One of those days...

Long and not very easy. Voting went fast because I do it in the community room of my building, and no one was ahead of me. I heard I was #165 voting by 9am. But then I hit Quest for the bloodwork, fasting, and even though I had a 9:30 appointment I wasn't called till after 10am. And the person doing the draw had to play with the veins in my hand to get all they needed. Veins in my arm have long since hidden away. Got a nice little hematoma, there.

I shipped a copy of NWFO off to a cousin who'd asked for a signed one and had to patiently work with a PO Desk clerk who has a neurological disorder that makes her difficult to understand. I also learned because I had one digit wrong on the street address, books I'd sent to a friend were being returned to me. I'd used 12106 instead of 12108.

The office was easy, at least. Talked about the book fair in Hong Kong and how some dealers are ignoring the fact that things are different, now. Hong Kong is not really a free-port, anymore, and new rules have to be followed. Got labels and paperwork for my next packing job and was provided lunch. Beef on Weck from a sandwich shop near the place. It was tasty, but the meat was almost raw...and I didn't feel all that great the rest of the day.

My car's brakes didn't feel good, either, so set up an appointment to have them checked, on Thursday. Bumped getting my haircut till then, too. Got $140 worth of groceries and came home. Took a nap, and got started on reformatting HNH into an ebook...and found a typo. Of course.

I should have waited. I'm back to thinking the damn thing doesn't make any sense or is too simplistic. Too late to make any huge changes...even though I'm going to. One minor character is shifting from male to female because it makes more sense.

I'm impossible.

Damned rules...

Well, it seems in order for me to get a review done at Publishers Weekly, I have to send them an ebook version of Home Not Home. Which I'd forgotten about having to do the two previous times. So the next couple of days...well Wednesday and Thursday...will be taken up prepping one. Irritating.

It's not an easy process, to start with. But I've done it enough times to where it's no longer painful. Just time-consuming. And I can't really start tomorrow because it's voting day and I'm getting bloodwork and going into Caladex for a little while, then grocery shopping and getting a haircut.

I've been putting off the last part for as long as I could. I just didn't want to go out and around people until I had to, and that's what Tuesday's for.

I spent today working up the front cover of HNH and prepping the synopsis for the back cover. I'll need a photo for the back...but haven't found it, yet. Looking at this, now, I'm thinking I'll clean up some of the mess around the lad's eye, to make it clearer. Maybe over the nose, as well. But this is a good start.

Dear God, I'm hoping Harris slaughters that orange traitor, whose name I will not say or write. If he manages to cheat his way in, we're dead as a country.

I think this is it...

I have a really good feeling about this cover mockup. It's got the right blend for what I want -- young, almost blank so any emotion could be read into it. I added a highlight to his eye, but that's all. I'm going to let it sit a few days, but I do feel right about it.

After working on BC, yesterday, I went into blank mode, today. I was half-intending to go out for groceries, today, but just couldn't work up the impetus. Did get laundry done. Last of my paperwork for the jobs this past week. Got a lot of cash coming in but also a lot going out, since a lot of it's reimbursement for my expenses.

BC is still working its way through my mind. I may get back onto that, tomorrow. Or I may go get the groceries I need and a haircut, if anyone's available. And a salad. I'm not big on the green stuff, but sometimes I just plain want it. Hit Panera and get their Fuji Apple with turkey instead of chicken.

A cousin of mine told me she made tamales and suddenly I'm craving the damn things. But there is no-place in this town that offers the real ones, like you find in San Antonio. Small. Slim. Wrapped in a corn husk. Three good bites and it's gone.

The ones they make here are the size of burritos. Not the same thing. And they offer chicken. Sacrilege! Tamales are made with pork! That's like putting chicken in a chef salad. Turkey and ham should be the only meats...maybe with bacon bits...

Not that I'm being didactic.

Do I even inhabit my mind?

I pulled up my original Word doc of Bobby Carapisi, skimmed through it and pulled out the sections I'm keeping for the screenplay to put on a separate document. The next step is to go through that and slice out all the extraneous chit-chat and mental wordage I've put in it, thanks to Eric, Bobby, and Allen.

I'm also updating it from 15 years ago, when it first came out. Bobby now tells his story on his phone instead of a tape recorder. Eric doesn't take his long walk from downtown to Hollywood, anymore; too much of that area's been redeveloped and is now bland. And I chopped out Bobby's courtship of his wife, Donna, and will be combining two of Allen's remembered rapes into one.

There are a couple of TV talk show transcripts I need to figure out how to work around because they are long. As is Eric's ordeal while undergoing the gathering of evidence for the rape kit. At the moment, I'll be lucky to keep it at 150 pages.

So why am I doing this? No idea. It's almost automatic. I did not consciously choose it. My thought, today, was to work up my expenses for the last three jobs and have those ready for Monday...even though I won't get reimbursed until the middle of the month, at the earliest.

I also need to prep for another packing job the week of the 18th. But playing with my book like a screenwriter doing an adaptation took preference.

This won't be the first time I've shifted a long book into a screenplay. I used two books about Beryl Markham to develop a 130 page screenplay about her life up till she flew from the UK to North America, and got an award for it. I just don't know if I can do that with something I originated.

So much of the story's emotional depth comes from the lives I build in each character. It's that way with all my novels, even the erotic ones. I write stories and characters, not porno-crap mean solely to titillate. Maybe that's why I don't do so well with them, sales-wise.

Why? Whhhyyyyyyyy?

I wonder about my brain, sometimes. The directions it takes without my expecting it. How plans I make get shattered because my mental processes refuse to speak to me until they can cause me the most chaos.

I stopped by The Corning Museum of Glass, today, and saw a couple new exhibits and got some ideas on how to makes Dair's chosen art form to be even more impressive when he makes his projects...and had a damn good butternut squash ravioli for lunch. Also learned Blown Away 4 has happened. But it's only on NetFlix. Dammit.

And then, on the final leg of my drive home, what did I do? Work more on the screenplay for Bobby Carapisi. 5 acts; 125 pages, maybe 130, max. Cutting the story to the bone.

Act One -- Eric's assault (alluded to but not shown), and how he's manhandled by the system of justice, despite pushing for justice. His drifts into drugs and prostitution.

Act Two -- Bobby's assault (also alluded to) but he was handled with kid gloves, letting him ignore the effects it's having on him. But rumors keep building.

Act Three -- Eric learns of how Bobby was coddled and hits the media, blowing the story up. Bobby is driven off the baseball diamond and commits suicide. Followed by Eric's guilt over his part in it and an apology to Bobby's mother.

Act Four -- Allen is sent to prison despite claiming his innocence. He insists everything was consensual. But Eric connects with him to tell his story...and investigates his claims, including speaking with a past victim.

Act Five -- Eric locates Allen's family and realizes he was brutally abused by them. He drifted into being part of the assaults, lied non-stop about who he was, and is self-destructive, now...but he finally admits what was done to Bobby

Epilogue -- Allen dies in prison, and Eric is on the road to recovery.