Ultimate Destruction

This is my writing blog, but for today, it's the saga of how I couldn't get back to Spain from the Bahamas, because I should explain why I haven't been writing on my writing blog.

So.   I was supposed to arrive in Spain last Thursday (today is Wednesday, I arrived last night.)   Now, I'll start by saying that I'm very thankful for the extra few days in the Bahamas, that's always good, so all of this is by no means me complaining.   It just feels like a story worth telling.

On Monday it became clear that then-tropical storm Irene was headed in the general direction of Nassau, and my flight was scheduled to leave on Wednesday night.   I dunno, maybe I'd get out beforehand, maybe not.   On Tuesday, British Airways canceled the flight for Wednesday night.   They had good reason, I've gotta say.   See, the flight from Nassau to London is technically the return journey of the BA plane, it leaves from London, stops in Nassau, and goes on to either Providenciales or Grand Cayman, and then it goes back the same way.   Understandably, British Airways didn't want to fly 400 or so tourists out into the path of an oncoming hurricane, so the flight never left London.   So it clearly couldn't leave from Nassau.

So my flight on Wednesday didn't leave.   Hurricane Irene turned slightly east on Thursday, so Nassau only really got a glancing blow from the hurricane's western edge.   The power went out for part of a day, or a few days, depending on where on the island you were, and the internet went down for about 4 days.   There are quite a few funny stories to be had about that, like relations in faraway countries getting better information about hurricane Irene online than us in Nassau were getting from the local radio.  

So, my flight was rescheduled to Sunday night.   Come Sunday night, I went to check in, and was informed that the flight had been delayed until 7 AM Monday morning.   You see, BEC (the local power company) had not yet restored power to the airport, so the airport had been running on a generator.   The previous night, the flight I was supposed to be taking left from Providenciales, on its way to Nassau and then on to London.   But the generator at Nassau airport died, whether it ran out of fuel or broke, I'm not sure.   But that meant all the lights on the runway went out, so the plane couldn't land.   It had to return to Providenciales (gotta say, I'm glad I wasn't in that part of the journey) and wait.   It flew back to Nassau as soon as possible, and all seemed to be good to go the next morning.

With all however-many of us on the plane at 7:05 AM (had to be at the airport just after 5), we sat there at the runway.   And we sat there.   The pilot explained that local air traffic control didn't have the proper records of their flight path for them to take off, and they were trying to deal with that.   We finally left at 9:05 AM.   Would've been cool to only have to arrive at the airport at 7.

Anyway, also, as we had been informed earlier but I haven't mentioned until now, the flight's catering, the food, hadn't lasted because of the delays.   (As one would expect.)   But there is no catering service at Nassau airport.   So one of the local hotels was hired out to do catering for the flight, but of course, they didn't have the standard foil containers needed to heat the meals on the plane.   So cold food all the way to London, I'm glad I sleep well on planes, otherwise I might have been quite hungry.

Then a relatively uneventful, though not completely run-of-the-mill overnight in London, and I left from Gatwick, on time, the next day, and arrived in Malaga.   All in good fun, and my phone seriously saved my bacon a few times.

All in all it was an eventful trip, and despite all that, I'd definitely do it again.   It was a fun visit, and I'm looking forward to another one next year.

In other news, those of you who are reading my ongoing writing works, I've just finished Chapter 28 of Songlord.   You should read it.

Inspiration

There's some merit to blatantly stealing ideas that you see written in already published works.   Well, not quite blatantly, but certainly taking inspiration.   I'm reading George R.R. Martin's latest book in the Song of Ice and Fire series right now, A Dance with Dragons.   And I've gotta say, whenever I read more of this book, it makes me think 'My book will never be this good.'   It's crazy how much detail and depth he gets into these books, and how unrelentingly surprising it is.   He always manages to throw in countless twists and turns, and he really, truly captures the actions of characters who truly hate each other.   You can't imagine it until you've read it.   The Game of Thrones TV series is a decent substitute, but the books are where it's really at.

