Here we go...

I don't like the opening I have for Home Not Home. It's weak and writer-ly. Almost like poor stage directions in a 1930s play. There's a lovely cliche for that--Enter laughing; exit crying or something like that. Simple and meaningless, like Shakespeare's infamous stage directions. Wasn't he the one who wrote Exit, chased by a bear in one of his plays?

Well...the problem is, I have a nice little steak before me. Raw and ready to be worked into an elegant meal, with the usual accoutrements. Just needs to be cooked right. But how the fuck do I do it?

I've never been good at grilling a steak. Hamburgers? No problem. Meatloaf? I've got five different ways to make it and every one of them tastes fantastic. Especially as a meatloaf sandwich. I've baked a patty with a peeled potato, carrots and sliced onion wrapped in foil and consider that a feast. Pot Roast? Just let it cook in a crock pot for 24 hours on low, slathered in onion soup, and it comes out so tender, it flakes apart. But that's the pot's doing, not mine. And meat sauce for spaghetti? Thick and tasty and kicks ass.

That's kind of like how my gay and straight books get made. Simplistic ingredients, like ground beef, onion, peppers, to be served with potatoes, carrots, corn, peas, even olives.

But to broil round steak? Usually winds up tough and as the makings for hash or chili. And that's the trepidation I'm having now, not only for HNH but also NWFO. The ingredients I used are for fine dining in an elegant restaurant, when as a chef I'm just a cut above McDonald's.

I see Derry's turning out well as a fluke, right now. Maybe NWFO will wind up as my cottage pie, which is as good as any you can find in the UK. But I was trying to make a filet mignon. And now it's time to dig into making HNH and I can't decide how the hell to start it.

Why ain't there no cookbook for this?

And so it goes...

Okay, this is part of the first chapter of Home Not Home. Brendan's prepping to return to Derry as Brennan McGabbhinn, a third cousin, to help Maeve with Ma. She's being difficult about her cancer treatments and will probably be dead soon. Aunt Mari's recently returned from a visit, not long after Mairead was there...and the feel of death has begun to permeate.

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The day before I was to leave, as I was packing my duffel bag, I heard someone coming up the stairs...pause for a bit...then knock. The heavy tread told me it was Aunt Mari so I said, "It's your house. Come on in." 

She entered my room, her face caught in worry and uncertainty. Her visit with Ma had been for more than a month, and I could see it had been hard on her. In the week or so since her return, she'd been even more quiet than usual and would sometimes let her mind wander while fixing a meal or rinsing a dish for the washer. Then after a moment she'd snap back. If I was around, in any way, she'd cast me a near glance, huff at herself and continue on. 

At night, she had taken to having more than one beer and, if the weather wasn't too chill or raining, she'd sit at a table by the pool and smoke a cigarette. She'd shifted to Virginia Slims menthol, for they were milder than the Kools. On those nights, I caught her looking up at my window, as if trying to decide to come talk to me, like she had before she went over, but she never did. So far as I knew, she never spoke with anyone about anything that might be troubling her...just sat and drank and smoked, for an hour, then went inside. So her entering, this time, was something of a surprise. 

"Just checkin' to make sure ya have everything ya need for the journey," she said, almost apologetic. As if I were going to an undeveloped part of the world. 

Which, in truth, was not far wrong. 

She noticed the passport for the new me. I'd deliberately left out for any and all to see. She also saw a stack of pound notes; the rest of my money was in traveler's checks stuffed in a couple pairs of socks, in my duffel. Not the safest method of transport, but not easily noticed. 

"You...um, you changed yer look," she finally mentioned. 

I'd had my hair cut close and asked Everett to put in some reddish highlights. 

"The less I look as I once did, the better," I replied. 

"But, Bren..." she said, her voice still uncertain. "Is that really a concern?" 

"You mean, don't they think me dead?" 

"No! No. It's only...well...surely they aren't still on about the...the..." 

The silence and blinding white until that leg was twisting and twirling in the air as it whispered down to land before me and blood splattered me and-- 

I froze, my mind a blank. That memory hadn't cut at me in so long, I felt as if I'd been punched in the gut. I had a pair of socks in hand, and my duffel open before me and had no idea what I was doing. I had to take in a deep breath and deliberately will my mind back to functioning. 

You're packing, Brendan. That's all. Keep at it. 

And so I did. 

Aunt Mari sighed and sat on the edge of the bed to say, "Bren, I should let ya know...when ya see Bernadette...yer mother is...well, it may come as a shock. Try not to show it."

