S. Evan Townsend's Blog, page 125

Researching

In my current WIP (Work in Progress for those of you that don't speak writerese), which is titled Gods of Strife, my character flies to London in the then-new Concorde supersonic airliner.  I did a lot of internet research about the Concorde but there is a British Airways Concorde parked at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.  I'd hate myself if I didn't make the effort to go there and see it.  Now this was a three-hour drive.  Admission to the museum was $16 (with a AAA discount) for myself and my oldest son.  And, of course, we had to buy food in the Seattle area.  So all in all, probably at least $150 spent and most of a day gone to do this research.  I walked through the plane once and looked at it from the outside (and was able to compare it to a 747 parked nearby).

For all that, I ended up adding 92 words of description (out of an 87,000 word book).  And a lot I learned in the visit didn't make it into the book because I didn't want to spend a bunch of words on description my character probably wouldn't notice.  Plus my reader may not be as fascinated with airplanes as I am.

Here is the complete description of the Concorde from Gods of Strife:

Before we went down the jet way I looked at the aircraft. It seemed small and very skinny, with triangular wings and a very pointed nose. But the nose drooped as if someone had loosened some bolts. I assumed it was supposed to be that way as no one else was concerned. It didn't look like any commercial airplane I'd ever seen. It looked like a larger version of one of those fighter jets Graham pointed out in Tehran except for the white paint and that droopy nose. It was nearly as long as the 747 parked at the next gate but looked lithe and delicate compared to the hulk of the jumbo jet. The windows from the outside appeared to be miniscule.

The interior was very cramped and one had to duck going in the door. Perhaps it was only because of how slender the fuselage was but looking down the aisle the plane seemed very long. Although there were only two black leather seats per side they looked rather narrow, almost like tourist-class seats on a regular airplane. But they were almost as far apart, front to back, as in first class, giving plenty of leg room. I was surprised how comfortable they were when I sat down.

While you could stand up in the very narrow aisle, there was limited headroom over the seats, especially the one by the window which was only about the size of a paperback book.

Busy Busy

Been busy this week so far.  If you follow my Twitter (@SEvanTownsend) you probably know.

Monday I had to prepare a speech for Toastmasters that I procrastinated until the last minute.  Speech was well received anyway.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I had two (!) interviews for freelance writing assignments.  That pretty much took up the whole day because I had to drive 40 miles to see the one guy and he was quite loquacious.  Was easy to get 1,000 words out of his story.

And today I was a pillar of the community.  First a meeting at 7:00 A.M. (yes, it bites), then a meeting at 11:30 where I had volunteered to lead the meeting.  When that was done, I needed to write the first drafts of the two stories that I'd done interviews for yesterday.  It's best to do them when the interviews are fresh in the mind.  I would written them yesterday but got back from the second interview at 4:00 and was bushed.  Decided to tackle them today when I was more rested.

One (the loquacious guy) is a bit long and the other is a bit short.  Oh, well, it averages out.  I'll let them fester overnight and re-read and proof/edit in the morning.  After I go to Starbucks.

How's your week so far?

Sunday Six: The Rescue

Today's Sunday Six comes from Chapter Eighteen of Rock Killer :

Thorne put the sharp end against the woman's thigh just above where the beam pinched the leg down to nothing.  Thorne braced himself and Alex put his mass against Thorne's back while trying to jamb his legs between two metal beams.  Alex hoped Thorne wouldn't move and the plate would.
Jubair used a miner's rope to tie a tourniquet.  He pulled it tighter and tighter; so tight that Alex thought he was going to breach the suit.

"Now," Jubair said unexpectedly.

Big Mistake or am I Missing Something

Watched the classic film-noir movie the other night, Gilda , with Rita Hayworth in her best-known role.  Very good movie and very well done.  You had to actually watch the movie because the undercurrents were not in the dialogue but in the glance, the smile, and the way the director lit and framed a scene.  Very good movie and Glenn Ford was excellent in it, too.

But there was something that just didn't seem right.  Early in the movie World War II ends (well, Germany surrenders, for some reason the movie ignores Japan).  About that time Gilda shows up as the wife of Glenn Ford's boss.  Interesting things go on, some back and forth between Gilda and Ford's character, etc., and suddenly it's Carnival.
 Here's my problem: 1) Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945. 2) Carnival is the three days before Ash Wednesday. 3) in 1945 Easter was on April 1st. 4) Lent is 44 days long (if you include Sundays) so that would put Ash Wednesday on February 14th and Carnival on February 11, 12, and 13.  In other words, Carnival ended 84 days before Germany surrendered. Now, I suppose the Carnival depicted in the film could have been 1946's celebration.  That year Easter was on April 21st. So Ash Wednesday would have been March 6th and Carnival March 3,4, and 5.  In other words 301 days after Germany surrendered.  If 301 days passed between Germany's capitulation and the Carnival depicted in the film, they skipped a lot of time.  And it didn't seem that way, the plot moves pretty quickly. So big error (or didn't care) by the film makers or I just didn't figure something out. And yes, I can be obsessive sometimes.

