Couldn't sleep, last night

And I can barely stay awake. But I got caught up in the critique of Daniel's face and it messed with my sleep cycle. I wound up reading more of The Secret History of the IRA to shift my mind off it. Which worked, finally.

I spent today trying to rectify the issue. Don't know if I did, but I'm at the point of It's as good as I can make it, now. I'm letting it sit overnight and, when I get done with the job, tomorrow, I'll make a couple more changes I thought of and upload it to Ingram. No telling how long it will take to get released, and I can't really promote it till then, but that will end this chapter of the book.

I made some money on the first and second drafts of The Lyons' Den. Not huge amounts, but enough to make me happy. I just want to do right by the book and give it a bit more life in the system, like I did with the others whose covers I updated...tho' on those I didn't feel the need to reformat the text. Anyway, it's done.

Something else that took up a fair portion of the day was this -- plotting out how to fill a 40 foot ocean container with 1200-1300 boxes of books going overseas, and keep them protected. Caladex was talking with a client at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair and we're meeting with a company that loads ocean containers,. We just needed an idea as to whether or not all would fit into one. They will, with a little room to spare.

Now I think I'll hit the sack early. Maybe read a little...but I doubt I'll be at it long.

This was my day, all day...

Working on the paperback cover for the book. And reworking it and trying out things and not liking them then going another direction till it finally all fit together. And that includes the synopsis on the back. I decided to keep it to a certain length and the font a certain size, so it could be easily read but not for the visually impaired,  and that turned out to be harder than I thought.

I finally posted it on Facebook, knowing it still has a couple of flaws that need addressing, but I'm dog tired. And that's with me taking a nap, after dinner. I like it, now. I could tweak on it forever, to be honest, but after a while you hit the point of diminishing returns.

Of course, the first comment I got on it was kind of nit-picky and unhelpful. Now I'm locked into wondering if I let an issue get by that should have been addressed...but which I, in fact, kind of liked. It's the shape of Daniel's face, in the foreground. It's slightly misshapen but that felt right for his character in the book. He's off-balance through most of it, till near the end when he takes control. But I wonder if others will have the same reaction -- that it just looks off?

Sometimes I can get lost in my ideas of what works and doesn't and forget that others just plain do not see the world or my work in the same way I do. And that tends to throw me when it's pointed out. Self-doubt takes over and, like Daniel in the story, I start second-guessing myself. Which usually fucks things up even worse.

So I'm letting it sit till tomorrow afternoon, after I'm done with laundry and lunch. One thing I will note is, I need to update my tools if I'm going to be doing any more of this. My MacMini and photoshop are having problems with each other, mainly due to both being a good 20 years old. So upgrades are in order.

Christ, that is something I do not want to think about, right now.

Settled...

Here's is the cover art for the reformatted LD. Dan Skinner pulled it together from my request and it really works well. All I had to have added was the scarf around the background guy's neck. I narrowed the fore-guy's face a little and shifted the jeans to look more like a shower curtain wrapped around him, and added a bit of a smile to the background guy. Added in the title and my name and it's set as the avatar.

I've uploaded it to Smashwords for the ebook, but it takes them a couple days to review it before it's updated on their system. I'm working on the paperback cover this weekend and uploading that on Monday. I may also set it up in ebook with them. They may reach markets I don't know about. Same for Kobo and B&N. I used to think Smashwords covered everything except Amazon, but seems I was overly optimistic.

Now that I'm done with LD's reformatting, I can see way too much of myself in Daniel's character, and it's knocked me a bit off-balance. I mean, everybody who knows I write knows I talk to my characters. Hell, I've been obvious enough about it on this blog. But other aspects of my life, when younger, worked themselves into the background in ways I'd forgotten. Things I'd moved on from, I thought. Seems they were just lying dormant, waiting to come strutting back into my psyche.

I'm not as close to mental collapse as Daniel is in this book, but half the reason for that is because I don't get near to people, anymore. I'll be polite when I must. Deal with people at the office when they need me. Chat with dealers and clients as warranted. But I have not built any friendships since leaving LA nearly 15 years ago. I keep to myself, not even leaving my apartment for days at a time, and do my venting against MAGAts on Twitter and Instagram. Even on those, I don't follow just anybody and immediately block those who are too far gone into worship of a proven thief.

Seems I am the Hermit, in LD...because I do like chipmunks and will take them peanuts.

In the new beginning...

 Okay, I've uploaded the reformatted version of The Lyons' Den to Smashwords. Just waiting for it to be vetted for any errors then it's going in their promo catalogue. I also updated the blurb and description to better reflect what the book is -- a dramatic farce with madness and romance. We'll see if this helps it, any.

I added a section of Carli's Kills to the tail of the ebook, as a sample. It's where Carli first approaches Zeke, probably planning to kill him but instead they talk and she backs away. It's in place of the opening chapter of The Vanishing of Owen Taylor, which I'd added to the old version. I think they fit together better.

Here is basically what the cover art is going to be. Dan Skinner came up with this in just a couple hours and I really like it, except for one thing; I asked him to wrap a muffler around Van's character because right now he looks too much like a Tad in all that too-cool black. Once I get the final image, I can break open my ancient version of Photoshop and add the title and text and such for Ingram Spark.

I was going to do KDP for everything, but I'm hearing from too many other authors that it's gone nuts. Accounts closed for no reason. Royalties lost. Accusations of plagiarism when dealing with updating their own work. Inability to contact anyone to work out the issues. One author is actually moving all of her books to Smashwords/Digital by Design because it's really hurt her income.

I don't feel like dealing with all that nonsense, so I may shift Carli's Kills back to Spark, too. I never took the ebook off Smashwords, and now won't. If all the self-publishing platforms are going to be crazy, I'd prefer to be with one I basically understand.

Okay, next phase...

The text part of LD is set in PDF and ready to upload once I have the cover worked out. It's 192 pages, 175 as story and the rest is stuff like title page and Author and Other Books. It looks cleaner and crisper. Whether or not it makes sense is anyone's guess.

I did something I swore I'd never do -- edited it a bit for clarity. I noticed a couple of confusing moments and simplified them so they're easier to read. TBH, most of the book comes across as trying to be like a movie, with so much happening at one time you have to scramble to keep up with the visuals. Maybe that's a mistake; I dunno. The book is the book, and I don't know if I could work it back into screenplay format. A lot of it is too internal. Maybe Steven Soderberg could...

So now comes the cover, and I'm not getting anything back from my photographer guy. He's too busy working out and chasing a new lad he likes. So I'll be digging through Shutterstock to see what I can find. I pictured Zachary Quinto as Daniel when I was doing this, initially, and Derrick Davenport as Ace. If I can find a couple guys' head and shoulders shots that fit close to them, I think I know what I want for the cover.

But I'll need to buy licenses for them, which I guess will be cheaper than dealing with the photographer.

Wow, just had a weird sense of deja vu wash over me, when I wrote that line. Like I'd been sitting at this desk and typing something similar, before. I'm getting loopy in my old age.

Interesting changes

Wow...rejigging the formatting and removing the ellipses in The Lyons' Den dropped the page count by 32 pages. Currently, it's showing 196 pages at 63,000 words of text when it used to be 228 and 66,000. Each ellipses was counted as a word. I did get carried away in this one.

The style it was done in was just too busy. It was one of my early self-publishing attempts and while it worked well enough, now it's all wrong. When I'm done with this version, it'll have a cleaner, more professional look and should be easier to read.

