Wow, edit city...

Man, I am doing a lot of cutting rearranging and slashing in Book 3 of APoS, which I think I'm going to call Home Not Home. But anyway, I used to have this massive scenario worked out where Brendan was snuck into the US under another name and people back home think he's been put in a grave by the IRA for messing up their operation and getting a few people imprisoned, but I dropped it because it's just silly and overwrought and made no sense.

Well, it's been so long since I dealt with Book Three, I'd forgotten how interwoven that plot-line is in the first four chapters, and I'm having a lot of fun cutting it out and still having the story flow. Because it's showing me my current idea of him traveling under his own name as Aunt Mari's nephew may not work.

I need to keep in mind that there was no link between Brendan and the bombing, so far as the British and RUC were aware. He left his mother a note saying he was leaving to work in Ireland, but didn't say where. He got himself a passport. And he was seriously injured and was taken to a safe house on the border, so he's not in a hospital for them to become suspicious. Why would they even begin to suspect he was involved in it?

While the IRA might be pissed off and wonder if he messed things up because he was seeing Joanna, they would quickly see it was all just rotten luck. Still, he does have to disappear. His injuries would raise a lot of suspicion if he went to a hospital, and his mental state is pretty much degraded after what he witnessed. So he can't be trusted not to give everything away. And to have him openly travel in that condition? No. I may return to the idea of him traveling into the US under another name. Meaning rework that into Book Two.

Shit, why can't I think of this crap while I'm in the middle of writing it and not have to do this dance with my thoughts over and over as Brendan doles out the information? It's irritating.

But better to figure it out now than after the book is published.