Realignment...

Didn't go to sleep till 5am and slept off and on till after 11am. Not great...but I just plain wasn't sleepy. I did some diagrams for Caladex and sent them over at 3:40am. Sorted paperwork that had piled up. Ate a lot of bacon and OJ. I don't do that...

Then when I got up, Simon let me know he's changing his last name to Harper. Halloran was just to unwieldy for him. He wants simplicity and clarity. So...the title of the piece is now People v. Simon Harper.

Next we did a couple sketches for him. Both of them are three-character works. The first has a buff man standing with his hands bound behind him and attached to a couple of cables. His shirt is torn open but his pants are in place. A naked young man is half embracing him, his erect dick pressing against the man's left leg. Behind them is another naked man finishing up a shower in an open area, seeming to watch them.

The second has a young man in unbuttoned jeans holding what could be his shirt. He's outside a room where a nearly naked man is undoing his shoe, his foot propped up on a bed, his stance wide. Lyig on the bed, before him...practically under him...is another young man who's been bound and gagged and exposed. Dick and balls, both. A phone is set up at the foot of the bed, on a tripod, to record what's happening.

I'd share them once I scan them in and clean them up, but Blogger would get upset.

Simon wants to make a coloring book of images along these lines. Demented Dreams of Simon Harper's Troublesome Lads. Something like that...though that is definitely unwieldy. But rather like what I did with Demented Dreams: of guys in trouble.

I've got a website, now. Nothing super fancy, but better than anything I could have done.

Library-bound...

I now have A Place of Safety set up in two libraries and sent it off for a third to consider adding it to their catalogue. This is the letter I sent:

Good afternoon,

I have written a story titled A Place of Safety. It’s about a Catholic boy in Derry, Northern Ireland during the Troubles, who is trying to live his life on his own terms. It’s in three volumes, and I am hoping the ______________ will consider adding it to their catalogue.

ISBNs and LCCNs:

Volume 1. Derry — ISBN: 979-8-9887577-1-9 LCCN: 2023922596

Volume 2. New World For Old — ISBN: 979-8-9887577-2-6 LCCN: 2024911743

Volume 3. Home Not Home — ISBN: 979-8-9887577-3-3 LCCN: 2024922801

These are for the general adult trade, and are priced at $32.50 each. All the hardcovers were published in 2024, with the paperback editions just recently coming out. They are available through Ingram Content Group, while the e-book editions are available through Direct2Digital.

I have included printouts of my Kirkus and BookLife reviews for each volume. 

As for myself, I am a writer and self-involved artist who’s lived in London and Honolulu, and a dozen places in-between. I’ve also traveled around the world, and some of my artwork has been purchased by collectors.

I used to write screenplays, which is how A Place of Safety began life—as an idea for one...twenty-five years ago. But it deepened and expanded and changed direction. In it, I’ve tried to build characters as vivid and real as possible, and have had a lot of fun doing it...mixed with angst, anger, amazement…and sometimes vicious arguments with the people in each book. I like to think I’ve done well by them.

To be up front, I’ve also written a number of other books, some of them erotic and controversial, but I truly feel A Place of Safety is in a class apart from those.

Thank you for considering my work. I look forward to hearing from you.

Dolly Parton just saved my life...

She came out with a peach cobbler and it's in the local stores!!! I'm in hog-heaven. Made it, tonight, and it is fucking glorious. OMG, you never know how much you missed something until you finally have it and it's helped you center your entire life! No other peach cobbler in Western New York. I had to make my own with Bisquik and canned peaches, and that was okay...but this blows it out of the water.

Of course, my blood sugar's going to freak out, but I don't care. I had a reading of 101 after dinner, yesterday, my lowest ever, and I felt like shit. Unfocused. Weak. Moody. Flat out unhappy. It wasn't till I went to get some pastries and scarfed them down with a glass of milk that I began to feel good, again.

I wonder if some this has to do with my Norwegian heritage? We live on milk products. Cheeses. Yoghurt. I managed to get myself down to 2% milk, but that's as low as I'll go. I also need beef. Not huge amounts, but I once did a Macrobiotic diet and nearly died. Same for Fit for Life. Both big mistakes. I have friends who are vegans and they manage fine. It's just not for me.

So I try to manage a balance...and after yesterday, that's all I'm gonna do. Veggies mixed in with meat and potatoes...and dessert. I'm gonna be 73. I'm out for quality of life as long as the MAGAt Class will let me.

Good thing is, I got a response from a library that they will take on A Place of Safety. And I'm sending out a query to the New York Public Library to see if they will, as well. I've worked up a full package of promo stuff--copies of my reviews at Kirkus and BookLife, synopses, links info--and will do that with some other libraries. Like the LAPL. And even use it for bookstores.

Powell's and Book Soup offer APoS for special order, so that may be all I can do with them unless I arrange for a signing. The Strand turned me down, in NYC.

So it goes...

Simon's both artist and poet...

He's not too full of himself. But here's a poem that ADA Dillon Warstead will try to use against him...and only make things worse.

Freddy

By

Simon Halloran

When they grabbed Freddy, they had knives. 

Which made no sense; they all had wives. 

But blindfolded, and gagged and bound 

Off he was taken, with no sound 

Down in a room, so dark and strange 

Where he received no chance to change. 

Instead his clothes were cut away 

And they took turns with him, all day. 

"We knew you'd take it up the ass 

And in your mouth, despite your sass," 

The leader said, his third release 

Inside of Freddy yet to cease. 

"The way you fit your jeans was right, 

So we'll be keeping you all night, 

Until we're done, then you will know 

We own you and won't let you go." 

This made no sense at all. The lad 

Did not know what he had done bad 

To make them hurt him. "Well, you're gay," 

One man said, "and that's why you'll stay." 

"Then so are you," our boy cried back. 

That only led them to attack 

Him harder. "Don't say we are that," 

The leader snarled. "No more chitchat. 

Since you're the one who's fucked, not us. 

So there is nothing to discuss. 

We'll keep you. Use you till we're done. 

And then we'll find another one 

Who's just like you to fuck around.” 

Then put me six feet underground? 

Is what came to Freddy’s mind. 

With two more gay men lost in kind? 

No fucking way, our Freddy thought. 

No man will treat me like I'm bought 

To be used and then merely trashed. 

I will escape. Get your lives crashed 

To stop your evil ways and means, 

And show you nothing's as it seems.

For six weeks Freddy played their boy, 

And he made sure to bring them joy 

Despite his hatred of the group. 

Till one fine night he got the scoop. 

Sometime soon he would leave this earth 

In spirit. But he had no dearth 

Of plans to get away from them 

And not surrender to their whim. 