My issue right now is figuring out what the cover will be. I found this image on Shutterstock that I can use for the cabin, and I've asked a photographer I know (and whose work graces the avatar for Blood Angel on Smashwords) if he has something I can use. I'm thinking two young men in their 20s, one brunet and shirtless, the other blondish and bundled up and standing behind the first one. Both looking straight at the camera. I think I can meld them into the snowy photo but we'll see if he finds anything. It's too late in the year to have one made; no more snow.

Going through the book, I think I need to reposition it less as humor and more like a dramatic farce. Daniel's had a rough life, as is revealed throughout the book, and has a very fragile sense of self. While the style it's written in is on the jokey and chaotic side, he's dealing with some pretty serious issues and deep self-doubt. Which is why he takes on this writing task in the first place. He doesn't think he's worthy of love unless he proves himself indispensable to his partner. But going through this madness connects him with a man who cares for him as well as his baggage...and sets him on a course to happiness and control.

New edition of LD

The Lyons' Den is undergoing a reformatting, to put it kindly. I'm getting rid of all the parenthetical comments and they're just Ace speaking. And I did go overboard on the ellipses, so a lot of those are coming out, too. In the 8 years since this version was published, I've changed my formatting so much, I can't re-release this book in that same old shit.

It's still a solid story with a lot of character development, for Daniel...which makes sense, it being his story. He's got a massive amount of detail building up in his history. A crazy mother who joins with his junky sister to get him committed so they can get access to the family fortune. His good times with his ex-lover, Tad, pushing him to want to reconnect with the man. His lack of self-confidence despite having six books published and doing well-enough. And how he met Ace ...as detailed below:

------------

But then one day mother and sister, despite detesting each other when sober, got their warped little brains on the same page, dressed up like blond-Barbie-bombshells with push-up bras and six-inch heels and convinced an attorney that the faggot-son-and-brother’s mind had left him. My bet is they looked under Homophobes-R-Us to find the prick. Then they appeared before a born-again judge who totally agreed and issued a court order, and the next day, the sheriff grabbed my guy from his language lab at Philly and chucked his butt into a state facility for evaluation. 

It took doctors maybe seventy-two minutes to figure out he was fine, considering, but seventy-two hours to convince that fucking judge. By that point, dear mother’s lawyer had broken open the trust fund, she and sister had split the cash, then both had gone the vanishing route, leaving said lawyer and judge to answer for their stupidity. 

It was while Daniel was being evaluated that I popped into the picture. He was screaming at everyone and no one, “I’m not crazy; I just need a new reality!” 

Which I felt was a fairly interesting way to describe the situation. And never mind his own low-key psychosis, which wasn’t so much schizophrenia as just wanting friends around that he could talk to any time of day or night. In secret, of course. Sometimes a touch of insanity is all that keeps you sane. 

Anyway, that’s what gave me a way to ... oh, let’s just say introduce myself and ask if I could tell him a story. 

To which he responded, “Anything to get my mind off this crap.” 

“Okay, Dan-O,” I smiled ... and the name came from him. He’d watched an old episode of Hawaii Five-O the day before that had a big butch actor holding a young, slim, attractive soldier hostage during a stand-off with Jack Lord and company, and Dan-O’d had an, oh, let’s just call it a nice dream, that night, with him as the soldier and the butch actor as a savior instead of a bad guy and ... well, ‘nuff said about that. 

So I told him about this guy who’s about to be executed for matricide. Got his total focus, with that. But three days before the needle goes in, a girl he knows talks me into investigating the murder. It takes me no time to learn the DA’s office withheld evidence from the defense. Seems the murder weapon was found stuck in a Jell-O mold that was otherwise smooth and untouched and sitting in the fridge. CSI had taken the knife out, and it had his fingerprints and some of her blood on it, so that’s all they’d cared about. 

Problem was they never mentioned the Jell-O was made just minutes before she was killed; she’d called a friend to ask how long it needed to be in the mold before she could remove it, so it hadn’t had time to set. Meaning it was plopped on a plate and the knife was placed in it at least four hours later. While her son was in another part of the city dealing with a traffic cop. And he didn’t get home till after her body and the knife were found. So there’s no way he could have done it. 

Of course the DA’s office fought reopening the case, and two judges agreed with them, but just hours before the needle went in, I figured out it was the District Attorney who killed her. They’d been screwing around, and she’d wanted him to leave his wife. So after arguing, she’d wound up dead, then he’d used his office to frame the son. Why put the bloody knife in the blue Jell-O? He figured it’d make the kid look crazy, so anything he said would be suspect. Then they’d pushed for the death penalty, just to be consistent. 

Of course, the killer suffered a supremely spectacular death when he tried to escape; his car ran a light and got broadsided by a truck carrying ... and let us have a drum roll please ... jelly donuts! Who wouldn’t chuckle at that? 

I had a pretty good idea Daniel’d know how to keep it fun and frisky by adding a layer of insanity to it that I couldn’t. And I really think working on the characters and motivations was the only reason he kept from slipping into cloud-cuckoo-land before that judge accepted the doctors’ recommendations. 

Meaning, yes, he maintained a grip on reality by working in a fantasy world. Gotta love the dichotomy. 

So that’s how Red Knife in Blue Jell-O sprang into being, and he’s the one who gave me my voice – sharp, cool and snarky. Then as all the legal issues were being satisfied, which wound up getting that judge removed from the bench, we wrote it and it was accepted by the first publisher he submitted to – Gregory Taylor’s house. He loved the slick mixture of sex, suspense and slapstick. 

We’ve been a hot team ever since.

Taking a break

Not doing any writing for a while. I need to separate my head from APoS and let the confusion in it simmer down. So I'm reading A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney. A story that can be told only from the inside. It discusses the lead up to the Peace accords of 1998, that ended 30 years of bloodshed and civil war. I'm not really interested in anything past the hunger strikes, but those and the years preceding the Easter Sunday Agreement are background and told from a more knowledgeable viewpoint than books written at the time.

Moloney's more anti-IRA than neutral, but so far it's a good read. I have others to finish, as well. Something to ground myself in the times and the place, because I felt like I was losing contact with Derry and her ways. I'll also reread Bernadette Devlin's biography, The Price of my Soul, since she was from there and in the middle of it all.

I'm also going to work up a new cover for The Lyons' Den. I'll need to, since I was fool enough to put the price in the barcode, on it, when I first published it and it's down to the point I'm making $0.48 a sale, on it. Just need to come up with something that's as fun as this one was. I'm also thinking of shifting it to KDP in both ebook and paperback. Its sales have dropped, a lot, so maybe that can help.

I'm still leery of Amazon's ways, but it's not like I have a massive seller I'd be offering through them. And I use my own barcodes, so if they get pissy I can just shift it back to Ingram Spark or another self-publishing house. I understand Barnes & Noble offer one, too.

What really matters is getting enough space from APoS to come at it with fresh eyes.

Three steps to hell

Carlo Musso

Russia's war against Ukraine is not necessarily worse than previous wars. But the vast amount of images, videos, audios and eyewitness accounts that we have access to in near real time allow us to see how mean and cruel human beings can be... And it's not just the killings, rapes, kidnappings and the devastation carried out by Russian soldiers, it is something more malignant, which takes us down a few rungs on the ladder of evil: Russians have taken three steps to hell...

