Into the valley of death...

Ah, the joy of writer's block. You never know when it's going to hit you or why or anything until suddenly -- WHOOP! There it is. And I've got it. Over a logical issue with A Place of Safety that I can see no way around. Not right now.

Again, at the end of Book One, Brendan witnesses a horrific bombing gone wrong and is seriously injured by it. This inadvertently brings attention to one of his Chinas and wreaks havoc within the Provisional IRA. The easiest way to minimize the situation is to make him vanish...let him die of his wounds and bury him. No one need know what happened, and there's no trail for the British Army to follow.

Instead, I have them go through a huge rigamarole to set him up with a fake identity and have him brought to the US on a medical visa, because he's gone into an Akinetic Psychosis. And there is no reason they would do that. I cannot find any excuse. It's too dangerous to everyone, and too obvious a setup...unless I have him hidden in an attic like something out of Jane Eyre. But then, how do I get him into the country? Across the Texas border with Mexico? Yeah, right. And again -- why? It would be expensive and dangerous.

I've tried a number of possibilities and nothing works. None of it. Tying it into his father's mysterious past is even sillier. I tried to make it so Da was part of the IRA's 1956-62 anti-British campaign, but that was a flop and besides, it didn't even start till after Brendan was born. It would have to have been something in the late forties or early fifties...and nothing much was happening then.

I sat at my window with a note pad and watched the snow roaring down, and it was blowing hard, and tried to find a way back into the story, but got nothing. So I gave up, joined Netflix, watched a couple episodes of Derry Girls, season 3 and then Glass Onion to clear my head. Normally, I'd go for a drive and do nothing stuff to let my brain settle, but it's whiteout conditions thanks to the Arctic Bomb. All day...and still going.

God, I hate it when this happens. But i guess it's better than having it published and someone pointing that out.