Well, at least that jolted me into breathing, again. "She...Ma does know how I'm coming, right? Not as her son but..." 

"Mairead let Maeve know all about it." 

Wait...what? "She...she told Maeve everything about me?! Then what bloody good does it do for me to--" 

"No, no, no...not you, yerself. While she was there, she told Maeve about Brennan. A cousin. And that ya'd be willin' to come and help. And I supported that. When I was over." 

I took in a long breath. It was a weak cover story she offered up, that I was slipping back into the country not as Brendan Kinsella, probable fugitive of Her Majesty's justice, but as some vague blood relation named Brennan McGabbhin. As if this would fool anyone in Derry for more than a minute or two.

I let myself sigh. So...that all but confirmed that Aunt Mari was full aware of what Uncle Sean had done to me. In my childish way, I'd been clinging to the idea she was in the dark, but that was no longer an option. Which meant she probably knew a great many other things I'd rather not think she knew. What all they were, I would not let her tell me. How much she might have shared with Mairead, I did not want to know. It was hard enough to accept the cold betrayal I felt at this. The anger.

Husband over blood. Best to keep quiet, Bren. Tuck it away in the back of your mind. You can feast on it the rest of your life, once Ma is gone. 

I continued with the last of my packing. Said, "Well, that passport backs you up." 

"Yes," she murmured. "Sean showed me before he give to ya. Makes ya full legal, now." 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, will you just shut the fuck up?! Why do you have to say this to me, now? Why'd you tell me that? Why're you letting me know this? Fuck.

I barely kept my voice even. "As he promised." 

"Yes," she murmured, again. "How long do ya think ya'll be there?" 

Oh, Christ. Christ, Christ, Christ...if she was leading up to something, I wish she'd just get it the fuck out of the way and leave me be. 

"No idea. Depends on Ma." I was impressed with how even I kept my voice. I looked back at her. "Will you be coming for the wake?" 

She shook her head, almost sad. "I've said my good-byes. No need to show off for others." 

I made myself chuckle. "I've never heard a funeral referred to, like that." 

"That's Ireland. People come from far and wide to say lovely things about the dead, and nothing bad, whether they knew them or not." 

I nodded. "I remember, from Da's wake." 

"He was always rough with ya, wasn't he?" 

"You know full well he was. But not with the girls and the youngest boy. Kieran timed his birth appropriately. Missed all his hate and anger."

"Bren, it's unkind to speak ill of the dead." 

I just rolled my eyes and zipped my duffel closed.

Moving on...

It's time to start focusing on the third volume of A Place of Safety -- Home Not Home. This is where everything comes together...but how much together, I have no idea, yet. There's a lot I've built up about Brendan's life that could use closure, to use that vile cliche. And it has to happen in a city coming apart, thanks to the hunger strikes.

Why is his father so difficult to understand? The man was violent, but Brendan's had indications none of that started till his birth...even as his Aunt's noted the arguments between his mother and father were ongoing before he was born. How is this reconciled?

And his father's semi-fame as a storyteller and singer. I have an idea of how to reveal that for whatever truth there is to it...but why didn't he share the stories with his children except when he was too drunk to do so?

There's the silence of his uncles concerning Bernadette and Aunt Mari, until the latter makes contact with them, again. And his brother, Eamonn, managing to keep himself strong while imprisoned in the H-Blocks, now in line to join the hunger strikers when another dies. Where did that strength come from, since he was not known for it?

The list goes on and on and I want to make it all understandable, relatable, if not fully explainable. It all has to lead to the ending to make it work...and, of course, I'm nervous about it. Nervous? Scared shitless, really. What I have now is only just over half the length of the first two volumes, and I want it ready by mid-October.

Am I setting myself up to screw it up? I don't know. I just know I need to push and write and then trim back to where there's nothing left to trim of what I've overwritten.

I'm feeling adultier, today, so actually worked. Dammit.

 Got full info on both packing jobs I'm prepping, and found I'd severely underestimated the weight in one. Fortunately, before I passed it on to the client. That would have been awkward. Um, hi, yeah, gonna cost you 50% more than I said. Sorry, but shit happens.

Then I spent lots of time...and lots and lots...on laying out the dust jacket for APoS-NWFO. This is close, but I think I'm going to adjust some of the type and try to figure some way to make the spine more visible. More readable.