The first step is the organized and premeditated multiplicity of crimes committed during the military invasion: not only the systematic bombing of non-military targets and the use of weapons prohibited by the modern rules of warfare, but also rapes, prolonged detention in inhuman conditions, executions in cold blood without reason, torture - both physical and psychological - of many civilians in all temporarily occupied regions, including the deportation of thousands of Ukrainians, many of them children, to the territory of the Russian Federation.

What emerged from the testimonies and factual evidence tells us of such a structured and widespread cruelty that it can only be explained by accepting the (false) Russian theories on the superiority of Russians over the Ukrainians and on the need to 'denazify' Ukraine: it is not a simple military strategy or the uncontrolled violence exerted by a corrupt and untrained army, is in fact the attempt to erase an entire nation and its people from the face of the Earth...

The second step is the conscious and systematic rejection of the evidence, even in the face of an enormous amount of well-documented proofs, relying on the simple but sadly effective method of refuting an obvious truth with the incessant repetition of blatant lies.

The effectiveness of this approach is based on a number of factors: the well-established habit of believing that the Russian foreign minister or Kremlin spokesman should be listened to not because of the credibility of what he says, but because of the role he officially plays; the natural inclination of people to be attracted more by complex lies rather than a linear and simple truth; the support that Russian lies obtain incredibly not only in those countries that value good relations with Russia more than respect for the rule of law and the sovereignty of nations, but also in the West, where a mixture of anti-Americanism, a strange admiration for the he arrogance and a misunderstood pacifism lead one to think that the Russians can't be all that bad (even at the cost of admitting that, in this case, the Ukrainians should be even worse).

The third step is the unbearable sense of impunity which, faced with the indisputable evidence of a certain crime, pushes the Russian authorities and officials to publicly admit it, while trying to convince the public that it is not a crime.

The clearest example - but not the only one - is the organized deportation of thousands of children from Ukraine to Russia: the Russians first tried to ignore the allegations, then to deny them, and finally - after the arrest warrants against Putin and Lvova-Belova were issued by the ICC, following the silly and provocative video of the two openly discussing the success of the process of re-education of Ukrainian children - of turning reality upside down, pretending to act in the sole interest of the children, to save them from the risk of war. Leaving aside that all responsibility for the war falls on Russian shoulders, and that at any moment the risk can be eliminated, if only Russia stops fighting and starts retreating, "Russia claims it is protecting these children. Instead this is a calculated policy that seeks to erase Ukrainian identity and statehood", as clearly stated by Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the UN Kyslytsya.

It is no coincidence that in Christian culture the devil is called 'the father of lies', because his strategy is to do evil, deny having done it, and finally disguise it as good, which is exactly what the Russians are doing in Ukraine... It's up to us not to follow the path of Adam and Eve, who in the Garden of Eden listened to the serpent, but to recognize the reality of the facts and side with no doubts from the right part...

April 6, 2023

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I remain with Twitter because almost all of my contacts and follows regarding the terrorist actions by Russia in Ukraine are on there. I see a little on Instagram and Facebook and not so much on Tribel...so I stick with Twitter despite its idiotic owner, and will do so until I'm kicked off.

#SlavaUkraini  #smert'Rosiyi  Fuck the GOP for being on Putin's side.

Long chapters...

I'm at a loss as to how long I want the chapters to be. I just finished one in APoS that's 41 pages and rambles a bit about Brendan and his mates, and how they got to calling each other China, as a sort of joke. Colm has a copy of Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy and it leads to that. I think I want to break it in half, but I don't see a natural break point. So maybe it needs to be this long. I don't know. When I'm not sure, I prefer to let it be.

It might also be I should cut back some on the chit-chat between the boys, but I like the flow of it. To me, it's important the story fall naturally and seem real...well, as real as possible. Going through Book One, again, is showing me much of it's really in line with what I want it to be. Just some minor changes here and there. Consistencies maintained. That sort of thing.

Brendan's stand-offish but winds up being dragged into friendship with Colm, Danny, Paidrig and Wee Eammon (not his brother) because he automatically understands football (soccer) strategy based on movement and its natural progression. His brother, Eamonn, also pushes him to join with them and they help loosen him up. So having them chat around a fire as they dry off from being caught in a rain makes sense to me. Shows how natural they are with each other.

I did remove some more repetition. I once read somewhere that you should say something three times in a story for it to stick...though it may have been in reference to writing a screenplay. Anyway, that's not what I want in the book. If people remember a reference I make to something that happened earlier, great. If not, oh, well.

It still bounces around a bit in Brendan's telling, but it's his way. One thought leads to another and another, like in most people, and it's being written as if he's telling it, verbally. I like that style.

Rough day...

I've been having a sharp pain in the middle right part of my back and this morning it made itself really known. I thought it was a rib disconnected or cracked, so I called my doctor and his nurse practitioner agreed to see me. Did some x-rays. Felt around. Decided it was muscle spasms because I'm apparently pretty tight, back there. I'm getting a regime of stretches and told to use a heating pad and Advil. Oh...and I'm developing arthritis in my back, which may have been adding to it. Lovely.

So today I was way off beam. Cranky. Mopey. Angry. Sorry for myself. Sick to my stomach because I forgot celery doesn't agree with me and ate some with peanut butter on it. Good thing I live alone. I rather stink at the moment. Times like this I wish I had a tub instead of just a shower.

Also, a job I was hoping for in Italy fell apart. Unless the group that's buying the materials is willing to fork out $20-25,000 to have me sort through boxes of paperwork, take photos of everything needing an export license, complete the application and repack everything so it's viable for transport. Can't see that happening, but that's what it will take. Minimum. The person facilitating the sale isn't willing to do any of it, and our Italian agent can't because they won't know what to look for.

I've never been to Italy. It hasn't been high on my list of places to visit, but if I ever do get sent there I'll gladly go. Bologna. Turin. Rome, if only to see the Tivoli Fountain, Coliseum, and the artwork in the Vatican. But going during the height of the tourist season? Ugh, not interested.

I'll get back to work on APoS, tomorrow. 

The latest version of chapter one of Derry

 It's dropped from 13 pages to 10, Courier 12pt, double-spaced. I include this when an agent's submission process asks for it.

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In the Beginning

Any and all who knew Eamonn Kinsella, and were being honest 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. As his son, I do not make this claim lightly. Nor is it from spite. While it is true he near broke my arm when forcing me to turn over a five-pound note I’d received for my tenth birthday, all so he could drink himself into yet another stupor, that was nothing unusual for him to do.

No, in truth and honesty, my father was a very difficult man. With everyone. For him, it took little more than a wrong word, here; a wrong look, there; or even a wrong touch on his shoulder to call forth some beast within. Then suddenly you’d find yourself on the floor with a split lip or blackened eye, after which, it would be your fault for his reaction, no matter how improbable the cause. Combine that with his height of well above six feet, weight at more than 15 stone, and back still carrying the strength gained from a long-past position as a navvy, 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 the one absolute 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. 

And so he had. 

His body was found off the Limavady Road, down a farm trail that might have offered a pleasant view of the Foyle had it not decided to turn so sharply to the east. The morning air was cold and blustery, and the fields around him bleak and gray despite recent whispers of snow and the brightness of sky. He was dumped in a ditch, his coat pulled down his arms and his hands bound behind him. Rumors also flew that he had been emasculated, never to be confirmed one way or the other. It was verified that every bone in every finger was broken, several ribs were shattered, an elbow had been dislocated and his face 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 not one tooth was left in his mouth. 

