Brendan is a bad ass...

In the chapter I finished working on, today, Brendan uses a baseball bat to crack the knees of an abusive cop in order to protect a waitress at the bar where he works. Memories of his father's abuse of his mother clash through him so he almost clips the guy in the head, too. Todd, the bartender, has to stop him and kick him out, fast, before the police arrive.

It's not like Brendan's seeking trouble or out to prove himself to anyone. It was just instinct mixed with a memory of seeing the IRA kneecap someone he knew, over stealing. This on top of his reaction when he suspects a doctor's nurse abused him are bringing out a sharp, confrontational side to him that is possibly going to happen more and more.

I'm now through chapter 13 and the total wordage is over 115K. He's18 and feeling a need to gain control over more of his life. But when he tries to find out his real status in the country, he keeps getting half-answers from his aunt and uncle, making him suspect more is going on with him. He'll keep digging, and even send secret letters to Mairead.

This spurt of work came after a day of my usual self-flagellatory psychosis. I don't know what I'm doing. This is all shit. Why am I bothering? I should just give up writing, completely. And on and on. I'm feeling my age, in both body and spirit, so these moments come in like waves crashing against Hawai'i's North Shore. Then they ride back out. And I regain equilibrium. And keep moving forward, baby step by baby step.

Letting Brendan shift from scamp to scoundrel helped. So did finding that image of Robert Carlysle with his smoke and shank. 

"Don't make me an angel," Brendan keeps telling me. "Let me find my own way." Oh, will he ever...