He’d never wasted any time, 

So knowing this, he became prime. 

First, break the chain around his leg.

He’d made sure every night to beg 

Them to remove it. They would shrug 

And leave him, like he was a bug. 

But while he feigned to be so weak 

From their abuse, the little sneak 

Was working at the padlock’s clasp 

To lessen the strength of its grasp 

While doing all he could to keep 

Them wanting him. He’d cry and weep, 

Which made them laugh in ways so cruel. 

They didn’t understand the fool 

Was them. Because early one morn 

The padlock opened. Hope was born. 

So he would suffer one more rape 

Then find the best time to escape. 

That day they came, the three prepared 

To end him, but then Freddy dared 

To howl and cower...then recover 

To kick one back into another. 

Ripped the chain off, to their shock 

And beat the last one. No more talk. 

He bolted upstairs to the door. 

Burst through into a great downpour 

Of rain to cleanse him. No more kept. 

And mere days later, those men wept 

Before the courts. He told the tale 

And all of them went straight to jail. 

Then Freddy said, "I'll write a book 

And in it you can have a look 

At all the evil done to me 

Because I'm gay...but now I’m free."

Simon is a dick...

I made time to sit with Simon, nicely propped up in my bed, cozy as a kitten, and we talked. Well, sort of. He's got a real attitude, and it's rubbing me wrong...but that's good. I don't want to have to deal with anyone merely out to grow and be better or just to get revenge. I've got enough of that in my books.

Anyway, Simon is set in his ways, and I'm just going to have to work with them to build the story. Figure out what's going to happen as it happens. Meaning he's not crazy about my outline. Too restrictive.

To start, he's an artist, not a writer. Not fine arts, like Picasso or Pollock. More similar to Tom of Finland or Etienne, with their fun gay encounters and rapes. His art will have meaning and still be faggot in your face. He'll even have done some graphic novels written by someone he trusts enough to work with. 

There are Japanese artists who do serious bondage and torture work, but also do work that is just plain beautiful. Tagame is one he admires, as are Funayama, Hasegawa and Go Hirano, like this image.

Simon won't even think of trying to replicate his ability in making skin seem vibrant and alive. It had something to do with fish scales mixed into the paint. So Simon's just pen and ink line work. Coloring in is for professionals.

It's all an extension of what he did in 8th grade, which was interrupted by his time with Doyle. But now it's his go-to for settling himself. He's even doing a sketch as he watches Doyle take his last breaths before succumbing to AIDs. And smiles once it's done.

I'm also beginning to see why Simon prefers low-level jobs that provide a bare existence. He doesn't want anyone to pay attention to him. He got way too much of that with Doyle and nearly lost himself.

So now he has dozens of portfolios holding his unused work, and has it arranged for them to go to a LGBTQ+ museum in LA, when he dies. Maybe the Tom of Finland Foundation. Haven't decided, yet.

What I am doing is working up one of his sketches, now. Very NSFW.

PvSH pushing

Did a rough 1700+ words on a memory Simon's having when he thinks back on the time he was watching Doyle sleep. Struggling and fitfully, thanks to advanced AIDs. He hated the man for crushing him but is also being kind to him in many ways. He figures if Doyle hadn't been such a complete monster to him, he'd have slept around and wound up HIV+.

That memory is of when some schoolyard bullies tried to extort money from him in 8th grade, and how he refused to let them. When Simon decides no, he means NO. And even being punished by the school and harassed by other kids didn't change his mind.

I become like stone, he says. And I wait and let others keep trying to get to me, until they reveal how best to make them stop.

In this case, it was being shoved around by an obnoxious feral brat named Kenneth, who hadn't noticed Simon held a sharp #2 pencil in his hand. Kenneth yelled and called names and circled him with his pack and finally shoved him, hoping for a response...and that's when Simon rammed the pencil into his side. Hard enough to stick.

Freak outs occurred, as did blood, and Simon was threatened with assault charges, but all he said was, "He shoved me and my hand jerked. It was an accident." Which Kenneth inadvertently backed up by saying, "I didn't push him that hard."

It got shrugged off as an accident and boys being boys. But Kenneth and his pack stayed away from Simon, after that. And the next year, Simon went to a different high school from him.

Now he's facing legal bullies trying to force him to give in to their own form of blackmail...and he won't...and it's escalating beyond anyone's control...because Simon's silence is not really working to his advantage.

Cooking day, alone...

I stayed in. Didn't get dressed or anything. Made spaghetti sauce with meat and veggies for later use. A lovely blueberry/pecan coffee cake for this evening, with tea. A smoothie with Apple Brandy in it. A goulash, of sorts, for lunch. A massive chef salad for dinner, albeit without the boiled egg. I didn't think about that till I was halfway done making it. But felt good.

Not good enough to look like him, but something to aspire to...even if I am too old to change.

I did have to deal a bit with issues concerning a pickup in the UK. I didn't get to go there for it, which I really wanted to. Dammit. And now I need to work up a diagram for the handling of some folio prints so it's done right.

Also dealt with the bank being pissy about my Visa card. For some reason, a security alert that I thought I'd handled weeks ago was still on it, so they were rejecting auto charges...and dealing with those people was not pleasant. I like my credit union, but I do not like this Visa.

Oh well...on the other hand...Simon is settling down next to me. About ready to talk and lead and explain and help me plan the best way to tell PvSH. How to lead into it. And here's one possibility.

You never know what actions will wind up leading to murder. Sometimes the simplest ones can be the first steps down that path. One step after the other, never seeming like they're taking you to a deadly place until it's too late to change course. Too late to even consider turning back.

So the night Simon Holleran was arrested began as simply as any other. Aside from him being in a town he never wanted to come to, in order to do a job he'd accepted only reluctantly. He'd thought he was doing a good deed...

No, I was doing something good. For a friend. Someone I thought was a friend. He needed to have a collection of antiquarian first editions catalogued and, since I lived little more than three-hundred miles from their owner it was relatively minimal trouble for me to travel down and handle it for him.

For a price.

I like the shift from third to first person, and think this will happen throughout the story. Maybe. You never know until it's actually done. For example, Simon may wind up being an artist instead of writer. Still something to think about.

Silent world...

Sometimes silence is all that matters. Sitting with not a sound and doing nothing but letting the world whisper around you in ways that seem gentle even as they growl and threaten.

That is why I like being alone. No one to explain to. Or push aside so I can visit my quiet...quiet space whenever I want. I can seek monsters, there...and angels...and worlds I've never imagined for myself...

I don't remember the first time I visited this shadow-filled land...but I know I first used it to write HTRASG. A crude title, but of a meaning unto itself. It warned me I'd be dealing with a wounded man demanding his story be told, blunt and cold and crying for understanding.