As for the Coroner’s comment on his death? It was the purest embodiment of callous simplicity. 

“Mr. Kinsella perished from the result of a bullet being fired into the crown of his head.” 

Mr. Kinsella perished. 

He was not killed. 

Nor was he murdered. 

Or even slaughtered like a cow in the abattoir. Good heavens, no. 

He merely perished. 

A charming word you’d hear more often on the lips of someone claiming, “I’m perished from the hunger.” Or thirst. Or cold. Or work. Or the mere seeking of a job. Not once until that Coroner’s comment had I ever connected the damned word with death. Which sent me to the library to dig into their dictionary and discover it actually was defined as such, with synonyms being expire, wither, shrivel, vanish, molder and rot, any of which might have been just as inappropriate. 

He had lain on his back in a slight trail of dirty water until his clothing was soaked through and solid with ice. One unseeing eye open and tinted by blood; the other swollen shut. Well-preserved, he was. Refrigerated, even. I grant this made it difficult to set an exact time of death, but when the powers that be claimed it was somewhere between midnight and four of that morning, they were ridiculed in the extreme. For he was last seen being jostled out of McCleary’s in his far-too-usual condition just after last orders, two nights before. And he had not returned to his hovel, that much was certain. So this had not been some quick and easy death for him. In fact, it became a truth carved in stone, to one and all, that his torturers had enjoyed their game with him for near two days. Especially as some of his injuries had begun to heal, prior to death. 

Adding to the certainty of his lengthy demise was how the somewhat reticent undertaker handling the funeral arrangements had gently but firmly insisted on a closed casket. 

“Considering the overall devastation visited upon him,” he’d softly said to the new widow, “well...there’s only so much one can do, you know, and really, Mrs. Kinsella, it would be best to remember him as he was.” 

To which she began to wail, “My poor Eamonn.” 

Mrs. Haggerty, her immediate neighbor, was at her side. Which was how word of this travesty leap from house to home with the speed of telepathy; that woman never knew a secret she couldn’t spread faster than the BBC.

I also was in the room, as was my elder brother, Eamonn, the younger. I was standing beside him and told I was being quite stoic, as my elder sister, Mairead, sat on a stool and wept. Eamonn’s fists were clenched and his body tight, for he and Mai knew what the man meant. And while I did understand the concept of death, I could make no sense from why such careful words were being used to describe it. 

Not then, anyway. 

But oh, did this new information increase the dead man’s stature in the eyes of most. He quickly became the truest of true Irishmen, who did not release his hold on life as easily as others would have. Who fought to the end in order to return home to his kith and kin. Why, he even spat blood in the faces of his killers, that much was a certainty. Before the day was out, he’d been elevated to the likes of Cu Chulain and Michael Collins and every other hero of Ireland’s past. 

So throughout the afternoon and evening, many a pub mate dropped by to offer kind remembrances of Da’s bleak eyes and long face, a visage that brought to mind tortured poets and sad balladeers. They wistfully spoke of how he could sing so well as to make the angels weep. Elegant tunes of Ireland’s ruined past and her dead future. Others provided gentle smiles as they told stories about the stories he could weave. Melodious tales of fairies living in Oak glens that once spread forever across the land. And of gods who roamed her once glorious green fields and forests. And exciting events wrapped around Grianán Aileach, the ancient ring fort but six miles and a hundred worlds away from town. Oh, he had a true Irish heart in his use of words, and in another time under much better circumstances, he could have given the likes of James Joyce and Sean O’Casey a challenge as the nation’s bard. For each tale was brought to life with such beauty and perfection you’d have thought he lived through each and every one. 

Though none of them could recall one well enough to repeat, or so they swore. 

Which put me off, for Da had never shared a one with me or the others in my family. But when I said as much, the usual response was, “Oh, you poor wee lad, you just don’t remember,” or, “Were you not paying attention, again?” or, “This is what happens when you’re simple, lad,” and the like. Usually followed by a wink and nod to whomever was seated next to them. And with neither Eamonn the younger nor Mairead saying a word to the contrary, my dismissal was complete. 

I was smart enough to know now was not the time to remind the bloody hypocrites of the beatings and the bursts of howling fury and the theft of any money we managed to pull together. I had long ceased to wonder at how much viciousness and cruelty and beauty and grace could have been poured into one man in fewer than thirty-six years and had accepted it was a part of him. After all, he was hardly the only Irishman filled with it. Anger was the one honest emotion those like him were allowed to hold. And if my mother was seen at market with a few fresh bruises...or was out in the cold night air walking us around till our lord and master had sworn himself into weary, drunken sleep? Well, her nails had left scratches deep on more than just his back, and her quick hand with an iron skillet to the head had not gone unnoticed. Hypocrisy is just good manners when dealing with a death, and so the bad was made quiet and the best cried aloud. 

His funeral was well-attended and partially paid for through the intersession of Father Demian, who’d so often visited the man’s home in times of distress. The rest was done by the widow’s one sister, Maria Nolan, who had rushed over from Houston. Texas. She had departed four years before I was born but maintained steady contact. It was she who’d sent me that five-pound note; I never told her what became of it. She saw that everything was arranged as well as possible in our sad little hovel, and kept my younger brother and sister at her hotel room to give them peace from the nonstop clamor of adults in the house. 

She also spoke to the press, and emphasized that the widow had five children with another soon due yet was living in a structure that was close to collapse and had no prospects for better. She actually shamed the bastards who ran the town like their bloody fiefdom into promising new lodgings once the last of the Rossville Flats was completed. 

If there were room still available on the queue, of course. Can’t make promises one might have to keep. 

But as with most catastrophic events, soon all was over and done with, and life began its return to normal as the confusion surrounding us all drifted away...except for one small and final detail that proved more than important; Eamonn Kinsella lived and died in Derry, in the North of Ireland -- Londonderry for those who cannot be bothered to learn the city’s true name. 

She was a Catholic city taken hold of by Protestants in the way an abusive man might take hold of his woman, refusing to let her go even if it meant her destruction. So when it was learned that my Da had been killed by two drunk Protestants, that well-mannered hypocrisy turned to fury. 

It didn’t help the bastards swore to heaven and earth they’d only meant to have some fun with the Taig. Which was accepted as the most reasonable explanation by the powers that be, despite his vicious and extremely well-known injuries. 

So thus was the martyrdom of Eamonn Kinsella to Mother Ireland made a part of historic value and his trek to sainthood begun as the truth of his former violent existence vanished like a ghost. This was added to when other Catholics were killed, that year, and several Catholic schools attacked, all because the move to civil rights for the Catholic minority in the state had begun to grew in force. As if hitting someone who’s asking you to stop hitting them means they will shut up and let you continue to hit them. Any fool could see the opposite is all that would occur. 

But still, Protestant leaders declared it was the Catholic population responsible for the discrimination against it and no quarter would be given to make amends for past transgressions that they, themselves, had caused. It never ceases to amaze me how many stupid people refuse to see the reality of what is happening around them. 

So there was my new beginning barely have passed my tenth birthday. Unaware of the quiet hatred that was slowly building to an explosion of death and cruelty made only the worse by it happening in a supposedly civilized part of the dwindling British Empire. But what child can see the growth of history around him when even few adults can? Things happen, and you either rejoice when all ends well or weep when it doesn’t. Thus, my father’s death held resonance for me in but the most selfish of ways -- that he was gone, and I could now live my life in the manner I chose, that of a lad filled with hopes and dreams and prayers and promises, thinking himself to be in a place of safety.

