I'm at the point where I think the majority of the story is pretty well set. I need to make sure bout consistency and that all the names are correct. I changed a couple...like from Declan to Turlach, and a neighbor from Mrs. Rafferty to Mrs. Haggerty.
I'm also adding in more description of the areas Brendan passes through. Today it was Duke Street, by the railroad station. I found an old photo of Duke and used that to work it up. Same for his first time to Grianan Aileach, the circle fort just outside Derry in the Republic. It's a fight to give an idea of the places around him without sitting down and describing them in detail. Just give enough that a 12 year-old boy would notice to reference.
Derry has changed a lot since the beginning of the Troubles. Entire neighborhoods gone. Streets renamed or removed. Brendan's area is done away with, completely, to be replaced by a wide hillside of green grass. When I was there in 2002, you could still see open lots where buildings had been bombed or torn down, but you could also find sections where the old houses still stood.
I need to go back. Spend my time in the library looking through the newspapers of the time for the weather and movies being shown and prices and headlines and the like. I have a number of books from The Derry Journal that have photos of the time that appeared in the paper, but not one has a photo of the attack on the October 5th march in 1968. I'd like to see what the front page was like on the paper in the next issue.
The internet has its limitations.
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