An Iterative Process

According to something I read by Robert Heinlein, he would type up his manuscript (on a typewriter, that is, no spell check, no autocorrect, etc.) then go through it and see what to cut out, then send it off to the publisher.  That just amazes me (especially the no spell checker part).

The way I write is completely different.  I write my first draft.  Then I go back and re-write and edit it.  And I do that again, and again.  And my manuscripts always get longer as I realize I need to add more description or detail.  With my latest project I had my wife read it out loud to me, which was a great way to hear things that needed to be changed. 

Even then I'm never quite satisfied.  The other day I was reading a passage from Hammer of Thor and I came across a sentence I thought I could have written better.

So to me, writing is an iterative process.  For example, in my work in progress, Gods of Strife (the fourth novel in the Adept Series), I described a female character as:

I'd often heard the cliché "face of an angel" but in this case it appeared literally true.

And I didn't like that much.  It felt as if I were saying to my readers "Yes, I know this is a cliché but I'm going to use it anyway."  But at the time I couldn't come up with something better but that was always a nagging sensation in the back of my brain.

Monday I was driving on a 100 mile journey and I started thinking about that passage (interstate, cruise control set, not much traffic).  And I came up with an idea to improve it.  So I changed it to:

Her features were china-doll delicate, as if she would shatter if touched without care.  Fair skin almost the color of freshly-fallen snow seemed flawless, without a mark or freckle.

I was sort of plagiarizing myself out of something I wrote in 2005 that never got published:

The Japanese waitress asks me something and I'm suddenly aware of how painfully and delicately beautiful she is.  It's almost as if I touched her she would crumble.

(The local writers' group says I use too many -ly words.)

But there were too many ifs in that first sentence.  But "as if" couldn't be changed because a) to do so would make it grammatically incorrect and "delicate like she would shatter" just doesn't sound as good to my ear.  So the second "if" had to go.

I was lying in bed last night and I, for some reason, was thinking about this passage when it hit me how to change it.  So now that first sentence reads:

Her features were china-doll delicate, as if she would shatter when first touched without care.

And I like that much better than my cliché that I originally wrote.

Cycling

So last Thursday (five days ago) I had this thing done to my eyes called CXL because I had a bad thing happening to my eyes (details at the links).  Before the procedure, they gave me three prescription eye drops to get and after the procedure was finished, I started using them.  They said one was a steroid but I didn't think anything about it.  They indicated the steroid was important (more about that later).  So I dutifully instilled all three eye drops four times a day.

Friday I started feeling a little . . . off.  Irritable, mostly.  But I was also tired from not being able to sleep in a motel bed so I wrote it off as being extra tired.

Saturday I was feeling really pissy.  I was down on everything ("everything about my life sucks") except when I was feeling angry and irritated.  The slightest frustration would set me off angrily.

About early afternoon Saturday I was looking at my eye drops and started wondering exactly what they were.  One was an anti-biotic that I used when I did LASIK seven years ago so I knew what that was.  But the other two were mysteries.  So I googled the name of one of them.  Now, this was simply curiosity, I hadn't made any connection between my feelings/behavior and the eye drops.  The first one I googled seemed innocuous (so much so I don't remember a thing about it now).  Then I looked at the second one.  The name of the drug was Prednisolone acetate.  I thought "That looks an awful lot like Prednisone."

Some history: I'm bi-polar (also known as manic-depressive).  I'm mildly bi-polar and was usually down unless I had a manic episode when I would be either really too happy or (more common with me) too angry.  I also didn't deal well with frustration and was the road rage king.  But I got on some meds and now my bi-polar is well controlled.

Before I knew I was bi-polar, a doctor put me on Prednisone for arthritis pain.  Oh, it killed the pain but what I remember most about that was driving 90 mph and wondering why I was going so damn slow.  What I didn't realize was Prednisone makes me cycle.  That is, I'd go waaaay up then waaaay down.

So I googled Prednisolone acetate and learned (from Wikipedia): "It is the active metabolite of the drug prednisone."  Oh, lovely, I thought.

Suddenly it all made sense.  But, since they had told me the steroid was important (my corneas could "cloud over" without it) I kept taking it.  I explained to my family what was going on so they would know.  Even so I snapped at my youngest son when he teased me a little.  At Starbucks a man was taking what to me seemed too long and I could feel the anger building.  Driving to Starbucks I got behind a couple of slow moving cars.  Now normally I'd say, "Well, the stop sign is coming up soon and maybe they'll turn or I can pass them after the stop sing if they go straight" but that day I HAD TO GET AROUND THEM.  So I did.

I also noticed that I wanted to drive fast.  Normal speeds seemed way too slow and when I'd accelerate, such as pulling onto the interstate, I couldn't judge my speed.  I'd be doing 85 when I thought I was doing closer to 70.