Updated query letter...

My query letter keeps getting changed, slightly, every time I send it out. The basics are the same, but some details shift and it gets a bit tighter each time. This is the first cover I came up with...and I still think it rocks...

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My three volume novel, A Place of Safety, is the story of Brendan Kinsella, a lad who just wants to live his life. But he was born and raised in Derry, Northern Ireland, and history repeatedly interferes with his plans. 

Told in first person, volume one, Derry, begins in 1966, when Brendan has just turned ten and his father is murdered. Thought of as simple but with an innate ability to repair things, he tries to forge his own path through a society in thrall to history and the Catholic church, and which is caught in growing demands for civil rights. He also forms a relationship with a Protestant girl...a relationship that must be kept secret from all family and friends, for fear of reprisals. 

The story sweeps through... 

 · the 1968 Civil Rights demonstrations in Derry 

 · the attack on peaceful marchers at Burntollet Bridge in early 1969 

 · the lead-up to The Battle of Bogside in August of that year 

 · the arrival of British troops to separate the two warring sides 

 · the re-introduction of internment in 1971 

 · Bloody Sunday in 1972 

 ...and ends with him being seriously injured by a horrific bombing in October, that year.

Below, I have included the opening chapter in my query. (This comes out if they don't want that.)

Volume 2, New World for Old, is set between 1973 and 1981. Thanks to that bombing, Brendan is in a catatonic state. It is feared the British will think he helped plan and set the bomb, so he is stashed away under an assumed name at his aunt's home in Houston, Texas, to keep him safe as he recovers. Once healed, he tries to build a life in Houston but finds that area's politics, hates and prejudices are not much different from Derry. I just finished a fifth draft and plan to do a polish. 

In volume 3, Home not Home, his mother is dying so he is called back to Derry. It is during the turmoil of hunger strikes of 1981. He learns surprising things about his father, is betrayed to the British army, is brutally interrogated, and finally has to accept his destiny. I am currently working on a third draft of this part.

The story uses true events to be told, much like James Clavell's Shogun, James Michener's Texas and Leon Uris' Trinity have done. While I have self-published 14 books in both print and ebook, both gay and straight, I would like to situate A Place of Safety with a mainstream publisher to avoid the limitations that come with self-publishing. I am hoping you can assist me with this. 

Thank you for considering A Place of Safety. I believe it will align perfectly with your interests. 

----------

Still pluggin' along...

Juggling act...

So...Brendan is no longer Brendan. Except he is. But his aunt and uncle want him to play along even though they won't tell him anything more about himself than they absolutely must. Which makes no sense. The only good thing about it is, he knows the British aren't looking for him in connection with the bombing. He's now part of the modern Irish diaspora.

As for his new identity, he's not expected to tell anyone about his past. His cousins simply accept him as who their parents claim him to be, but that doesn't stop the B-girls from causing a situation when they decide it's time for him to tell them who Joanna was, since he had her name tattooed on his left shoulder. This causes a near relapse in his emotional collapse and leads to him living in the pool house.

His cousin, Scott, had set himself up in there but is evicted by his parents. They insist Brendan stay close by them, but won't tell him why except he'll be safer. But now Scott is pissed off at him so that makes things more than a little awkward, later.

Bren thinks he wants to forget his past...forget his family, but he can't. He's worried about his brothers, Eamonn and Rhuari, and his sisters, Mairead and Maeve, back under the boot of the British Army. In fact, Eamonn is arrested for helping smuggle in guns. He reads Mairead's letters to his aunt, to keep up with how they're doing...and can see she's playing along with the charade. To his confusion, he's feeling both freed from Derry and yet alienated from it.

I'm not sure how this will be going, yet, because as I go back through Book Two I'm finding aspects that need to be removed and others that need to be added. He's still tender, psychically, over what happened but getting better. He's back to concentrating on making repairs, which helps center him, and wrangles a part-time job out of his uncle at a bar the man just bought in Houston's Heights area.

At least I'm still plugging along with it, again. Who knows? One of these centuries I might get this thing done.

Brendan is taken to the doctor by his aunt...

The city she drove me through was a tangled mass of homes, commercial buildings, empty lots, wide car parks and massive streets. And that barge of a car floated like we were on water, with seats as fine as I’d ever sat in and the air conditioning blasted icy enough to give you a chill. Aunt Mari was pointing out the city as we went, but my head was pounding so I paid the cloth with ice far more attention to and didn't smoke, either. All she had was Benson & Hedges. Why bother with it? 

I know we passed a University called Rice, and that it was across the road from a large, open park cut through by another boulevard. Behind us was the overpowering city center with its sudden office towers and cranes aiming to build even taller ones. Ahead of us was another mass of high-rises she referred to as the medical center, and I could not believe the size of it. Altnagelvin was a county clinic in comparison. But what struck me the most was how flat the land was, everywhere you looked. Never-ending flat. Streets leading on forever and driving straight into nothingness. This is to be my new home? That, I was not yet so sure of. 

As for how I'd got here? Aunt Mari told me only enough to calm my questions. She thought. I had the idea she was trying to distract me or mollify me or just put off any true information till she spoke more with Uncle Sean, but what she actually did was provide me with a path into understanding what had probably happened. 

My rucksack was reason I was not more severely injured. Even so, I hit that wall hard enough to break my left arm and three ribs and get a concussion, along with plenty of cuts and bruises. But here's the stunner -- I actually was halfway into a heart attack. They think Colm striking me unconscious is what saved my life. 

They took me to a safe house near the border, and Ma was brought in. How? Aunt Mari wouldn't say, but I got the idea Colm went to get her through back ways because he knew what some of PIRA's leaders wanted to do. Ma fought them back. Why? I have no idea. But instead of being assigned to a grave, a doctor was brought in and I was attended to. Even given a nitroglycerin tablet! 

Jesus, talk about the Little Bomber Boy. 

Ma was given time to contact Aunt Mari. 

"When Bernadette called with the news," she said, "it scared the bejesus out of me. I had yer uncle talk to some people." 

I'm sure my shock registered in my voice as I said, "He has contacts in PIRA?" 

"Oh, no, no, no, no, Noraid." 

"How would they know who to call, and how?" 

"Does it matter? Ya were given time to heal, weren't ya?" 

Just not in the North. I was snuck across to the Republic and kept in an isolated farmhouse a fortnight. Always deep under medication because I was still prone to hysterics, and I needed to be calm to let my heart work through its problems. Someone in PIRA knew of a farming accident, more than a year earlier, but I doubt any son was actually involved. My bet was they used the name of a child who'd died early for my papers and Irish passport. A bit of makeup to cover my scars for the photo. Then the excuse that I'd gone off my head at seeing the accident. 

Without a doubt, a fair amount of money changed hands, for all of this. 

"Then I flew over, through Shannon, and brought ya here," she added. 

"You had no problem with the customs?" 

"Immigration. And ya were provided a medical visa for treatment of yer heart and mental breakdown. Yer Uncle arranged that, with his lawyers." 

"But why so much trouble for me?" 

"Would ya rather be in a grave?" And the tone of her voice cut off that discussion, complete. 

But I had to ask, "So Uncle Sean has my new passport?" 

She hesitated then sighed. "Somewhere, I'm sure. But best to take care, now. While we did get an extension on yer medical visa, it has expired. He'll need to look into how best to handle that." 

