Publication date set for APoS.

I've decided to self-publish A Place of Safety-Derry on January 2nd, 2024, in hardback and ebook. I'm not even going to consider doing a paperback edition till I have all three volumes out and available. As of now, it looks like the price will be $29.95 for hardback and $4.95 for electronic. Considering the blood, sweat, tears and sanity I've plowed into this tale, it's worth that, at least.

I'm also going to be doing all I can to get it noticed, in advance. Set up advance purchasing on Amazon and B&N, if I can. Get reviews from those who've read it. See if Publisher's Weekly will give me one, or Book Life. Maybe even take out ads, I don't know. I get inundated with people wanted to help my books gain an audience and get read, so maybe I should talk to some and see what they offer.

I know it's going to be a lot of expense and probably get little return on it, but I'm so deeply invested in Brendan's story, it has to be done right. I may fall flat on my face, but at least I'll have tried my best. Because this agent thing did not work, at all. Maybe I should be asking them to rep Carli's Kills. It's got MF sex, violence and rock and roll in it. That sells, they say.

I've also been thinking of turning Mine to Kill into as scary a suspense/horror book as I can, for next Hallowe'en. Horror also sells. I guess I should read more of Stephen King's works to get a better feel for what works in that genre. He's a master at it, like it's a sixth sense when he writes. I loved his early work, but I was reading for pleasure, not to learn. That has to change.

I've also decided to get a MacBook Air 13" with an M2 chip. Get a stylus and pad to use. License Word and Photoshop, which irritates me but is the only real way to go. If i do the Mac Mini, it's limited to my desktop, I have to get a new monitor and the cost is more for what is, essentially, less. It's not like I'm doing great art projects or extreme data crunching; I just need something basic and the Air fits.

Look like life is letting me move forward, finally.

Vaxxed and cranky

I got my Covid vaxx #5 this afternoon and am already feeling the side-effects. Slightly. Stiff neck. Hint of a headache. No chills yet but I'll be ready for them. My dermatologist's NP also burned off a wart...at least, that's what she said it was. Didn't seem like one to me...and it's still sore. Never had that issue, before. Irritating.

I'm going to get through a final check of APoS-Derry this week then set it aside and start working on Houston. As mentioned before, it's close to ready. Just needs some smoothing and consistency before doing a proofing and then sending it out to be dug through with extreme care. I'm hoping after the embarrassment of Derry I'll do better with Houston.

The structure is set. The characters are wound fairly tight. I'm playing a bit with Brendan's identity. He's brought to America under another name because the British have identified him as a person of interest in a bombing. But he can't be found because it looks like he just snuck off. But people begin to think he wound up in a grave due to injuries he suffered because he's never heard from.

So he comes to Houston under a false passport and name, as a distant relative needing care for his heart after a serious accident. All neatly handled by the powers that be in PIRA. and when he finally understands, he sees it as his deliverance from hell. His uncle still wants him to keep a low-profile, but he starts to rebuild his life, there.

Except he slowly finds that the hates and prejudices in Houston are no that different from those in Derry and drifts into drugs and becoming anti-social. His uncle manages to control him using threats to his younger brother, Rhuari, so it's like he's a prisoner to other people...again.

I didn't really intend for the story to go that direction, but Brendan is leading it, and where he wants it to go, I follow. I learned better.

Mirror images

There's two sides to me. Always has been, always will be. And they seem to be growing stronger and closer together. Maybe even drifting into bi-polar, albeit without the shrieking psychosis. One side likes to tell stories with meaning, if quietly so. Lyons' Den. Alice '65. David Martin. Even ...Owen Taylor.

The other side loves dipping into a darkness that's always been a part of me. From ...Straight Guy to Hunter and Blood Angel. Destructive, but not as much as they could be. I still have too tight a grip on that part and keep a little bit of hope in them all.

I've often said, the reason I write my darker books is so I don't become one with the black part of my soul. The anger and frustration and sadness it contains. And it does hold true for me. I've caught glimpses of it lying in wait to burst forth, but continued to make certain the bars were still in place to keep it trapped.