The big black area is for a review I'm expecting to come in before the end of July...if it's good. God, what if it isn't. What if they say it's not as good as Derry? That it meanders or makes no sense or is self-indulgent? Crap. Maybe then I'll repeat the glowing reviews I got for Derry.

Because reality is, this story's set. Almost in stone. When I get the proofing back, the only changes I'm aiming to make are for typos and errors. No rewrites. I can get myself lost in that shit forever, and any good artist knows when to let go, no matter how much you want to keep trying to make it perfect.

Not that I'm a good artist...but still...

So it's time to start on volume three, Home Not Home. And I have a lot of ideas for that. Plus there are a numbers of things that happen in one and two that build up into three...and then end of the story.

I think this one's going to make people mad.

I don't wanna adult...

I got my drivers license renewed at the downtown DMV, very nice and easy if parking was a bit ridiculous. There's a massive garage across the street, half of which you can't park in. You have to go to the underground level. And several of the elevators up to the ground floor are out of service. Not lookin' good there, Buffalo.

But the process itself was easy. I proved my eyes still worked and paid the fee...and was done nice and quick. Which made me happy because I felt like crap. Still affected by that vaccination. I stopped at a pizza joint and had a slice and DP then came home and slept. For two hours.

When I do that, I'm extremely unmotivated once I wake up. But I still sent some emails for work and arranged for a review from Kirkus for APoS-NWFO, and started pulling together pricing for one of the jobs, even though I don't know exactly where it is. I have photos of the books on their shelves but that's it. Still, that lets me work out how much in the way of packing materials I'll need.

I've had it with the MAGAt crowd so I've started just blocking them. I just don't want to deal with it. I also had someone I used to know contact me, asking to catch up. I don't want to. She and her husband voted for that orange bastard in 2016 and I told them I can't be friends with people who support an organization that wants to hurt me. Haven't seen them since.

So I'm a bit perplexed as to why I'm being contacted. It seems rude to tell her, No, I don't want to call you. But the fact is, I don't. She doesn't have my phone number, anymore; I dropped that years ago. So I'm thinking about how best to handle it.

I like being left alone, and I've realized a lot of that's colored Brendan's world. A nephew of mine asked me what I meant by a safe place, and I said, Where people leave you alone to live your life. His response was, There is no such place. Which, as it turns out, is the theme of the books.

And he hasn't read any of them.

Rotten day...

Had a doctor's appointment and worked on prepping a potential job's costing, in Boston, so not focused on much else. At the doctor's I got a pneumonia vaccine shot...and it hurt. My whole body's aching, and I got a cramp in my left leg as I drove home. Which is not good. My car's a stick and he's a bit needy, in his old age.

How many years is car years in human years? My Civic's a '98 DX Coupe, and every time I think of getting a new one I go on a packing job, rent a car with electronic everything and remind myself why I don't want to replace him.

Everyone I know who has a car built in the last 10 years is having trouble with its electronics. Parking brake freezes in locked position. Sensors start misreading. Windows stop working. My little beast has a handbrake, no sensors and roll up windows, and still runs damn good. I don't want to lose that.

Anyway, I've been achy all day and unfocused. Near headache. Cranky. I hate it when I'm like that. Nice to stay in since I got home just before the rain came pelting down.

At least I'm getting good response to the latest cover workup for APoS-NWFO. It fits, more and more, in my view. I have another potential packing job in DC so once I get done with that, tomorrow, I'll start working up the full dust jacket.

Just learned Rian Johnson is coming out with a new Knives Out movie -- Wake up Dead Man. Kind of a clunky title, but Daniel Craig is back as Benoit Blanc, and that makes me giddy. Andrew Scott's signed on, too...so this should be fun. Hopefully, Hugh Grant will also be there...baking...

I wish Netflix would release their videos in DVD format...the bastards.

Finally, I think I got it.

I tried several different layouts with different images to work up the cover of APoS-NWFO...and didn't like any of them. Making Brendan the centerpiece, in his Houston phase or look...it kept coming across as a young adult novel. Something about a troubled boy (which he is, but that's beside the point) or a teen romance. Gag.

So I looked at the passport one I'd worked up...looked closer at the photo I'm using of Brendan...and went back to basics. And I think this is the strongest one. Adding in the scars and a bit of mess to his hair, surrounding him with a frame...it carries a deeper emotion than any of the others could even have possibly achieved.