She drove in silence for a few blocks, which I appreciated. My head needed a chance to settle. Then she continued, "Yer mother showed me yer letter." 

Of course she would. Just further proof of my unwillingness to help the family. 

"Bren, what did ya think ya were doin'?" 

No sense in hiding plans that would never happen now. "I was off to work on a ship. I had an offer." 

"Without a word before leavin'?" 

I shrugged. "I'd have sent money home." 

"How? The way the British are bein' with the mail? I don't dare send money, anymore." 

To be honest, I hadn't really thought about it beyond that.

Little vices...

Brendan smokes. Marlboros. At a time when people smoked in restaurants and bars and while driving their kids to school and on airplanes. Even around the dinner table. But I'd forgotten that because I never did smoke. I tried to start when I was in high school but found every time I had a cigarette my voice would vanish for a day or two. So just never got into the habit and now can't stand it.

Anyway, I'm going to add in that when Brendan comes out to help his uncle with the Volvo, be bums a smoke. But Uncle Sean only does Camels, which Brendan doesn't like. It's just, he doesn't have money to buy his own, yet, so has to make do. It's one of those things that should make the moment become even more real.

Aunt Mari smokes, as well...but would she be Benson & Hedges or Chesterfields? Certainly not Kools and Lucky Strike was no filter, so not those. I've hinted that Scott smokes, not just cigarettes but also pot. Dangerous to do in Texas, at that time. Kids were being sent to Huntsville for 10 years over just a joint.

This was at a time when you only had to be 16 to buy a pack, and few stores really carded you. My step-father smoked, as do all my brothers; one of my sisters did but she quit. And my mother never did. She had asthma, so had to use her inhaler a lot. No one cared enough to stop. My father also smoked, but my sister in San Diego refused to let him do it in the house. And he'd get huffy, at times.

I might add in a bit where Scott gets Brendan a pack of his belovéd Marlboros and some matches, and he has to ration them. But they would be a way for him to calm himself down.

Brendan's way...

 I've found, as I write, Brendan's way of dealing with problems is to fix something. He does it a few times in Book One, and it shows up in Book Two when his uncle is having car trouble.

--------

...This one morning, when there was a mist in the air that kept the heat from becoming smothering, I woke to a motor chugging, outside, again and again and... 

Josiah O’Shea’s Cortina wouldn’t start on damp mornings and he’d had near everyone he could think of check into it, at no small cost to himself, until he let me look into it and I found the problem and... 

I laughed. Startled myself, remembering Josiah. A man who personified the image of a leprechaun. The first time I'd had a happy memory from nowhere. I nearly sighed with joy from it. 

I looked at the clock and it was just past nine. I'd been rising about this time, anyway, so got out of the bed and went to the window. It didn't hurt that the constant irregular noise was finally beginning to drive me mad. If a car's not working, why keep trying to make it do what it doesn't want to? 

I saw Uncle Sean was at the Volvo, under the bonnet...the hood, as it were; might as well use the American terms for all things. It was a dark blue 544 and looked like it had the twin SU Carbs to it. A decent car it was but in need of a wash and maybe attention paid to the rust spots developing between the passenger door and front wing...fender. The interior wasn’t in quite as good of shape but wasn’t beyond saving. From here the motor looked fine. But when Uncle Sean got behind the wheel to turn the key, I could hear the telltale creaking that meant some lubrication would be needed, or maybe a fresh set of dampers...shocks. 

Angus lay on the grass, nearby, watching him patiently.

He tried to start the motor, again, and it chugged along, working really hard to catch but not managing. So he went back under the hood, unplugged the spark wires, re-plugged them and tried again. Only to get nothing when he tried to start it. So back under the hood to undo other connections and redo them and try again. It was comical, for he did not sit easy in that car. 

Well, I had enough of it and went all the way downstairs and out the back door. Angus came up to greet me, so I gave him a scratch behind the ears. The bricks were wet and sticky, and the air had begun to feel warm and smothering, despite the mist. I wore only pajama bottoms, still, no slippers even, so the soaked grass tickled my feet...and I loved the feel of it... 

Caressing the back of my neck as I lay on the hillside, Joanna beside me, our complaints about life in Derry so simple and pure... 

I stopped, halfway to him from the house, took in a deep breath and forced myself to say, “Havin' troubles?” 

He jumped and looked at me as if I were a madman, which I probably seemed to him. “Bren, what you doin' out here? You ain’t dressed.” 

I shrugged. “Would you care for me to look at it?” I motioned to the Volvo. 

He grimaced, in response. “Dunno what you can do. Does this every time there’s a fog in the mornin'. Then in the afternoon, it starts up fine. But I need to get to Liam's and this is the only car left.” 

"Liam's?" 

"One of my bars. Liam's Trough. Not far from here..." 

I looked around and saw two dry spots where the other cars had been. “When’s Aunt Mari back?” 

“Dunno. Guess I’ll grab a cab. Lookin' at buyin' 'nother bar up in The Heights and the owner’s droppin' by to talk. I’ll get it towed to the shop, tomorrow.” 

I just leaned over the motor and it reeked of petrol...gas. He had flooded it. The engine was in fine enough shape. The cables were on the old side, possibly original. Same for the coil. I pulled at it without gripping the glove and it nearly come out. “Try startin’ it, again, but no more petrol.” 

He shrugged and sat behind the wheel and the car creaked. Definitely lubrication. I pushed both ends of the coil’s cable against their gloves, and the motor fired right up. 

Uncle Sean bolted from the car, startled. “What’d you do?” 

“You need a new coil,” I said. “It’s comin’ apart inside the glove, so you can’t see it. Dampness keeps it from makin’ the connection. Is there an auto shop nearby?” 

“On the way to Liam's. I can stop off.” 

I nodded. “You might want to think about havin’ all the cables replaced. They’re about due.” 

“Damn, Bren, where’d you learn that?” 

“I’ve been at this since forever. Clocks, tellys and the like. Cars. Made money from it. Had a job.” 

“Your mother never said a word.” Then he seemed to give himself a mental kick and added, "I mean..well..." 

"It's all right," I said. "She thinks me simple." 

Then I headed back to the house, feeling vague and sleepy but also hungry for breakfast. Both Uncle Sean and Angus let me go. 

There was no one about to ask after food, so I dug into the cooler. Found neither eggs nor sausage for a fry-up, so fixed a sandwich from the wealth of things available. Flaps of cheeses and a round, thin-sliced meat called bologna that didn't even begin to look like meat, and lettuce so crisp it could cut you and some sort of mixed sauce called Sandwich Spread all piled high on two slices of white bread that felt as light as a feather. There were also tomatoes, but they were so rich and red they made me uneasy. I found only a couple cans of Dr Pepper chilled in the fridge’s door so took one, opened it and returned to my room. 

I sat on the bed and ate, feeling very luxurious, and thoroughly enjoyed the Dr Pepper; it wasn’t as sharp and biting as Coke. Then I dozed a little before rising, again, and for the first time found myself weary of having nothing on me but sweat and pajamas. 

I took a long hot shower. Let the steam boil through me. Watched how it caught the light from the window and made tiny rainbows in the clouds of beauty and gentleness. Loved how it filled my lungs and wiped away the world long past. This was such luxury. Then I toweled off...and had to towel off twice more, thanks to the humidity bringing out my sweat. 

"No wonder Americans bathe every day and there's non-stop ads on the telly about deodorant," I muttered to myself. "If they didn't slather themselves with it, they'd reek." 