Curt. I felt almost as if he were real. Part of me...but not. Sitting there. Waiting. In silence. Until I agreed to let him reveal his tale through me. Which I did. That book came from his world, not from mine. And it still affects people.

It wasn't until I was writing narrative fiction that I really began to understand who my people were. My angels and demons. I'd written screenplays, only with characters who were sketches to be filled in by others. I didn't know them well enough to reveal them.

Curt led me to a world I could never have visited on my own. Like wandering through a mist into a new existence, greeted by more people who welcomed me, happily. And told me things I did not want to know...but had to. Some fought with me. Others pleaded. And some merely waited until I was ready. A few were even all of these things.

I didn't like it, much of the time, but I pushed and fought to remain true. And now...no matter what anyone says about my work...my books...I did as right by them as I could.

I feel like I'm stepping into a new part of my silence. Feel like I am no longer afraid to write what I write. Meaning, I no longer have to overcome that fear. It's gone. I am who I am, and all that matters is I do not shirk my responsibility to my people.

Let it be what it is.

Blank of mind day...

I was just trying to think of what I've done, today, and aside from going into the office to drop off paperwork and expenses and get some groceries, I can't think of a thing. I considered taking a nap but didn't. Thought about reading a book...but didn't. I just wasn't here...as is not unusual for me, after finishing a writing project.

I just drifted...and let PvSH settle in around me. Let it establish its hold and filter into my creative core. Didn't do anything about it, except acknowledge Simon's wish for his story to be quiet and calm and suspenseful. Not a big order, is it...

How will I be able to make the events in the first half of his book compelling? Dunno, yet. I suppose I could work it like Shakespeare did Romeo and Juliet...

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

So tell people up front things escalate from mundane to intense to the point where Simon is murdered, and this will reveal it, step by step. Dunno how I feel about that.

It's done...

Dirc and the Dyarvos Bones is up on D2D. I'm trying to include it with my other books in the sale, but I may need to do this one separately. I still don't know all the ins and outs of D2D. It's pretty different from Smashwords.

I think it works well as a stand-alone story. The ending suggests a followup but doesn't need one. This avatar wouldn't work as a book cover but does okay as an attention grabber. 

So here's the official deal -- if this novella makes 500 sales, I will do the rest of the book to match it. Probably in parts...maybe 5 or 6 more. Each with its own derivation of the title.

Then I'd think about doing it in paperback, as a whole. But I want some reason for that to happen, so it's on the book to get it together. I'm putting it out there...

But what matters right now is, it's done and I can take a short break then get hard onto the People v. Simon Halloran. Rework the outline...maybe...or not. I tend to do better when I don't have something I feel the need to follow exactly.

Funny...I never did wind up buying any vodka so didn't even try writing DDB drunk.

Steps forward but slowly...

I'm not asking anyone to proof Dirc and the Dyarvos Bones because I need it done now, not whenever. It also gets pretty intense with the rape and death of Molinaro. He's the asshole cop who inadvertently kills Dirc, who actually says, "If he hadn't killed me, none of this would've happened." Which is true, so the dick gets blamed for everything that follows.

Not to say any of it was planned. Dyarvos was bringing Dirc back enough to life just to feed to his spacecraft, which won't eat anything dead. It noticed he was changing, within, so tested him out as its helper...and he came back fully alive with his molestation of Molinaro.

The deal Dirc and Dyarvos work out is, he will bring it men of a certain type to feed the craft, so it can effect repairs through cloning and re-energize itself. Which takes several months. Then when they're done, Dirc will be left to live his life instead of die.

It's not until section two of the story that Dyarvos returns to make another deal with Dirc--keep supplying him with men for it to use as entrees in its intergalactic truck stop. But that gets really crazy and involved, and I'm not really open to focusing on it, yet.

People v. Simon Halloran has pulled back, massively, to where it mimics occasions I've read about through the years. A gay man says the wrong thing to an undercover cop and gets arrested, then the cop lies about what happened to make the situation seem worse than it is. When it's just the cop's word against the guy who's been arrested, the cop is automatically believed. The arrested one has to prove his innocence.

It's a lot more honest and real, now, and considering the evil Felon47 and his American Fascist Party (the AFP) have unleashed on the country, it's more important that I let it be as truthful as possible.

Truncation...

I'm prepping the first section of DDB as a stand-alone ebook to go up on Smashwords, for the sale...if I can add it in. It's pretty much formatted, and Dirc is pleased with how it's turned out.

I'm doing one more pass to proof it so it'll probably go up, tomorrow, if they accept it. I've already had one run-in with D2D about a book they felt was too much...Carly's Kills, my heterosexual one. So we'll see how it goes.

I don't know if I'll do the rest of the book; this stands alone, pretty well. This is less than 20% of the total word count -- 18,742 out of over 102K. 

But PvSH is nudging me to do something with it. So I've decided, if DDB gets 500 copies sold in the month (something highly unlikely) I'll finish it up. Otherwise, I have other books to focus on.

I also want to work on Dair's Window, which I started 5 years ago...or was it 6? And shifting all of Darian's Point into book format. DDB is fun but not as important, and I've worked out a lot of may anger in it.

I'm now working with Emily Jackson, who designed the covers for the paperbacks, to promote APoS. Got a special FB page set up and am trying to have a website set up, but that's going very, very slowly. So slow, I'm beginning to wonder if he will actually do it. But I had to do something, since I'm piss-poor at promotion and the books are not selling.

This also keeps my focus away from the growing number of insane idiots and assholes on social media. Apparently, Joe Biden is responsible for the horrific flooding along the Guadalupe River. How? They have no idea. They just know this isn't normal.

They won't accept climate change but will believe our government can control the weather. Fucking lunatics.

Avoidance redux...

It's the 4th of July and I am not celebrating. Never in my life did I think I would witness the complete collapse of America, especially not within 6 months. But here it is. We are no longer the leader of the free world, because we have become the very thing we fought against for decades...centuries.

America has never been perfect, but she was slowly improving...until that motherfucking bastard in the White House came along and yanked back the curtain to reveal how cowardly, hateful and racist half our country still is. I didn't want to see anyone, be near anyone, all day...because I was grumbling nonstop.

But...I needed DPZ so braved the madness and hit the grocery store to get some...along with a couple more things. There were so many people running around the first place I went to, I nearly came home. Instead, I drove to another one miles away, had a pair of veggie rolls and DPZ for lunch and zenned. That store had a balcony area where I could stay apart from the crowd till I was ready.

Got what I needed...except for Vodka. I was going to make a screwdriver, but don't think it's a good idea, right now. Maybe tomorrow. We'll see.