I went back to the doctor yesterday (had to drive to Spokane) and explained the situation.  He gave me a prescription for a different steroid which, it is hoped, I won't have a bad reaction to.  And so far, I haven't.  I'm feeling nice and evened out and mellow.

It was interesting to feel my bi-polar again.  I hated some of it (the downs, the anger) but the happy ups were fun.  I've been told that some people stop taking their meds because "being manic is fun."

At least I didn't buy a car during a manic stage.

Sunday Six: We're Going to Make It

Today's Sunday Six comes from Chapter Seventeen of Rock Killer:

We're going to make it, Chun thought.  The air was stuffy and Alex noticed he found exertion becoming difficult.  The partial pressure must be dropping, he thought.  But they were going to make it.  "How long until the Kyushu can match orbit?"
Naguchi said, "Fifteen minutes."

Procedure

So I was thinking about writing a post about my eye "procedure" and use a picture I illicitly took during it.  I texted it to a friend and she said the picture was "very disturbing" (I paraphrase).  If you want to see the picture, go here.  The room was very dark and my wife had to digitally manipulate the picture so there was actually something to see (she's the photographer, I'm the writer).

You know that scene in A Clockwork Orange where they prop Malcolm McDowell's eyes open so he can't shut them?  They did that to me.  For an hour and a half.  Well, there was one break after an hour.  Every two minutes they put riboflavin on my eyes and every five minutes they numbed them.  During the first hour they had white disks that the tech called "sponges" on my eyes and most of the time they were over the pupil so I couldn't see anything.  It was strange because I'd have this automatic "let's open the eyes and see" reaction and, of course, when I tried to open my eyes, nothing happened.

I do want to say the tech whose name I didn't catch was very nice and very professional and very pleasant to work with.

During this part I listened to Bach on my iPhone earbuds.

Then after a short break they put me in a room where they do LASIK but instead of zapping my eyes with lasers, the tech lined up two bent black finger-like devises over my eyes.  She measured the distance to my eye saying it had to be precise.  Then for a half an hour the lights would come on for 15 seconds, then go off for 15 seconds.  They were blue and almost hurt to look at.  This was the UV to cause the riboflavin to cross-link the collagen fibers in my cornea.  Every five minutes she'd put more riboflavin in my eyes (it was yellow) and every ten minutes numb them.  Sometimes all I could see was yellow riboflavin and blue light.  The room was chilly and they had a blanket over me.

At the end she washed my eyes with water (it was cold) and put contacts in my eyes (as of this writing, they are still there).  The doctor checked my eyes, said they looked good, and I was told to come back the next day.

The way they had talked I thought I wasn't going to be able to see much at all for a few days.  But I could see quite well right away.  Bright lights hurt and glared badly.  And my eyes felt as if I'd been out in the sun and wind all day but no worse than that.  By morning they were feeling almost normal.  I still am, 28 hours after the procedure, occasionally putting artificial tears in my eyes to keep them from itching.  I assume that will lessen over time.  This morning at the one-day follow up, the doctor was amazed at how little pain (basically none) I experienced and how well I could see.  This isn't supposed to improve your vision except maybe a little as a side benefit.  It is just supposed to keep it from getting worse.

Beautiful Day

It's a beautiful day here in Central Washington State.  First thing this morning I noticed I could see Mount Rainier, which is 121 miles away but at 14,410 feet dominates a lot of the state.  The sky is blue with nary a cloud.  It's still a bit crisp outside with temps in the mid 40s but it's expected to reach nearly 70 today.  And, miracle of miracles, the wind is not blowing.

When I left the house I also saw Glacier Peak but I can't see it from the house because my neighbor's tree is in the way.

It'd be a perfect day to go for a drive but my car is making a funny noise.  And it doesn't sound like the kind of noise you want to ignore.  I called my mechanic on Friday and he said he'd get me in as soon as he could.  I'm seriously thinking of having it towed there because I'm not sure how good it is to drive it with the awful noise its making.

I'm having my wife read my WIP (work in progress) to me now that it's pretty much finished and been through four proofreaders (including me, and I'm a lousy proofreader).  I'm finding this very useful as I hear things that I don't notice while reading it.  Such as word repetitions and awkward constructions.  We got through Chapter 2 last night, or about 15.8% of the total novel.  I tried to get her to continue this morning but she wanted to do other stuff.  And for some reason she didn't want to do it at Starbucks.  The novel is titled Gods of Strife and it's the fourth book in the Adept Series which includes Hammer of Thor, Agent of Artifice, and Book of Death.

UPDATE: With the help of my son, I took the wheel off my car and found a rock jammed between the brake caliper and the brake disk.  Removed the rock, problem seems to be solved.  And my wife has read to me through chapter five, now.

Sunday Six: Warm Up the Missiles

Today's Sunday Six from Chapter Sixteen of Rock Killer :

Knecht looked at the monitor that showed the view though the rear-facing telescope.  She could see the asteroid.  She smiled and looked at her computer.  Less than 15 minutes.

"Cole," she said.  "Warm up those missiles."