Almost quit writing...

September was not a good month for me, at all. I had to stop writing, completely, work a little to help with Firsts London book fair, deal with Ingram cancelling distribution of HTRASG and Tumblr terminating my blog without warning, losing me every contact I had on there. There's also family shit and me starting to feel my age...so I was ready to have a nice selfish bit of mopiness.

On top of it, I could not get the first few chapters of APoS to read in a way that was interesting instead of bland and unimportant. Sometimes I have to fight to keep in mind that I do know how to write. I have awards for my writing and my books have received some very good feedback...even on GoodReads.

But every now and then I can drop into this rabbit hole of WTF am I doing trying to tell Brendan's story? I can barely type, these days, without fucking up every third word with skipped or inserted letters, or losing the direction I was heading. I don't know if these are marks of old age or if I've always been like this. I haven't noticed it in any of the earlier books I wrote.

However, the respite and watching a few movies helped me settle down and regain my path. In the last couple days, I've rewritten the first chapter of the story three times to get it right, cut two pages of bullshit, and instead of being coy about who he is, Brendan now states it in the second sentence. I think this slightly snarky, stand-offish voice is how it wants to be told.

The changes do not seem huge...and yet, they are. Here's the first few paragraphs to give you an idea of how much cleaner and quicker it reads:

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You know, those who were familiar with Eamonn Kinsella, and were being less dishonest than usual with themselves, had to admit that were he born but ten miles to the west or north, his murder would have been seen as the fitting end to a hard and brutal man. I do not say this because he was a cruelty as my father, nor am I so shallow as to make the claim simply because he near crushed my hand while insisting I turn over a five-pound note I'd received for my birthday, so he could drink himself into his latest stupor. No, for one and all around him knew that it took little more than a wrong word, here; a wrong look, there; or even a wrong touch on his shoulder to enrage him. Then suddenly you'd be on the floor with a split lip or blackened eye, after which, it would be your fault he had to react, no matter how improbable the cause. Couple that with his height being well above six feet, weight at more than 15 stone, and back still carrying the strength gained from his position as a navvy on Belfast's docks, despite it being many-a-year since, few were they who would take the dispute further.

That was why, as word of his death spread, the first thought on many a mind was he had finally focused his anger on one who could show him the truth of existence -- that there was always somebody bigger, stronger, meaner and better with his fists than yourself, and that one day you were sure to meet.

His body was found off the Limavady Road, down a farm trail that very nearly offered a view of the Foyle. It was in a ditch of flowing water, the morning air cold and blustery, the fields around him bleak and cruel despite whispers of snow and the brightness of day. His coat had been pulled down his arms and his hands bound behind him, and rumors flew that every bone in every finger was broken, several ribs were shattered, an elbow dislocated and his face had been pummeled into the mere hint of a human visage. Blood soaked his shirt to his trousers, the knees of which were torn and scraped as if he’d been forced to crawl on them -- or been dragged -- and it was said his every tooth was broken out, as well.

Of course, little of this was verifiable because the Coroner’s single comment on his death was the purest embodiment of callous simplicity. “Mr. Kinsella perished from the result of a bullet being fired into the crown of his head.”

Perished. 

Not killed. 

Not murdered. 

Not slaughtered like a cow in the abattoir.

No. Perished. A charming word you'd hear more often on the lips of a man saying, I'm perished from the thirst. Or hunger. Or cold. Or work. Or the mere seeking of a job. Women made use of it, as well, but not once until that Coroner's comment had I ever connected the damned word with death.

Which sent me to the library and their dictionary, and to my surprise it actually was defined as such, with synonyms being expire, wither, shrivel, vanish, molder and rot, any of which might have been just as cruel and inappropriate.