I think I'm settling in on Dirc and the Dyarvos Bones as the title for this book. It sort of settled into my brain so easily. We'll see how I feel once this draft is done. I'm through 45 pages out of 310. Not as far along as I thought. Shit.

It's going to be a beast...and I am ready for that.

Unavoidable catastrophe...

I kept my sanity, today, by ignoring the world and working on Dirc, the Cannibal Queer. A title I still don't like, only I can't find a good one for this book, yet. But I needed the space. Needed to focus on something that was at least a little bit under my control, in the face of the monsters in Washington.

The MAGAt Class is, literally, celebrating kicking millions of people off food assistance and taking away healthcare, all to give billionaire more tax breaks.

Like we told people they would. And were called liars and alarmists and fools. May they all go to hell. And Democrats practically let them do it, only fighting back when it was too late. 

The only positive aspect of this fiasco is I had plenty of anger to focus into the story of Dirc hunting men for the aliens to feed on, so he can be reborn. He was shot and killed by a cop but is re-alived in order to help Dyarvos' living spacecraft rebuild itself.

I've shifted his victims to mainly white men of the MAGAt Class...but not all. He gets stopped by a gay man he's kidnapped just as he's about to attack a college guy...which leads into him first being found mentally ill and then tried as a serial killer and condemned to die. And that's in just the first 25% of the book.

I'm trying to trim ii down, but it's up over 101K in words, right now, and I fear I'm out of my depth...because I hate to cut...

I'm going to start drinking, again...

I never really stopped, just cut it down to an occasional beer with dinner...but I think having something like a glass of wine or even a Screwdriver would help me release the hounds on DCQ. Thing is, I've never really been a big drinker...

Well, except for a six-month period in college where I wasn't sober a single day. All that achieved was me finally having a blackout and driving home drunk out of my mind. Scared the piss out of me and I stopped, right then.

But something is holding me back on this book si I want to stop that, right now, and if this works...

I did have a discussion with Simon en-route home, for PvSH. Mostly along part of the 75 heading down to Toledo. There was an eleven mile stretch where traffic was going barely 10mph...and often much slower. For no reason. Oh, there was construction and the freeway was down to 2 lanes, but at the end of it was nothing. No reason for the slowdown. 

Anyway, Simon wants to actually approach Paley and invite him back to his hotel room. Paley arrests him, claiming he offered money for sex and Simon wanted to do it in an alley close by a school...which he vehemently denies. No little tricks or convoluted events to get things going. Just a simple event.

Simon is arrested for being queer and making a pass at the wrong guy, that's all. But it escalates and expands and develops into a serious situation, thanks to several people in the city's justice department assisting in trying to put Simon in the wrong  Makes a lot more sense. Nothing loud and symbolic...just a guy living his life.

FWIW, I'm home, again, and sipping hot tea as I write this. 

Old age strikes again...

I forgot to post, last night. Never even entered my brain. And today I'm so fucking tired, I don't know if I'll make any sense.

This job finally kicked me in the balls. The truck to collect the boxes showed up on time...but didn't have anything to work with. No handcarts. No pallets. No pallet jack. Not even straps. It was empty. They had to go back to the warehouse to get what they needed.

So we got started an hour and a half late, while working under a time constraint. We had to get them to the freight company by 6pm to meet our booking.

The boxes got palletized and back to the warehouse by 1pm...then I spent the next 2.5 hours building 98 cartons into 4 D-Containers, which included cutting two of them down to fit the number of cartons in them (like the one in the image). After that was shrink-wrapping and banding them.

All in hot muggy weather. I actually drank water, I was getting so dehydrated...and I don't drink water.

By the time I was done, I was exhausted. I got to my hotel and took a half-hour nap then went to a Kroger to get dinner. I looked and felt nasty so didn't want to do dine in. Now I'm in a Best Western with crap WiFi and even my phone's Hotspot is minimal. Headed home, in the morning, and so ready...

And so wanting to get DCQ done before the MAGAt Class turns us into Gilead...

We got two Dillons (not Dylans)...

Names are changing in DCQ...and my latest possible title is Dirc, the Cannibal Queer. Which is not really true; he doesn't actually feast on human flesh...except in a manner most abstract. But that's what he gets called by the media when they talk about him, so it sticks.

He doesn't care. He's just another guy makin' his fortune by kidnapping assholes and providing them to an extraterrestrial named Dyarvos, who uses them as the day's special at its truck stop in the sky. Sort of like how Venom has his way with Eddie, when he's hungry...

None of the ones used for the intergalactic diner actually die. They get attached to hoses and cables then submersed in fluid, and milked. It's the DNA from their semen used to create meals. Which I kind of like. A fate worse than death...and very Yaoi. Maybe even Bara...

No question, the first men Dirc took, those who provided nourishment to Dyarvos and its space craft so they could make repairs and leave, do die...and that gets kind of dark. But I'm going to lighten it up a little. Maybe add a layer of wickedness and emphasize Dirc's uncaring nature is initiated when he is killed by his first victim, Molinaro.

Dirc's main nemesis later in the story is Dr. Captain, whose name is now Dillon. Which is going to be a bit confusing, because in my best bi-polar manner I'm also changing Brian Walstead to Dillon Ainsworth, in The People v. Simon Halloran.

That's washing around in my brain, as well, and quietly slipping into something more real and organic in nature and the telling. I'm also going to have a Zephrim in the story. And maybe a Clarice, just to be obnoxious.

Let's see how much fun I can have, in a brutal vein...without going into Hannibal the Cannibal nonsense.

Great expectations not met...

Job was rough but not bad. I had two helpers and that made a huge difference. We clipped through about 70% of the books to pack. I have these two for tomorrow, as well. Then Monday, guys coming to hump the boxes down to the first floor and, maybe, we can reschedule the pickup for Monday, as well. Not really planning for that part, because that's way more difficult. We're requesting two men and a special timed pickup...so it may still be Tuesday. But that's fine.

I had two fans and my helpers brought one, as well. Those kept the heat from taking over. I'm tired but not feeling pissy. May even get to go home early, so it's going to be okay.

One issue is, I can't work through my problems with DCQ because I have someone who does not really know me working close by. If I start talking to myself in Dirc's voice, they're likely to freak out...and I wouldn't blame them.

One thing's for sure...I was making a vague statement on racism by having Dirc target mainly black and Latino guys, with only about 20% being white. Showing how the authorities don't care when men in either race go missing.

No more. He's going to focus on guys who are mainly right wing shits and foreign men who follow Nazi crap. Russians, too. Their own leaders don't give a damn about their soldiers, so that's good hunting grounds.

That's not to say he's going to ignore men of color. He'll take them when the opportunity arises, but he's going to choose the white boys. Makes more sense, since he's really another serial killer and they tend to operate within their own racial makeup.