I try to be kind to people, to help push back against the unfairness of the world. I do what I can to support those who need it, even as the dark part laughs at me and says, It's a pitiful amount. You could do so much more. If I donate money, it's never as much as I could have. If I donate time, it's only the minimum, compared to others. Since I won't let the beast loose, it whispers in ways to hurt me.

I've been keeping up this pathetic balance for years, and I'm fairly certain that the reason I don't go hard in supporting politicians I like, or howl to help Ukraine fight off Russia's terrorism, or even join demonstrations to beat back the growing fascism of the GOP is I'm afraid if I do give in to that passion, I'll get distracted and those bars will vanish and the monster in me will roam free.

Imagine Dragons has a song, Demons, that I've tried to configure into my art...to my work...but it's too raw. The words...the lyrics...are knives slicing apart my soul and I fear what they're whittling away the barriers I've put up. My one safe thought is that it's really too late for me to go batshit crazy, except in a stupid eccentric old man sort of way. Can't hurt anyone, that way. Not like I was hurt.

I'm not saying this well. It's vague and jumbled, thanks to the chaos within. Just nattering to settle the madness. Not easy to do. Just another freaky writer trying to figure himself out. It's just, both sides of me look at each other. Stare at each other. Lock eyes on each other. And the fight to keep them where they are gets really tiring.

NSFW 'Cause I'm not happy

I did the following to get my mind off the possibility that I've developed skin cancer. I had my annual visit with the dermatologist, today, and she took samples from a couple of probable spots for biopsies. I'll have the results in a week. I have other spots on my arms, neck and chin that are pre-cancer so will be using a special cream on them. What a joy. Outwardly I'm calm; inwardly I'm WTF???

Needless to say, I'm going to be doubling down on getting APoS done, just in case. And fuck trying to get a publisher or agent interested. That'll take too long and too much effort. What matters is the book gets out.

Anyway, to take my mind off it, for a bit, I wrote a little dittie that's very wicked. Maybe a companion piece to the one I posted with Freddy as the victim. We shall see. This is the image that set it going.

• The hour was late before Ray headed home
• From his brother's party, as held at Le Dome. 
• The blues and blacks of the night's sharp monochrome 
• Made him feel so easy, he thought he would roam 
• Since he had a condo that wasn't too far. 
• But he didn't notice when that big blue car 
• Pulled out of the parking lot next to the bar 
• And quietly followed him. Back doors ajar. 
• He reached his street and as he started to turn 
• The car pulled ahead of him. Too late to learn 
• Four men were inside of it, and each did burn 
• To force Ray to join in their weekend sojourn. 
• So out they jumped and around him they did swarm 
• To bind him and gag him. Then to his alarm, 
• Into their trunk, he went. Oh, they meant him harm, 
• And he knew he'd never escape them, through charm. 
• For three weeks Ray vanished and could not be found. 
• The fear grew that he was six feet underground. 
• Then one day he showed up, and he looked half-drowned. 
• "I'll tell you what happened," he said. "Gather 'round." 
• His body was bruised and the scars on his back 
• Proved without a doubt he'd been under attack. 
• "Four men took turns beating me, in a room black, 
• And raping me, each one a wild maniac. 
• I spoke to one softly, and I made him care. 
• Then I learned a secret that they did not share. 
• The room was a cellar, and all its fresh air 
• Came through a vent in the ceiling. So there 
• I focused my efforts to set myself free. 
• The black paint had hidden it well. I could see, 
• That it was too narrow for someone like me 
• But it proved an excellent decoy. That's key. 
• So when one of them came in to have his sick joy, 
• I hid in the shadows, and I did employ 
• The sight of the open vent. I wasn't coy. 
• He ran off to tell them that they'd lost their boy. 
• He left the door open. I raced down the hall 
• To stairs leading up and outside. Their footfall 
• Was fast coming after me, and they did call 
• For me to stop running. What I did was haul 
• As fast as I could to a thick grove of trees 
• And hid in there. Grateful for a gentle breeze. 
• Then made my way here, keeping hidden. For these 
• Madmen now wanted to kill me. So please, 
• Let me have a good meal and bath, and then I 
• Will lead the police back to where they do lie." 
• And that's what Ray did. He was some kind of guy. 
• But never did we learn those men's reasons why.