I'm asking for feedback on Facebook, but I have a feeling this will be the front cover. And one of the images I worked up will do nicely on the back. Now I just need to get Publishers Weekly to agree to do a review of this volume. If they won't, I guess I'll get one through BookLife. And I'll hit Kirkus up for one, too. See how that works.

I set up an author page on Kirkus, as well, with links to some of my books. Focused on the more mainstream ones, since they get the least notice from the other sites I publicize on.

Y'know, it's amazing how tired you can get just screwing around with your laptop, all day.

Slight changes make it a lot better...

I redid the image for the cover of APoS-NWFO and it's a lot smoother. It's closely aligned with the last quarter of the story, when Brendan goes punk. But...and this is a big but...I'm not 100% on it, yet. I like it, but don't really feel it's completely right. I don't know why; I don' have any other ideas floating around. I just look at it and think it's...I dunno, too troubled-youth-ish?

I mean, reality is, that's a bit of a description of the story. Brendan is troubled, throughout, and trying to find himself...and getting smacked down everywhere he turns. So I'm not sure that this image is all that wrong. Maybe I need something simpler.

It's not like I don't know the story. But nothing is leaping out to help me along. Focus on this or that instead of the other thing you're doing. But no a word from story or character. Maybe I've done the whole story wrong.

Shit, I know what the problem is. This cover has an Ordinary People feel about it. That's not what I want. It's Brendan's story and he's got to be the one who draws a potential reader in, no fake references allowed.

But how? I'm at a loss.

Fuck, I'm gonna start whining in a minute.

Possible cover...

Spent the day digging through Shutterstock for images to fit an idea I had for the cover of APoS-NWFO and came close to giving up. That site is so poorly organized, you have to go through six different steps to get even close to what you're asking for. But this is what I came up with...and I do like it.

The image of the boy I found after asking for teen boy low angle head and shoulders and getting nothing but bland, smiling youths...but one was interesting enough, so I pulled it up and then clicked on the link to similar images. Those were better, several of which were actually Eastern European guys...but another's expression fit the mark okay enough to dig into. (I'm saving these into my catalogue as I go and have 2 dozen).

Linking to the similar models page led me to a link of brooding guys in the woods, not just of him, so I backtracked and did other images of this model to find city, country and backlighted...but a few were against a brick wall. And his expression was the most interesting. I screen-grabbed a copy of it (with the Shutterstock watermark all over it), removed the wall and cropped it to just his head and shoulders and that was working for me.

So...I went looking for a house. Seeking houses with gable windows didn't work. Seeking houses of the 70s did work. Seeking houses painted white didn't work. Then I remembered a line from Miracle on 34th Street, when John Payne talks about getting married and buying a nice Cape Cod home in the suburbs. So input Cape Cod...and there it was. Full house and in wood instead of brick, like I describe it in the book, but workable.

Cropped that down, laid the boy over it, tried him looking right and left and preferred the former. Tried changing the direction his eyes were looking but a friend told me that makes him look like a serial killer...which it did. So now it's back to the original, and I added a couple of lines as potential scars. I also added a bit of emotion to it.

This sloppy cover is strictly a mockup. I think I need to work on the layout and maybe increase the size of his head in the frame as well as deal with the positioning of the title. If I go with this, I'm licensing the images to get them in much higher resolution, so it will look clean.

Let's see how I feel, tomorrow.

Head somewhat cleared...

It took me hours to convince myself to go, but I finally got in my car and drove to Niagara Falls, along the 324 and not the 190. The bridges charge tolls and I'm not set up for those to be charged to a credit card so they're a higher cost and I'm not paying that. Besides, River Road is more interesting.

(check my Facebook page for the video version)

The day was quite pleasant. 75 degrees with a nice breeze. Of course, there just had to be an event happening near the Rainbow Bridge to the Canadian side, meaning no parking available that wasn't $25 and up. So I drove onto Goat Island and went to that lot and visited the Canadian Falls.

I toyed with the idea of driving across to Canada for dinner, but then remembered it's a holiday weekend and a look at the bridge told me that would take forever, both ways. So I walked around. Looked at all the Indian and Chinese tourists and managed to clear my head, some.

I think I know what the cover's going to be, now. I need to play with it some, to make sure, but a house I saw on the drive that's for sale made the suggestion -- a low angle on Brendan, head and shoulders, the three levels of Aunt Mari's house behind him in a vaguely threatening manner. Dunno if I can pull that off, but I'll work on it, tomorrow.

All the walking and the sun wore me out, but it was good to do.