This is gonna be one fatherfucker of a story...and I'm finally getting to be glad.

Blank brain, baby...

The drive through Canada was so tedious and uninteresting, I could not kick my brain into gear. I just went quiet and let the nonstop fields and occasional trees and nothingness pass me by. The roads were in beautiful shape. Traffic was fairly light. Didn't have anything in the was of a truck stop till I was more than halfway along...and that was called an OnRoute.

Seriously, nothing interesting happened until I hit Windsor and crossing the bridge back into the US was cut down to one lane. I stopped at the Duty Free shop to use the toilet before braving that mess. I'd probably still be there awaiting passage except I have a Nexus card, which is like TSA PreCheck for Border Patrol, so got to use the special lane.

I'm returning by way of the 90, through Ohio. I hope that's more interesting.

I really hate it when my mind shuts down and just goes from one moment to the next. It's too much like how my life's been...meandering, not really planned. Dealing with shit as it arises instead of working out how to avoid it. Just hoping everything will come together.

DCQ is being that way. Let's see how this does...or that... I don't even know its voice, yet. Still digging. Trying out things. Smoothing over issues. And that's just in the first section. I think I want it to be filled with black humor, but what I've got, right now, is more like snarky and snotty.

Of course, tomorrow's going to be rough. Three floors of a house and the top floor has no AC in 90+ heat. Scary. And tiring. I doubt I'll have a chance to really go over the story till I'm home, again, and can do my usual whining and banging of head crap.

I do be a creature of habit...

Unlikely heroes...

I just learned about Claude Cahun, a surrealist photographer, sculptor, writer, and resistance fighter in WW2 along with her partner, Marcel Moore. Two women who lived life on their own terms. Their story would make an amazing film...

I'm leaving this, here. Reading about their lives, their art, and how they confronted the Nazi occupation of Jersey helped me center some ideas I'm having for Dyarvos...which I can't really address until I'm done with Detroit.

Off in the morning...but driving so maybe I can do some thinking and sorting along the way. Back on the 3rd of July...

I don't wanna adult, anymore...

It's really tiring and never-ending. But you do it or wind up hidden away in your home, hoping no one will bother you and nothing more will happen to make you crazier than you already are. $1350 to fix my car's muffler...which is too damn close to what the car is worth...but it still sounds grumbly.

The mechanic says after-market replacements tend to sound a bit louder, but this is the fourth muffler I've had replaced since moving up here, thanks to the salt on the roads causing them to rust, and those didn't sound that way. I'm taking it by the shop, tomorrow, to have them listen to it.

The job in Detroit is on...and I wish it wasn't. But...it's what's paying for the muffler, so I gotta do it. Renting an SUV here and driving there, through Canada, then coming home via the 90 through Toledo and Cleveland. Working for 3-4 days in what I expect will be an empty house, in 90 degree weather. I taking a fan with me.

I got into a couple of arguments online when I told myself I wasn't going to do that, today...but I swear to God, the MAGAt Class has gone rabid in their actions and attitudes, not to mention their deliberate disregard for reality.

ICE is taking criminals out of the country, and don't bother me with facts about how that's bullshit. Felon47 is playing 4-level chess with diplomacy...at which point you give up on  their fucking insanity and sit in the quiet and dark, and wonder what the fuck happened to America.

However, one connection with a like-minded person on Instagram did lead me to the perfect quote for Dirc and Dyarvos:

Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié, parce qu'il a été proprement fait. Le Père Goriot (1835) (The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed.)

Which is often quoted as -- Behind every great fortune lies a great crime. Which I've heard many times, before. Just needed to be reminded of it.

Of course, with Dirc, it winds up being a crime no one cares about because of the great fortune being made. Kidnapping and using men for food? Who cares? Money overwhelms morality when in sufficient amounts, which is how it's always been...until the bottom half of society rises up and breaks out the guillotines.

I wonder if that'll ever happen here...

Still self-flagellating...

And not in a good way. Too much is up in the air, right now, and I'm more than a little overwhelmed. But to be honest, I don't know why. Or what is causing it. Just the impression in my head that my world is too chaotic to focus.

Maybe it's the whiplash bullshit going on in Washington and Felon47, and his stupidity about the Middle East. Maybe it's the expanding costs of everything around me. Maybe it's how the world is crashing into a new realm of reality and I have no idea how to be part of it or be myself enough to keep separate from it.

What jolted me most was, while I think of myself as being fairly literate, visually, I saw a video that was supposed to be of American military personnel celebrating the destruction of Iran's nuclear program...which didn't happen, btw. We barely dented it with our "bunker-busting bombs." But it wasn't until the last shot in that video that I began to wonder if it was AI generated.

It was. But I had to get verification of it. Which means 95% of the people seeing that video will think it's realer than and not bullshit.

I sort of feel like the world has taken a giant lead into a new realm and I'm still standing here trying to figure how whether or not to jump. And if I can't jump, how the hell to get myself to let go enough to make it not matter? To let me just fuck everything off and do my own thing?

That's something I've always had problems with...uncertainty in myself. Sometimes I can get past it, to an extent, but never completely. But I want to jump and do so completely, for a change...at 72 fucking years old.

Way to take your time, Kyle.

Too much fighting, today...

I'm not very well-balanced in my mental or emotional makeup. I can be doing great with everything then one simple problem throws it all off. Today, it was several.

First, dealing with PayPal misdirecting an order I'd made and used them to pay for. They had it sent to Caladex, not me. Turns out, they got that address from Ebay. A site I haven't used in well over a year, and didn't even know they had my old office address.

I think, maybe, back before Covid I had something shipped to the office so I could get it ASAP. But never consistently and certainly not in the last 5 years.

But that's what PayPal went for. Which is fucking ludicrous. I've taken it off that site and checked everyone else I've ever ordered anything through to make sure it's not listed with them, as well.

My doctors' office told me I had an outstanding balance...and gave me four different amounts that were still owed. It took half an hour on the phone (10 minutes of which was waiting on hold) to finally get the final amount determined, which I paid since I have another appointment for a surgery consult on Thursday.

Then as I was headed out to get groceries the muffler in my car blew. Got that fixed quickly enough, but still...another large expense I didn't need.

The one good thing to happen today? I walked a mile in 89 degree heat...from and to the auto repair shop. Wiped me out, but good for the heart, right?

But again...no writing done. And I'm really beating myself up for that.

It's a battle...

Being creative, even as poor at it as I am, is a fight with myself. There's a part of me that knows what it wants to do with a story...but then I meet the characters and they start rearranging my entire plan. Which has worked well, for me...when I haven't fought back too hard or rushed things. 