But George R.R. Martin's brilliance aside, my own work on Songlord benefits greatly from reading such amazing work.   A writer is inevitably affected by what he reads, even if not taking any direct cues from events in the book; so when I start reading a new series, or change from one series to another, I always wonder what affect it will have on the voice in my own written work.   I planned to read Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss after A Dance with Dragons, but it's difficult to import books here in the Bahamas, so I'm going to read the first book in the Icemark series next.   It looks interesting, and also has a female protagonist, like Songlord.

I don't know how, but I haven't written any of Songlord since my previous blog post.   I'm at an epic part of the story, so it should be driving me on, but my time is divided by programming as well.   I should definitely be able to pick up Songlord again soon though.   Soon, as in the ephemeral tomorrow, or maybe the day after.   My reticence, though nonspecific, may be because I can feel the end of Songlord coming on.   It's certainly the first book in a series, but finishing the first draft means going back and editing Kosmos.   Good fun, that. ;)

Time!

What do you mean I haven't written a new blog post in over a week!?   That's ridiculous!

But it's true.

I've been traveling, and a lot of time was consumed on either side of that, packing up, the actual traveling, and then the adjusting with the time zones and the new (well, old) place, so different (better) lifestyle.   I hadn't found myself in the right state of mind to do much writing until today, in spite of the epicness of the scene I had left myself off at.

But let me say, the epic was in no short supply when I got going.   At first it was that dreaded leadup, when you've got to set up the crux of one of the most dramatic moments in your story, and you wonder if every word isn't going to betray you; that it might be the wrong one and put the reader off before they reach the big payoff.   But once the scene starts rolling, the action starts pouring in, all of that gets thrown out the window.   I got back into that writing zone after about a page, and it was great.

But on top of the action scenes, where you get to put in all the blood and violence, all the life-changing decisions that characters makes, there are the reveals.   Oh, the reveals, that you've been waiting so long to write down.   I've been waiting to do this particular chapter of Songlord (now chapter 28) since before chapter 15 at least.   I've rewritten it over a thousand times in my head, but for now I'm really happy with how it worked out.   Hopefully it's one of those scenes that for the reader, you see the words and realize all of your assumptions thus far have been wrong.   Everything every character thought they knew was entirely misled; it's awesome.

When you all get to this part of the story, if you enjoy it even a fraction as much as I did, it will have been worth it.   For those who are reading along with me as I'm writing on Google Docs, go check out the new chapters!   And keep an eye out for more to come. ;)

Trickery

Tomorrow is a deceptive word; there are loads of great semantic arguments as to why you still did something 'tomorrow', given its relative position in time.   As you might be able to tell, I didn't write that linking scene on the 'tomorrow' I was referring to in my last blog post, but instead the day after.   And I've got to say, that was the most fun writing I've done in quite some time.   I've gotten to a very pivotal moment in the story now, introducing a character that's been talked about for some twenty chapters but never seen, as well as leading up to some cool secrets I've been looking forward to revealing for some time.

Writing is great when you get to that part, when you're giving life to the scenes that have been rattling around your head for weeks, and everything just seems to slot perfectly into place.   There's no stopping to think about specific words, about what your character should be feeling, it all just works.   I made a note to myself to remember that feeling, because it had been a long time (accursed exams!) since I got there; and it's the reason why I write in the first place.

Needless to say, Songlord is going well, and I've left myself a rough edge to pick up easily enough later today/tomorrow/next week.   (That flexibility probably means next week.)   I'm traveling on the weekend, so no writing then, most likely, but you never know.   I really want to write the next part of the story so I wouldn't count it out just yet.   And once I finish my summer work placement (Friday), I plan to set myself a sort of flexible-ish writing regimen, so I should get a lot done in the weeks to come.   Given where Songlord sits now, and the amount of time I have, I might very well finish the first draft.   But that's being very optimistic.