LA Bound?

Looks like the Mulholland job is a done deal, for the week after Thanksgiving. I'm expecting photos of the items the end of the week. Then comes working out the costings -- air fare, car, hotel, packing materials -- while someone else handles the costs of air freight. I plan to enjoy this one; it may be my last if not one of my last packing jobs.

I felt a lot better, today. More agent queries out, though I'm getting close to the end of the list. I have a feeling I'll be self-publishing all three volumes of APoS. Which is fine. I should focus on learning more about how best to launch it and what I can do to promote it. Not gonna be cheap.

Tomorrow is my yearly visit with a dermatologist, to make sure I'm not building up any skin cancer or other issues. I had second degree sunburn in Honolulu, when we lived there, so have to be careful. After it's done, I'm getting the new covid vaccine then hitting the Mac store to talk to someone about what setup would be best for me to get so I can easily do Photoshop and Word. I'm done with this MacBook Pro.

It stops running off battery at 55% full. Just shuts down, completely, and won't start up until I have it connected to a power source for 5 minutes. The touchpad is becoming less and less sensitive. My mouse won't work on it.  One of the ports has crapped out. It's a poor, overly-delicate design for someone like me.

I have a company PC that I can use on trips, like to Seattle in a couple weeks, and to the Mulholland job. It's heavier but not as sensitive. I don't like how the programs appear on it, but they work fine so that's just me being finicky. Besides, the mouse works great, with it.

Just refer to me as another obnoxious kitteh who likes something till he doesn't.

Never again...

Still having issues thanks to that sushi, which Imodium is just beginning to fight, and now I'm dog-tired. Can barely keep awake. Probably should have taken a nap. Never will I ever eat that crap, again. Which is sad because I have a tube of Wasabi in the fridge that will probably go to waste.

Instead of the nap, I input the corrections for the last bit of A Place of Safety-Derry and it was way beyond simply being embarrassing. Another thing I'm never doing is sending anything out to be proofed till after I've done a big-font proofing, myself. As you can see, that's where I shift the type from 12 point to 24 point, blowing the words up on the page and making errors more obvious.

I've done it a few times on other works, like Blood Angel 1 & 2. I caught a lot of issues that way, so I think that helps, but we'll see. This editor is willing to do APoS-Houston. I'll find out if it really does do anything about my typos and missing words.

Something else that took up part of the day was a potential job up in the hills just below Mulholland, in LA. Not a huge job, really, but still waiting on more info. However, even working out the initial logistics is already a nightmare. For example, there are next to no hotels in the immediate area. Closest one is in Studio City, and would mean dealing with morning traffic off the 101 crossing to the Basin via Benedict Canyon or Coldwater Canyon. NOT what I would want to do at 8am.

I made that mistake one time, while living in LA. My mother got an extra job in a soft-core porn film shooting in NoHo and had to be there at 6am. We made it, no problem. I didn't grumble any, at her, but she knew I hate getting up before noon. Still, I thought at least I could return home and catch a nap before going to work.

Silly boy. By the time I got back to the 101 it was slow-going. I stupidly decided to cut across at Laurel Canyon since that was more direct and would get me out of the slow-going. HA! Got caught in near gridlock. Seriously. It took me over 2 hours to go from Ventura to Mulholland. In my Honda. With a stick. Uphill. I barely made it to work on time. And came very close to deciding to trade my car in for an automatic.

Don't wanna do that, again.

Eating healthy sucks...

I ran some errands today -- groceries, frames for pieces I want to hang, office supplies -- and got hungry so while I was at Wegman's I decided to have a serving of sushi. I'm not crazy about it, but I've found I do kind of like a California roll, and this one even said it's cooked. Besides, nothing else was appetizing and my other choice was to get a BLT at 5-Guys up the road. 

Should have done 5-Guys. I'm still sick from that damn sushi. I don't think it really was cooked, and it honestly did not taste all that great. Even with Wasabi and Soy Sauce. I had to come straight home once I felt my stomach rebelling.

