece is not that way.

Neither is it nihilistic (well, maybe a little) or fatalistic (not in the least). It's a story of justice served because justice refused to serve. That's all. And even the innocent aren't completely, but still are. For example, Zeke is the most decent guy in the story, but he has no problem working with a gang of drug dealers and helping them hide their money. His attitude is, there wouldn't be a drugs problem without a market for it, and alcohol is just as destructive but it's legal. No time for the hypocrisy.

Besides the guys he works with are his friends, and all he has, aside from his dog, Loki, and occasional trips to a whorehouse in Scottsdale. Rhonda, the cantina's waitress who has a thing for Zeke, isn't as involved but still hardly innocent...and gets pissy when he rejects her. Of course, there's an honest deputy, Reymon, who likes Rhonda and is on the ball...but he's in the background for much of it all.

It's funny I'm having so much trouble with this little story. A Place of Safety worked its through-line out so neatly. Brendan from the age of ten to twenty-five, going from a too-aware innocent to a man trapped in his fate. It's like he knew all the beats and showed them to me, without working up an outline until I'd all but written the first draft. It fell into place in so many ways. Of course, I couldn't see them, at the time, and now can't see how they could have been any other way.

I do need to make Carli's Kills come to an acceptable end, and I think that's what's making me nuts. I may dump Zeke's Viking stuff. That used to lead up to him getting killed saving her life and Carli giving him a Viking funeral by burning down the cantina...then going off to suffer her punishment at having brought about the death of the man she loved.

Gag. No wonder it wouldn't sell. It's pseudo-tragic nonsense out of a bodice-ripping romance novel.

Red pen draft done

I now have notations all through the 3rd draft of Carli's Kills and need to input them. That will make this an official 4th draft, even though as I go along I will be making more changes...and then another draft.

I also find I really don't like how neatly the final confrontation ends up. Too rushed and easy. And Zeke becomes something of an afterthought to it. NOT how it's supposed to go. That may need restructuring...again...

Problem is, I don't know what to do to make it better or make more sense without going back to the original ending...and that is too damned Puritanical. Too much of a cliché. I refuse to let this story descend into one that screams You did bad so must be punished fake moralizing. Carli did what she did because no one else would do anything about it. Frontier justice.

But I'll deal with it after I'm done with work, the next couple days. The California Book Fair is over and everything should be about moved out and starting its journey back to LA for shipment home. I'm in to the office late, tomorrow, and staying late; same for Tuesday, since LA is 3 hours behind us.

I'm also meeting with the people running a couple of Senior Housing towers, on Wednesday, to see about moving in. Subsidized rent. I can't keep these jobs up, much longer, and if I'm going to be ending an outside source of income then I need to be able to live in my social security. They will only take 30% of that...I think. To be determined at that time.

Hell, that's become the motto of my life -- TBD later.

Another third...

I've got to be careful, now. This story is starting to act like it's coming together, and when I feel that it normally means the damn thing's about to implode on me. Especially since I'm at the stage where I have no idea if the story works or not. I'm too close in on it.

It's weird, but the only one of my books I don't see mistakes or lost chances that I want to rewrite, now that they're published and done, is How to Rape a Straight Guy. My very first book. It's also my simplest book. Lean and vicious. I thought I'd return to that with Carli's Kills...but I guess I'm no longer capable of it.

No matter how clear and direct I want my stories to be, now, they start expanding and pulling in details I didn't expect, then take hold of my collar and won't let go till they're done. And there gets to be so much to them, I'm far more prone to mistakes.

Like with The Beast in the Nothing Room...I sloughed off on the relationship between Finn and Christian, who are fraternal twins, in order to get done with the book. And it was hurt by it. The same for the ending of Underground Guy; it felt rushed. I made myself take some time with Hunter, while Bobby Carapisi could have benefitted from more depth in my writing.

What's irritating is despite all the copies I've sold, I got very few reviews to help me see where there might be issues I  need to address. Don't know how to change that. Even giving out free copies in exchange for reviews hasn't worked. I don't know if that means the books are so crappy they don't want to review them, or if people are embarrassed by the subject matter.

I wish I could tell, because...despite all my bravado and certainty...I'm still an insecure writer.

Another draft...and then another...

I don't even begin to understand how anyone can churn out a book in even six months, let alone in half that time. But according to some of the facebook writing groups I belong to, that's what people do. Granted, Earl Stanley Gardner did that with his Perry Mason series, but after you read a few of his books, you realize it's the same basic story with minimal changes and a new killer.

Me? I have to work out the story as I'm writing and hope it comes together, then rewrite it a dozen times for it to make sense. Like Carli's Kills...a simple little story about female revenge against male scum is taking up so damn much of my time to make right because the characters are demanding it. And I can't say no to them.

I'm a third of the way through this draft and can already sense a couple more will follow. But it's got so much going on, it's hard to keep track of. Carli killing a young woman for setting in motion events that drove her daughter to suicide. Then going after the men who raped the girl. Then connecting with one man who may or may not be part of what happened. As Zeke also deals with a growing sense of doom around him. And fights to maintain balance in his life as he tries to figure out how he can get the hell away. And Eldora, the sheriff, who helped the rapists get away with it partly because the district attorney refused to press charges and partly because she's getting bribes but also because it's a way to keep the gang in control. 

I'm cutting moments on this draft but only because they're repetitious or overly-emphatic...not to simplify the story or streamline it. Clarity is important, but so are the details and backgrounds and being in each character's head as they deal with the growing catastrophe around them. All while trying to make it seem real and maintain consistency.

Christ, Stephen King I ain't...

It's moments like this I wish I'd stayed an artist instead of shifting to writing...

Encanto...