For example, I pushed through Porno Manifesto without really understanding it and now have an idea of what the story should be about, and who the characters should be...17 years after I wrote it.

That was one of those occasions where I really wanted to let loose with my writing, and asked the characters to help me do it and all I got back is, Do it yourself. Show me you can. Like they didn't trust me...and now I think, Rightfully so. I wasn't ready to let it be free-wheeling and dangerous.

That's what I'm going through with Dyarvos and the Cannibal Queer. I am still not enamored with the current title because it screams of a more...I dunno...John Waters kind of narrative. Off the rails and without limits, but done in a way that lets you know it's a wink-wink tale, all just in wicked fun.

Rocky Horror Picture Show was camp to the max, and deliberately so. Which worked beautifully for Frank N. Furter v. Brad and Janet. Catch 22 was caught in a sort of satirical realism, which is also not what I'm after. I've tried to get into A Confederacy of Dunces to catch some absurdist flavor, but it just doesn't grab me.

Wag the Dog is closer to what I'm thinking, but still not exactly right. It's both middle-of-the-road and satirical of that creative level. Cabaret might be a good learning tool for this...with its mix of humor, horror, willful blindness and joyful ignorance of life's absurdities.

Maybe I'm aiming for something I don't have the ability to achieve, because I'm not getting a hell of a lot of help from Dirc or Dyarvos. No, I shouldn't say that. Dirc came up with the idea of choosing a particular build of man in order to make sure they had better marbling in the meat they offer.

And Dyarvos let me know him using a cookbook to try and build himself a helper needed to be more off the wall. Substituting ingredients, which he should not have done, may have been what brought Dirc back to life, but it's also made him a joyously amoral monster. One of those recipes where even fucking it up brings out a tasty treat.

So what can I do but stop whining and let the lads lead?

Here we are...

Apparently, Felon47 has decided to start WW3 to take the focus off his non-stop legal losses and plummeting poll numbers. He's bombed Iran, and in true abuser fashion said, "I want peace, so let's just leave it at this...or else." Blaming the victim for their abuse.

This is how it always works. It happened in Northern Ireland, when the British Army blamed Catholics for them being killed during peaceful protests, then got huffy when they were called out about it.

Well...this takes Russia's planned genocide of Ukraine and Israel's planned genocide in Gaza out of the news cycle. A gift, of sorts, to Putin and Netanyahu, while nothing is offered in the way of plans on how to win this catastrophe. And no one really cares.

I remembered the Iran-Iraq war back in the 80s, when Saddam Hussein went after Iran and got beaten back to a stalemate. Which only happened after over a million people died, between them, mainly thanks to Iraq's use of chemical weapons.

That brought to mind the Thirty Years War, in the 17th Century...which wiped out millions of people. Huge sections of Germany and Bohemia were left desolate...with 50% of their populations killed. Another war basically started by religion.

As was the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 16th Century Paris, when Catholics slaughtered tens of thousands of Protestants...and there was the sacking of Constantinople (a Christian city, albeit the wrong kind of Christian) by the Crusaders, and, of course, the Holocaust (the meaning of which has been desecrated by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank).

I'm rambling...and now think it best to ignore the world for a while. It's all insane, and will drag you into the madhouse with it.

At least my trip home was uneventful.

I'm done, again...

More work than I expected, helping the guys hump the boxes from the 2nd floor of a storage facility to a truck in the basement area, using the facility's carts. Plumping them into D Containers, then finishing everything up at the warehouse.

Now I just need to rest for my trip home, tomorrow. Flight's at 6:30am, but that's 9:30am by my body clock. I've managed to keep that schedule, this time.

I just hope my flights home are better than the one coming to Seattle. That was nightmarish.

I'm trying to get back to delving into my fantasy world as I write DCQ, but the political situation and possibility of war thanks to Felon47's meddling and Netanyahu's obscene use of Israel's Defense Forces to protect him from corruption charges are leading us to a real mess. It's hard to get past that when I'm trying to write.

But the reality is, with the rise of AI and remembering Terminator's war with the machines happened in 2029...writing an book may be an exercise in futility. Because it's looking more and more that James Cameron was prescient and humanity is dead meat.

That or it's the Apocalypse...which would really piss me off.

Self-indulgence is good...

The job is packed and ready for pickup, tomorrow, and I am a wreck. Mainly from age, I know that. Feet hurt. Back, too. Brain fuzzy. So I found a McDonald's and had a Quarter Pounder Meal, sized up to large for a late dinner and found myself wonderfully decompressing.

I'm going to have as much fun as I can reworking The Beast into Dyarvos and the Cannibal Queer. For example, part of the reason Dirc winds up becoming Dyarvos' helper is because the ET was messing up the instructions on a cookbook it had. 

Dirc was dead but being rejuvenated to be alive enough to feed Dyarvos' space craft...only the process shifted his entire psychological, emotional, mental and attitude enough to where he became the missing ingredient in prepping men to be nourishment. And he continues to be after Dyarvos deserts him.

Later, Dyavos verifies the recipe with Irin, who becomes another helper while Dirc is being tried as a serial killer. The ET needs someone to furnish supply for its interstellar diner. Now I'm not toning down on the sex, so much as clarifying it. Making it simpler. The best meals come from regular ingredients, not all them foreign ones...and buff guys are as basic as it gets.

That's why diners are usually better fare than 4 Star restaurants. Simple food, well-made and filling, unlike haute cuisine, which is more pretty than nourishment.

I'd always rather have a BLT than Châteaubriand...

Warning?

Damn, the powers that be did not want me to come to Seattle. Flying into Chicago to change planes was smooth and easy. Arrived to the airport an hour before boarding began. Checked my bag and had a muffin. Left on time. Arrived on time. All well and good.

But the part actually taking me into Seattle? Jesus, Christ, everything that could go wrong did...pretty much. The plane boarded on time. Packed flight in a smaller 737, but I got a good seat. Two people sat next to me with masks on, but kept to themselves...

And once the plane was loaded, it all came to a screeching halt. And not one word about why we were just sitting there for over an hour and a half. Finally, the ground crew said the plane was overweight and they needed 7 people to get off, and offered $2500 to each one. BAM! They got their seven.

Then the bags of those seven had to be removed from the hold. Finally, after minimal explanation and lots of irritated people grumbling and moving about, we got the okay to leave. Went out on the tarmac...and sat for another half-hour. In total, we left two and a quarter hours late.

Then...this plane that only has 2 toilets, is suddenly down one. The only lavatory working is the one by the cockpit, where you're not allowed to congregate. So there's a line all the way down the aisle of people needing to go after sitting there so long.