So I did. Some kind of spray called Right Guard. It filled the air and smelled of chemicals, and I wound up coughing my way out of the bathroom from how it near choked me. 

I may have used a bit much.

Zoning...

Due to sleeping poorly, last night. My toilet was acting up and whenever I got up to pee, I had to put my hand in the reservoir basin to stop it from running. Now I'm barely awake. It appears building maintenance fixed it, again, while I was gone. So far, it's been fine, but I'm already ready for bed.

Worked in the office for six hours going over paperwork and plotting out the rest of the week. Got a few groceries on the way home and made potato salad then worked a bit on APoS.

Brendan is reading Mairead's letters from Toronto and is piecing together how he came into America. He also learns the family has had many visitors from Ireland, but Uncle Sean is being cagey about it. Indications are they're from organizations other than NORAID.

But I have to stop because I'll be typing along and suddenly just zone out. Sit here and close my eyes and rest until my head sort of topples over. It'll be an early night.

At least Brendan's learned that...while his brother, Eamonn, was arrested, tried and convicted of smuggling under the Special Powers Act, it had nothing to do with the bombing. He also knows Colm and Danny were not detained. He's not sure how he feels about them since they are directly linked the the bombing that nearly killed him...but that will be determined seven years from now, when he returns.

Forward movement, again

I worked the new stuff in and am now through to chapter 6 of New World for Old. Brendan is overjoyed at his exile. He can now do as he wants, he thinks...but that is quickly cut down when he learns he's overstayed his visa and that presents a problem that needs to be handled before any plans can be made. It winds up being a lot more complicated than that, but that's all for later in the book.

What matters is breaking through the logjam. For now. His brother, Eamonn, gets busted by the Army but Brendan learns it's for being part of a weapons smuggling operation. Initially, it was going to be arms from Libya, but then I remembered Qaddafi's people were pissed off at the IRA in 1973, so I may shift it to Poland. That's who you get Semtex from...the explosive. But it's not what was used in the bomb that Brendan was caught in. It's far too stable.

I'm in the office the rest of the week to assist in the run-up to the NY Antiquarian Book Fair, handling EU and UK dealers who cannot remember from one fair to the next how Customs works. Of course, things are a lot nastier, now, thanks to Brexit. Before that stupid move, we could use the UK as a safe route for transporting books into the US for book fairs. Now we have to deal with a half-dozen different countries' regulations and paperwork, and none of it's easy.

Brexit has also killed some major antiques fairs in the UK, because it's so much hassle and expense to ship items for display in and out it's not worth the time or money. Masterpiece has been canceled, this year, and that was a major fair. But without the EU dealers, it dropped to 40% of what it was and no one wanted to bother.

It's the same in Hong Kong. China messed it up and killed the China in Print Fair. It was a lovely, high-quality book fair in the perfect venue, but no one wants to deal with the new requirements to get it going, again, after Covid. So...stupidity reigns supreme.

Well...I may have an answer...

All of the angst from yesterday's post kept me up till nearly 4am...but I may have found an answer to the problem. It's not yet a complete answer, but it kicks that can down the road to Book Three. Here's what I got:

How did Brendan get to his Aunt and Uncle's?

He is about to leave Derry, on his own, when he is caught in a horrific car bomb. His left arm is dislocated and 3 ribs broken, lacerations on his face and head, and a concussion. His rucksack was still on his back when the bomb went, which kept him from being more severely injured. Still had his passport and money. 

The car was left in place by two friends of his--Danny who's also cut up but not badly, and Colm. It wasn't supposed to explode until much later. They rush Brendan away to a safe house on the border, near Strabane, and send word to his mother. She comes and fights to keep him alive against those in the Provisional IRA who want to bury him. She contacts her sister and brother in law, in Houston and they agree to take him. PIRA goes along with it so long as he will stay away.

He's slipped across the border south of Strabane and held in a farm house near Drumcroy. A doctor is brought in and finds he's suffering from Akinetic Catatonia and his heart is acting up. He needs time to heal from his wounds and near heart attack. Aunt Mari and Uncle Sean use their money and connections to give Brendan that time. 

He's provided a passport under the name Brennan McGabbhin, thanks to a farming accident that killed a man and injured his son, in Donegal. That was nearly a year ago, but it's still usable. Aunt Mari travels over to take him from the Irish Republic to Houston. He gets a 3 month medical visa due to heart and emotional problems, then an extension, then overstays. 

So the story in Derry becomes: Brendan Kinsella has left to find work, as verified by a note and money left behind for his mother. And while there are rumors he's dead, no one really knows. Ma even tells his brothers and sister she thinks he's probably run afoul of PIRA and is buried somewhere. Mairead, his married sister in Toronto, has an idea of what really happened but plays along to keep Brendan safe.

And Brendan, now Brennan, is exiled.

I still haven't worked out why Ma protects him after being so nasty to him for so long, but I have ideas. We'll have to see what comes up in Book Three. 

Why?

I'm stuck in wondering why Brendan is snuck into the US instead of just being put in a grave. Why would PIRA go through all that trouble? How would they even know a way to contact his aunt and uncle and assume they would agree to it? Or...how would his aunt find out about this in time to stop him being shot and buried? He would be a direct link back to his family and his brother and friends, if he was allowed to live.

Does it have to do with his father? Anything that happened with him would have been nearly 25 years before the bombing, when the IRA was regrouping and trying to figure out who they were, again, after WW2. Their next border campaign to break the NI away from the UK wasn't until the middle 50s, right around the time Brendan was born.

I don't have an answer and I need one to continue. It will figure in everything, because even he is wondering this. He's ecstatic he's free...but he's also wondering why. There has to be a reason for this to be happening this way, and I've been glossing over it till now. Ignoring it, really. So I spent all day wondering and asking myself and digging and coming up empty.

Worked myself into a tension headache and made a pain in my middle right back even worse, so right now my head is killing me and my back won't let me move fast, at all. Can't blame that just on old age. It's all because I'm pushing to get to the end of this book and I need answers. And I'm not finding them. I'm even wondering if there is one. If maybe I've written myself into a corner with no way out...and will have to redo Book One completely. Shit.

Maybe sometimes there is no answer.

Brendan learns who he is

 This is part of chapter 4, where Brendan is told what's going on...

------

Aunt Mari drove up and honked at me, and I realized I was standing dead in the middle of the drive. I stepped aside to let her pass and followed the estate...no, station wagon back to the garage. Made it through the large gate before it closed and trotted up to her like a pet dog. 

“Look who’s out and about,” she said as she opened the door. 

“Aunt Mari,” I croaked, “this neighborhood...the space of it all...” 

“Oh, this is nothin’, Bren. What ya doin’ with that?” She motioned to the iron. 

“Thought I’d mend it. Spare you the need of a new one.” 

“I already have one, but if ya’d like to fix it, that’d be nice. I could take the new one back.” 

The rear of the car used some sort of amazing design to vanish into its tail and she pulled out bags of groceries, saying, “Take these in, will ya?” 

I nodded and carried two full bags into the kitchen. She followed with another. Since I still had the iron she had to open the sliding door. 

We set everything on the center counter. 

“Now you sit, lad. I’ll put these away.” 

“I could help you.” 

“No, it’s faster if I do it. I know where everything goes. And we've plenty of time before we leave.” 

"Leave?" 

“The doctor’s. Isn’t that why ya're dressed?” 