It it rare for a movie to cut through my defenses and totally destroy me...but Encanto did...and this is the moment I lost it, completely...

Back home and ready to get back to work...

After a hideous couple of days just trying to get to LA for the book fair in Pasadena, I made it, did the move-out of our clients, sorted everyone into the directions they needed to go and flew home on a red-eye, Monday night. Which took a lot out of me, overall. Especially since my car had a flat, which needed to be repaired, so I didn't get to my apartment till after noon and all but collapsed on my bed. My head did not catch up to my body until today.

I went into the office, handed over paperwork, got ready for Friday, when I'm to be back in...and then got some groceries and came home. I was not in the mood...no, I just wasn't able to focus on anything so wound up watching Witness For the Prosecution, again. One thing that is undeniable about Agatha Christie's work is her setups. She knows exactly how to use your certainty against you.

That's something I'm really trying to learn how to do with my work. I sort of come close, at times...but not to her level. Mix that with Billy Wilder's abilities regarding character and dialogue, it's a master class in writing for film. I've read the original short story it was all based on, and the play. Seen a couple of the remakes, none of which rose o this level. I especially disliked the newest one on Acorn TV. I understood the why of it but the execution was abysmal.

So tomorrow I get back onto CK and do all I can to make it better and unpredictable. I doubt I can get away with the latter part, but I can always improve my writing abilities. That never has been my greatest asset.

Printed and ready to edit

I printed up Carli's Kills to start my red-pen corrections when I get back from LA. I narrowed it down to just 300 pages and thought about bringing it with me, but it's over 2 lbs, so I'm not. I don't have a rolly-bag for travel, anymore, and my backpack is already pretty heavy. That and the gym-bag I'm using are enough to handle.

So I'm reading more about Northern Ireland, on this trip, and meeting with a couple of friends. If I get to go. I've had two flights cancel on me, so far. To be safe, I now have flights set up on both JetBlue and Southwest, all of which will be refundable. Well...will go into travel funds, once I cancel...whichever one it is.

I do like how CK turned out. My script version was big and dramatic and tragic at the end, with lots of meaning and tear-jerking scenes. Zeke died saving Carli, so she took on his dog, Loki, and set off to make amends with the world...after she killed Eldora. But once it shifted into book form, none of them liked that and it took me a while to find the way through for everyone to be happy with.

What I've finally enjoyed bout writing narrative in 3rd person omniscient is how I can dig into each character's meaning and intentions and feelings as I go along. Near the end, Zeke has a long bit where he's trying to decide if he wants to leave with Carli, even though he feels a lot of loyalty to Dax, the head of the gang. And Carli wanders into thinking about how much she misses being a sniper in Afghanistan, years ago. How God-like it was. How erotic it became to kill a man...and how Zeke was pulling her back to a semblance of normalcy.

She gets away with some serious shit, in this story. Dunno how that's going to play...but it doesn't matter. She is who she is. So I used the 3rd draft to apply for copyright, even though I'll have 2 more to do. It's now officially protected and has an ISBN assigned to it, too.

Very official...and serious...and will definitely make it into print, now.

As expected...

My direct flight to LA was canceled, as halfway expected, so I'm on a flight the next day, changing planes in JFK. And it took me a solid 3 hours to get JetBlue to let me choose a seat. I didn't want to get to the airport and be assigned a window or center one. But it's set...so long as they don't screw this up, too.

I played it safe and set up a flight for Saturday, on Southwest, using points. Just in case. And I'm not canceling till I'm actually in LA.

So I've got yet another draft done on CK...this an official 3rd. 395 pages; 83,050 words. Now I can print it up tomorrow, at my leisure, and get it ready for editing as well as draft 4. This has become a kinky, sexy, scary, weird story. Just to give you a hint of how it's going...this is how Grady winds up in the middle of the desert...before he's killed.

I also feel like the ending is a bit too sudden, but I'm not sure how to get around that without a lot of nonsense and padding. That's something that bothers the shit out of me in books and films. Unnecessary actions that either make no sense, make the character appear stupid or are gratuitously thrown in just to fill 10 episodes. It's sloppy and lazy...so I'm wondering if I'm being just as bad by not figuring out a better, stronger ending?

I'm not a fast writer, having to go over and over and over my work to make it even presentable. Hell, there are still aspects of CK that need adjusting and adding in, to cover everything. I don't know how others can churn out 3-6 books a year; it's way beyond my ken.

I'm doing good to have 1 a year.

Kill your darlings...

I'm two-thirds the way through another draft...and more ideas I'd initially dropped into Carli's Kills have fallen away. Actually, been stripped out of the story, by me. With other parts simplified and some of my overly-stylish moments cleaned up. For all this editing, I'm still only 2 pages down and just under 700 words shorter. But if all goes well, tomorrow, I'll have a draft ready to print up for serious editing.

I've also got a minimalist outline for the story, to help me keep my story points in order. For example, I was saying Carli's 36, but that timeline doesn't work out. She's no older than 33. And considering by the time this is published we'll have been out of Afghanistan for a year, with no combat troops officially in country prior to the evacuation, I had to rearrange her immediate history from there to another fort. She was still a sniper in Afghanistan, but it's earlier in her Army career...and she misses it.

I've also simplified Zeke's history, a bit, while expanding on Eldora's and Grady's. It's almost like a Rubik's cube, but one I've no intention of solving to where single colors are on each side. Not necessary.

I want to get this done tomorrow because I'm off to LA on Thursday, if the weather lets me. The amount of snow that's expected usually makes airlines wary, and I halfway expect to wind up bumped to Friday or Saturday. So long as I'm there Sunday for the move-out, that's all that counts.

We shall see what we shall see.