Of course, in the seat in front of me was a crying baby...and that couple also had a toddler who'd been given an accordion-like tube and she was compressing it together then pulling it open. Very loudly.

Fortunately, the crier cried herself to sleep, and I almost joined her until accordion child grew tirde of

When we landed, we had to sit on the tarmac for another 15 minutes because a plane was at our gate. Then the person operating the jetbridge must have been a newby because she inched forward, inched back, inched to the side, inched forward, again, and inched left, again...so that it took ten minutes for the door to even open.

On top of this, it took half an hour for my bag to show up. Then came 40 minutes in line waiting to get a bus to the car rental facility...only to find when once there they'd had a power outage. The only reason I was able to get the SUV I needed was because I'd printed out the reservation.

Even more fun? I used GPS to take me to the warehouse we're using so I could pick up some boxes...only to be taken to a spot on the other side of some railroad tracks from it and told to walk, because the road they were on was closed to through traffic. I had to use Google maps to work my way back to where I could get to them...and they didn't know anything about why I was there.

I had paperwork with their own job order on it. Which they finally began to pay attention to. But I still had to get the office to email them saying it was okay for me to get the boxes so I'd have something to work with, tomorrow.

Of course, on Southwest there is no food, just snacks. And foolish me had figured, since we were due to arrive in Seattle at 10:15, Pacific Time, I'd hold off lunch till we got there. I went from that 5:30am muffin to finally having dinner at, effectively, 7:30pm.

If that is not the owners of the ether telling you, We'd rather you not come. Be careful. Back away, slowly. Everything is dangerous. Then I don't know what is. But stubborn little me is here. God knows what will happen, tomorrow.

Gettin' on a jet plane...

At six-fucking-am, so I have to leave at 4:30, latest. But it's that or I don't get into Seattle till evening, going from Buffalo. That's traveling by Southwest. JetBlue isn't any better, while American and United are too restrictive and more expensive. Same for the return trips. I'm at the point I'd rather drive than take a plane, right now.

I am driving to the job in Detroit. It's not that far, like going from San Antonio to Dallas, and doing that is one hell of a lot more flexible. I can get there through Canada and come back by way of the 90, if I have leftover packing materials.

It was one of those days where things kept messing with me. Including my car. Its muffler is making noises that make me very uncomfortable, but I can't do anything about it, right now. I saw a doctor about my liver who didn't have much to say except, "Lose weight and exercise more."

The medical office I go to says I have an outstanding balance, for which I've never been billed. And I can't figure out how much it is because the receptionist gave me one total, my online chart said something else, and my insurance doesn't have that information yet because it's not put together till the end of June.

So I treated myself to ribs at Chili's...and regret it. $25 for a half rack, a handful of fries and a small bowl of mac & cheese, with a Coke Zero (add $5 for a tip). Not even a fucking beer. I could have made me a burger at home with cheese and onion and everything, and fries, and Kraft Mac & Cheese for less than a third of that. And felt better, afterward.

Now I'm about to hit the bed for a nap, setting my alarm for 3am. Grrr.

Sometimes I hate adulting...because I don't do it well...

Quick turnaround...

I got the eproof for the paperback edition of APoS-HNH and submitted the corrected PDF...and it was shot back to me within the hour. Looked great, so I approved. Now I also need to order a physical copy to make sure. And that will be that.

Dealt with the guy setting up my website...and learned WordPress won't let him do it unless I upgrade to their $300 a year business model. He's looking into options, right now, but this is going to take a lot more effort than I thought. And money. But I've already sunk $108 into WordPress, and I don't want to lose that.

When WordPress says you can work up your own website without any trouble, they mean so long as you're a fucking techie.

Also started the online push for my paperback editions of APoS on Instagram, Facebook and I linked them to Xitter. I'm also pushing them in Ingram's catalogue and, once the website is up, really slamming them through that.

Which is draining me, financially. So I can't stop working, yet. Going to Seattle on Wednesday for one job and the end of the month driving to Detroit for another. A third is upcoming in August. And even though they tire me out, I need the money to give APoS a solid start.

I guess I could return to playing the lottery. It's got as much chance as anything at making me solvent.

It's a Universal Law...

My writing is a pier jutting out into the ocean, and typos are the fucking fish beneath it, there but unseen...until they're caught...

I uploaded the text and cover for A Place of Safety (vol. 3) Home Not Home, and all went fine. The only hiccup was I had to do a reload when Ingram's site went a bit wonky, but that took care of the issue.

Then I went onto Bowker to update the assignment of the paperbacks' ISBNs so they can go into Books in Print...and started thinking I might have misspelled McGabbhinn in the text of the book. So I went back in and did a Find, to check...and sure enough, I did. Twice.

Shit.

Now that it's uploaded, I can't change it until I get the e-proof. Then I'll have to reject it and upload the corrected pdf. Which puts me behind, a bit...but better to notice now than if it's already been printed.

Now, of course, I'm wondering if I did the same thing in the hardback text and the ebook. Both of which are on an external drive that I have to dig up and plug in and deal with. TBH, I'm nervous about checking that because it will cost me more money if I correct the hardback text. So still thinking.

It's really not all that big a deal, I guess. If I did go in and update them, I'd need to do all the typos and I didn't keep track of them. So I'd have to go through the books, again. Which makes me feel like an uptight freak. It doesn't matter in the telling of the story. Or does it...?

God, I don't know! I feel like such an idiot...because I'm pretty damned sure these typos were made after I'd had the book proofed and I made some changes.

My first protest...

I went to a No Kings protest in Tonawanda, a suburb of Buffalo, and stood on a sidewalk holding a sign that said No King in America that I'd made myself. It was a busy intersection by Boulevard Mall, and cars were whipping past, most honking for us, some drivers flipping us off.

There were a few pro-Felon47 cretins across the street from us, but we outnumbered them at about 100 to 1. It was a lovely day, still I should have brought an umbrella for shade. I positioned my sign in such a way as to provide cover for my head, which grew tiring holding it up that high.

The crowd was very joyous and unwilling to be brought down in any way. And I managed to make it through without needing to pee till after it was done. What's nice is, my car was two blocks away and a Wegman's was close by so I could have something to eat and relax.

I'm now back to going through APoS-HNH and will upload it to Ingram, tomorrow. I hope to get an online proof by Tuesday, since I'll be off to Seattle early Wednesday morning. But once this is done...once I have a physical copy of the book in hand...it will be completed and all that comes now is getting it read.

I whine about the money I've put into it, and having APoS be a best-seller would be nice, but what matters most is people read the books. That's what will make it worthwhile.

Shift focus...

I got the file for the cover of A Place of Safety-Home Not Home and it looks great. So I went into the Word doc of the text to make sure everything was set...and found a fucking typo. Those things are out to get me.