I'd had no particular reason to put on clothes; I'd just wanted to. But thinking about it, I remembered her mentioning at some time or other there was to be a visit. So I shrugged. “Is this all right, what I’m wearin’?” 

“Sure it is. He’s very informal, this man.” 

“You say I’ve seen him before,” I said and... 

The round blond lady dressed in white with a kind face caressed my cheek with the backs of her fingers and said to Aunt Mari, “Lord, his eyes...so big and hurt, they cut right to your heart.“ 

I tensed. Made myself turn focus to the iron. Began to inspect it, carefully. 

Aunt Mari was putting vegetables into the fridge so didn’t notice. “He's a heart specialist." 

"Was...was I having problems with it? My heart?" 

"A little. The pills ya got are for it." 

I nodded, still a bit uncentered. "There was mention of it, I think, when I was at Altnagelvin. But the doctor spoke with Ma, not me." 

She chuckled and said, "Ya were at Altnagelvin?" 

I cast her a confused glance. "Ma didn't tell you?" 

She started putting tins of vegetables in a pantry. "How could she? Yer doctor's name, here, is Gilbert, and he come here, a few times. Then I took ya to him, twice. He told us yer break from the world was good because it helped keep ya quiet and gave yer heart time to mend." 

"Was I so bad off, then?" 

"There were problems, but they've settled. Dr. Gilbert can better fill ya in on them." 

"I doubt I mended from being quiet," I huffed. "The B-girls say I was anything but." 

She cast me a smile. "The B-girls?" 

"Well, I...I can't tell them apart, yet, so..." 

Then she chuckled. "That actually fits those two. Ya'll learn how to handle them. And keep in mind, they both love to exaggerate." 

I shrugged and focused on the iron, not yet willing to accept the snippets of memory that I’d catch. 

"The doctor also said to be patient, with ya. That you'd regain your senses. Seems he was right.” 

"What was it wrong with me?" I asked, fingering the iron's back panel. "Was it my heart caused me to lose my mind?" 

"Ya didn't lose it, Bren. Ya got a severe shock and yer brain couldn't handle it so shut down, that's all. He said it was something like an akinetic catatonia." She dug more tinned goods from the bag she looked straight at me. “Do ya remember anything since ya got here? Any of it?” 

I just shook my head. The iron's back panel wasn’t easy to remove, but I managed to get off to reveal the connections. “Have you a knife I can use?” 

She handed me a strip of metal that held a razor’s blade. “This do?” 

“Aye.” 

I unscrewed the fasteners and got to work on cutting the wire and stripping off the casing so I’d have bald wire to reconnect to them. I slipped the newly stripped part into its holder then tightened everything down with the edge of the blade before replacing the panel. Finally, I looked around for an outlet to test it only to notice Aunt Mari staring at me. 

“What?” I asked. 

“Ya've not heard a word I’ve said,” she replied, a bit peeved. 

“When?” 

“For the last five minutes. I’ve been talkin’ along and ya’ve been offerin’ up an occasional grunt to suggest ya're listenin’, but ya’ve been so focused on that iron, ya haven’t heard a thing, have ya?” 

Shite. I shrugged. “I...I can get like that. On occasion, Ma had to flick me with her finger to snap me from it, but it’s only ‘cause she’d go on and on and I’d just stop listenin’.” 

“And ya think I go on and on like yer mother did?” 

“No!” Now I felt irritated, her making me feel awkward, like that. “I just...I have the habit of it when I’m workin’. I don’t mean anything by it.” 

“Don’t worry,” she said and rubbed my hair. “Lord, ya had such lovely curls, once. Ya like your hair like this?” 

I nodded. “I think I’d prefer it in this heat. I already feel the need of another bath.” 

“Oh, this is nothin’. Wait till August.” 

“August?” 

“That’s usually the worst month for heat and humidity, with September almost as bad.” 

I began to float, as if my feet were no longer touching the floor. I dropped the iron to the counter and just managed to ask, “Aunt Mari, when am I to go home?” 

She did not look at me. Just busied herself with folding the paper bags. “Oh, I...um, I’m not so very sure what’s to happen next.” 

I did not like the sound of that...the meaning of it... “Am I banished?!" 

She only sighed and put the bags into a cabinet drawer. She wasn't answering me. She was trying to avoid my question. 

I could barely breathe. "Why? What did I do?” 

She took in a deep breath and turned to me. “Nothing. It was just an accident and...” 

"Accident? It was a bloody bomb that took down half a...!" 

Her eyes grew sharp and she snapped, "No! Ya were nowhere near a bomb. It was a farming accident. Ya saw yer father decapitated and..." 

"What the bloody hell are you on about?!" 

"Whist that talk! Listen to me. Brendan Kinsella left Derry before that bomb. He had a passport and his mother got his note, showing he left. It was after that, when the bomb went off." 

Then it hit me. "You said I was nowhere." 

She very deliberately said, "We don't know where Brendan is or went. We've no way to contact him. You are Brennan McGabbhin, third cousin to me. From a farm in Donegal." 

“But I was...” whispered from me. 

"Ya were in a farm accident! Nowhere near a bomb." 

"But that's not true...it's not...not..." 

Danny looked around at me, startled, his eyes wide and I turned and started to run for the shop but I slipped on the wet pavement and the world vanished in a cloud of white smoke and fire and silence and I was lying on the ground, blood covering my face and screaming and Danny grabbed me and forced me to my feet and held me as Colm punched me and... 

I was staring at the ceiling, a cold rag to my head and my heart pounding like the devil. It took me a moment to realize I was stretched out on the kitchen floor. Aunt Mari was kneeling over me, a portable phone to her ear. “...When he just keeled over,” she said. "Oh, he's comin' 'round."

Stories...

I slammed into a nasty funk and it took me three days to get myself to where I could refocus on APoS. And I did it by going through the first three chapters, again, and finding Brendan's emotional core in them and heightening it. The story picks up 6 months after the bombing, but to him it's just a day or two. And he keeps having flashbacks to not only the explosion but its aftermath in as people try to decide what to do with him.

But while working on it, earlier, all of a sudden I had added in a quickie flash of what seemed like his mother trying to smother him, while he was injured, and is stopped by Danny. I didn't mean to, because this is a real trigger for me.

My own mother tried to smother me, when we were living in San Diego. I was six months old and sick...hell, I was born sickly...and she was probably going through postpartum depression, which wasn't paid much attention to, back then. She'd never been the strongest, emotionally, and she was close to the edge thanks to that.

I would not stop crying and she had learned my father was fucking around on her. He'd even knocked up another woman. So she put a pillow over me and was pressing down when, apparently, someone dropped a pan in the next apartment and the sudden, sharp noise startled her out of her mood. She took me to a doctor. Found out I had spinal meningitis. I got meds. And she moved us back to San Antonio.

My folks were divorced a few months later. I didn't see my father, again, till I was 21.

When I was 10, she told me about this after one of her breakdowns. She was hospitalized a total of 5 times, starting in London. Twice in San Antonio. Once in Grand Forks, ND. And the last in Glendale, after she and my father had remarried and were trending towards divorce, again.

I handled it. I thought. I dealt with it throughout my life. But suddenly comes this attempt by Ma to smother Brendan, in his flashbacks...and I think that kicked me into this funk. I don't want to use it...but it's right for the story. It's right for Brendan. It's just...it's not right for me.

But it's staying in.

It's staying in.