This always happens when I try to eat healthy. Get a salad? Tummy rebels. Eat vegetarian at a restaurant? Tummy rebels...though not when I cook something at home, like with Amy's fake chicken patties. I make chicken parmesan with those and that turns out good. But it seems lately anytime I eat out in a healthy way, I get sick.

I can have a burger at 5-Guys and no problem. Chili-dog and onion rings at Ted's and no problem. Slice of pizza anyplace, no problem. But a meal at Chili's and I gotta be careful. Like people don't keep their kitchens clean. I'm better off eating at home. And it's cheaper, too, so there's that. Maybe my gut's taken a good look at my finances and said, Okay, we're cutting this nonsense out.

I did get the last of the notes on APoS so will input those, tomorrow. Another person upset at the ending. But it is what it is. They found some serious typos in Derry that no one else saw, including me. Excellent. I hope they'll be willing to do the proofing of Houston and then the last one, which I'm now calling Home, Not Home.

Now I'm cranky and sleepy. Gonna watch another Midsomer Murders episode just to moon over Nick Hendrix. No idea why I do, I just...do. He was even the inspiration for Finn in The Beast in the Nothing Room, though I doubt he'd appreciate knowing that, considering all he goes through in that book.

Sometimes I just plain do not understand me.

Letting out the animal...

I think I just worked up a new book to write, today, without meaning to. Did it as a poem, inspired by a very NSFW image that I don't think I can share on this blog. Everyone's become so puritanical. You don't really see anything, in the original, but it's very obvious what's happening, so I cropped the image and I'm only posting half. I also darkened it.

• 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
• Into 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," 
• The 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. 
• And you'll be six feet underground." 
• 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 was their boy, 
• And he made sure to bring them joy 
• Despite his hatred of the group. 
• Then one fine night he got the scoop.
• The next day, 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. 
• That's what he did. His secret kept 
• Until the day all 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, and I am free."

Anarchy

I read an interesting article in the April 2023 edition of The Atlantic called The New Anarchy. It's about the growth of extremist violence in America and how it's not the first time we've been through this. It's got me thinking about things Brendan says in volume 3 of A Place of Safety and how they might be a bit too on-point...and yet not specific enough. Worth a look. It's scary.

What's happening in the US is somewhat similar to what happened in Northern Ireland, where a majority population kept a minority population down through violence and manipulations of the law. Then when Civil Rights came along to demand equality, which the majority rejected, the minority was not willing to back down. Violence grew and expanded and finally exploded...and it took 30 years for the two sides to finally come together and calm things down.

Thirty years and thousands of deaths, not to mention destruction. All because those in power stupidly thought if you keep punching someone they will never hit back. And if they do start returning the punches, then punching harder will show them who's boss. When the exact opposite is true. No one in power learns. No one.

I've just about had enough of this laptop. I've decided I'm going to buy a Mac mini, keyboard, monitor and mouse, since I do my writing at my desk, now. I'll have to license Word and Photoshop, but my current Photoshop setup isn't really workable, anymore. It's officially 20 years old. but the wayI'm having to set up the laptop and the desktop I currently have is causing pains in my neck and right shoulder, and I'm done. It'll be around $2000 but I have the credit available and I'm going to use it.

Make more room on my desk.

Mark Twain's rules...

Completely off center, today, thanks to an MRI and not eating till noon and a headache thanks to those things, so let's focus on Mark Twain's 18 rules for writing. He's reputed to have said James Fenimore Cooper violated all of them in Deerslayer. And yes, that is a very buff-looking Samuel Clemens, shirtless. Damn...

So, his rules are:

1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. 

2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help develop it. 

3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. 

4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. 

 5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say. 

 6. When the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description. 

 7. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship’s Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a Negro minstrel at the end of it. 

 8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale. 

 9. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausably set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable. 

 10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. 

11. The characters in the tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency. 

An author should:

12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it. 

13. Use the right word, not its second cousin. 

14. Eschew surplusage. 

15. Not omit necessary details. 

16. Avoid slovenliness of form. 

17. Use good grammar. 

18. Employ a simple, straightforward style.