A bit of dialogue did not have a quotation mark at the end of it. So being paranoid me, I'm reading the book at 200% size and verifying nothing more is there...and did find a word that should have been deleted. That, however, was in a bit of dialogue by Brendan's mother so almost seemed to be deliberate, to emphasize the confusion in her drug-addled mind. Except it wasn't. So it's out.

So...I'm through page 130 of the book and so far that's it. Still I'm not uploading it until I've rechecked every page that I've rechecked and had proofed. Then the fucking typos will have to really be sneaky.

Which I'm sure they will be. It's a law that when I get the physical copy of the book I find at least one typo still in it.

I'll be back on it a bit late, tomorrow. I'm attending a demonstration for No Kings over by Boulevard Mall for a couple hours. It's not enough just to fight the growing fascism in this country online; sometimes you have to show up in person.

I'm not changing the text in the hardcover or ebook. I'm already thousands of dollars into publishing and promoting this novel...and I just can't afford it. I can barely handle the coming costs of two packing jobs in the second half of this month...not to mention two specialist doctor visits. 

June's turned into a work of madness...

My usual thing...

I'm rewriting and rewriting the first section of this new book. Current title still being Dyarvos and the Cannibal Queer. I'm acting as if it's on the level of Les Miserables or A Tale of Two Cities.

I'm clarifying how Dirc gets started in his escapades and setting up what's to come in the later parts. Very, very important.

I may offer it up like I was doing with Blood Angel, in short bits on Smashwords...which is now D2D. But there's no guarantee they will accept it. I've already had one run-in with them when I tried to set up Carli's Kills as a paperback through their system...and they turned it down.

Can't say they were being homophobic; it's very heterosexual...but also very violent. Which surprised me. Straight people love the ultra-violence. I guess they didn't like a woman in control of the death and destruction instead of a man...or maybe they were upset she castrated some of them. You never know.

Of course, I actually have two women doing the violence thing, one being Carli, the other being the Sheriff. The bitch who initiates the situation that brings about so much death dies in the first chapter.

Maybe that's what upset them. She's just finished fucking her married boyfriend when she gets pushed off of a 25th story balcony, naked, and crashes to the pool area. I wonder if the nude death offended their delicate sensibilities?

Kirkus Review for APoS-Home Not Home

APoS-HNH preview of cover

I'm not displeased or unhappy with this review. Overall, it's very positive and has some quotable statements to use.

In Sullivan’s historical novel, a young Irishman flees the violence of his native land for America but returns years later to see his dying mother on a trip fraught with danger.

Brendan Kinsella grows up in Derry, Ireland, during the tumultuous years of the Troubles and does his best to avoid the acrimonious partisanship despite his mother’s rabid nationalism and his father’s likely ties to the IRA. Nevertheless, he is drawn into the fray, and after he is involved in a bombing gone wrong that nearly kills him, he escapes to Houston, Texas, to begin a new life under the assumed name Brennan McGabbhinn.

When he discovers that his mother is soon to die from cancer, he comes home to see her, traveling under yet another alias borrowed from a friend—Jeremy Landau, a Jewish American conducting academic research. Brendan, who was 16 years old when he left, now returns to a “city of ghosts” eight years later— “eight bloody fucking years of death and destruction” —in a grim homecoming powerfully described by the author in this emotionally piercing novel. Brendan’s siblings don’t even know he’s alive (his bother Eamonn is in prison for his work against the British), and his mother receives him with an icy coldness, still embittered because he never wholeheartedly joined the cause (a reluctance she interprets as “superior and condescendin’”).

Sullivan poignantly depicts Brennan’s immense psychic struggle—he is torn apart by the discovery that his murdered father might not have been who he believed him to be, and that the girl he loved and presumed dead might still be alive. Moreover, he is still a hunted man in Derry, by both the Irish and the British.

The author brings the crackling volatility of the times to vivid life, especially the infamous hunger strikes. Unfortunately, Sullivan’s prose can lose its luster when he turns, somewhat ponderously, philosophical: “We are born. We live an existence of meaning to ourselves, alone. We die. All else is illusion.” Still, this is a moving portrait of a tragic cycle of violence and the lives it consumes.

A historically exacting and dramatically arresting novel.

I do have to admit I'm a bit taken aback, because it's the first time I've ever had some of my writing referred to as ponderous. And he used something Brendan says in the last paragraph to make that comment.

I'm almost...damn, I am...I'm actually finding it charming.

Officially changed...

Draft2Digital, which owns Smashwords, has migrated all my ebooks to their new platform. I'm still navigating it because not one part of it is similar to what I had. So this will be fun.

I also am getting a new FB page, KMS Writes, going, through someone who knows how to do this, and this is my new banner. Which she came up with and I really like.

So here are the new e-book links for my mainstream books. The gay erotica I'll deal with, tomorrow.

A Place of Safety-vol 1-Derry

A Place of Safety-vol 2-New World For Old

A Place of Safety-vol 3-Home Not Home

Bobby Carapisi

The Alice '65

The Lyons' Den

The Vanishing of Owen Taylor

Carli's Kills

New title?

As I'm reworking this massive book about a man helping aliens set up an outer space restaurant where they can eat people, a possible new title popped up. Dyarvos and the Queer Cannibal. It's a bit goofy, and Dirc never actually dines on any man, but I can't say he doesn't eat guys because that would be a lie.

This book, as depraved as it is, gives me a respite from the chaos building in this country. Felon47 called out 2000 of the national guard to take over LA, bypassing Governor Newsom, even though it was unnecessary. Then Pretty Pete of the racist tatts, who heads defense, called in 500 marines from Camp Pendelton. So Felon47, not to be outdone, called in 2000 more national guard.

What's insane is, those two assholes aren't even providing supplies to the national guardsmen. No funding for food or shelter. They're sleeping on floors. It's completely unacceptable.

All this to take over a city that is resisting the Gestapo tactics of ICE. This is a deliberate escalation of violence meant to instill fear and uncertainty in the US population, and it's cheered on by the MAGAt Class. I don't see how it cannot lead to death and destruction.

Democrats are talking a lot about how wrong it is, and Newsom's filed a lawsuit against TACO to stop him, but that's been it in the way of political pushback. There is no more GOP, it's all MAGAt, so nothing to be expected from that group of cowards and whores.

All I can do is post about it, attend a demonstration on the 14th against this, hope that doesn't go wild, and focus on a book that not only talks casually about killing men for food but also rips into the government for its cruelty, corruption and collusion. There's violent non-con m/m sex in this, but also anger at how fucked up our system of justice is.

Which there is in all my gay books. Nothing new about that.