Earth, Water, Air and Fire

After the flood destruction here in Colorado this month, I’ve been thinking about natural disasters. Ancients spoke of the four elements: earth, water, air and fire. My wife made a good observation the other day that I hadn’t consciously recognized before. These four elements also account for our natural disasters. It’s ironic that contracts often refer to “Act’s of God.” To me, disasters have nothing to do with God unless you hold with a vengeful Old Testament type of God who likes to punish people. Let’s take a look at the four elements.

Earth. An earthquake shook Pakistan this week and killed many people. If you live in California, this is always a possibility as well. I grew up in Hawaii where volcanic eruptions (a combination of earth and fire) occurred frequently.

Water. In drought, we seek it, in flood we want it to stop. There are also tsunamis, a combination of earth (earthquakes) and a resulting massive pulse of water. We’ve recently experienced a 100 year flood here in Colorado. After several years of drought, we broke all records for a day, month and year with one week of too much rain. The power of water carved the Grand Canyon. I’ve seen pictures of roads obliterated in canyons in the Colorado mountains in the recent flooding and witnessed the flood erosion on nearby hiking trails.

Air. Ah, those storms. Wind, tornados, hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, Chinook, Santa Ana whatever you choose to call them can wreck devastation. And some of them produce ocean surges and the accompanying rainfall, leading to flooding. Blizzards combine air and water as do hail storms. Dust storms (simoom, haboob) combine earth and air.

Fire. We have had too many wildfires in Colorado the last few years. These have caused damage to thousands of acres of forest and the houses built in these areas, and taken lives. A number of the wildfires were caused by lightning.

Thus, the elements that provide for our existence (earth, water, air and fire) also bring the risk of natural disasters. It’s just the way our world works.

Writing During a Disaster

With all the flooding in Colorado over the last week, I’ve managed to get some writing done, although it was hard to concentrate. We’ve been fortunate to have no damage to our house, but throughout Boulder and other parts of the state it’s been a disaster.

Many mornings I remained glued to the television to see what was happening. Then I started taking walks to survey the damage in my neighborhood and walkable locations nearby. Currently, the water in the creeks has subsided in Boulder, but driveways are full of carpet and water-damaged objects. The Open Space areas are still closed, so walking has to be limited to city streets and bike paths.

Insurance companies refer to an event like this as an act of God. I don’t think God had anything to do with it. Stuff happens and sometimes it’s Katrina or Sandy and recently it has been too much rain in Colorado after earlier drought and fires.

Our thoughts go out to all of those who have suffered through this tragedy. As Annie says, the sun’ll come out tomorrow.

September 11

Nearly everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news about the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. For me there’s a back story.

Rewind to the summer of 2001. One evening sitting in an easy chair in my living room, I made the decision that I wanted to retire into fiction writing. As a result of this, I negotiated with my boss to work three days a week. This turned out fine for both of us since my primary responsibility at that time was negotiating contracts with customers and suppliers. A number of these entailed night phone calls to Japan, so I could set my own schedule and get the work accomplished in the equivalent of three working days. Then I could spend the equivalent of two working days jump starting my writing.

I also had learned that if you’re 55 or older, you can attend any course at the University of Colorado for free with the instructor’s permission. I availed myself of this program and signed up for a fiction writing class that began at the end of August.

Fast forward to the morning of September 11. I got up and didn’t turn on the television because this was going to be my first day to write all morning. I had an idea for a short story for my writing class and was excited to be able to dive in and spend an extended time writing.  I had just settled into the chair at my desk in my home office, when the phone rang. It was the president of my company asking me if I had watched the news that morning. Of course I hadn’t. I ran downstairs, turned on the television, and needless to say, I didn’t get one word written that day.

Skip Generational Characters in Novels

What are skip generational characters in novels? Basically, it means grandparents and grandkids who work together in some way. In my Paul Jacobson Geezer-lit Mystery Series, Paul and his twelve-year-old granddaughter, Jennifer, team up to solve mysteries. In our fast-paced, mobile society, we don’t have that many households where grandparents and grandchildren experience each other on a regular basis. This is a shame. I know I enjoy the time I spend with my four grandchildren, but since we live in different parts of the country, these times are infrequent.

In addition to solving mysteries, Paul and Jennifer also enjoy telling each other politically incorrect geezer jokes in the most recent book, Care Homes Are Murder. The further skip generational factor is that Jennifer’s mom (Paul’s daughter-in-law) thinks Paul is being a bad influence on Jennifer. This leads to Paul and Jennifer sneaking off to tell geezer jokes to each other. When they get caught by Jennifer’s mom, Paul admits that he’s the “ba-a-a-d grandpa.”

In my just released paranormal geezer-lit mystery, The Back Wing, a skip generational relationship exists between the protagonist, Harold McCaffrey, and his teenage grandson, Jason. Jason comes to stay with Harold in the retirement home where he lives because Jason’s parents are off on a vacation. Jason thinks it will be boring being with his creaky grandfather and all the old people, but, boy, is he surprised. It turns out that the back wing of this retirement home is full of aging witches, vampires, werewolves and shape-shifters. Jason has an exciting time meeting vampires who gum people on the neck and helping to solve two murders.

I have one other manuscript (not yet published) that plays upon this grandparent and grandchild relationship.

Skip generational relationships provide ample opportunity for the young and old to come together, help each other and learn from each other. This is something we need more of in today’s world.

What do you think?

A Fiction Writer Writing Nonfiction

Since I decided to become a writer in 2001, all of my published work has been fiction (seven mystery novels and several short stories). In my current writing project, I’m writing the biography of a World War II veteran. This has been a fascinating project and a real learning experience for me. So what are my observations on nonfiction versus fiction?

With my novels I always do at least a preliminary outline. This gives me a roadmap even thought I often take detours to admire the scenery. Since my nonfiction project has relied on recording interviews with the gentleman I’m writing about, I’ve let him tell me his stories and then I’ve pieced them together as I go over the recordings. I let him control the agenda of the early interviews, recounting what he remembered. Then as I began writing, I had a number of questions, so the later interviews have been me asking him questions to get things clarified and filled in.

What is similar between fiction and nonfiction? They both require a good story. I had written journal articles when in the business world, but writing a nonfiction book requires the same attention to story as does a novel. I began writing the episodes recounted to me and then began organizing them in a story arc. Although I first put things down in somewhat of a chronological order, I began diverging from this as I built the story arc. I’ve written 56,000 words, and I’m now doing a read through to see what I’ve got so far.

An interesting process.

Writing Hiatus

I’ve just completed a 2 ½ week break from writing—the most time away from writing since I began in 2001. But I had a very good reason. I spend the time with my grand kids. First, our son, daughter-in-law and two grandsons came to visit us in Colorado for a week. Then my oldest grandson stayed with my wife and me for a second week for Grandma and Grandpa Camp. We hiked, did sticker books, put on plays, went to the dinner theater, saw movies, watched butterlies at the Butterfly Pavilion, attended an air show and spent two days at the hot pools in Glenwood Springs. We wrapped up by flying back with him to his home and spending three days there before his school started.

I spent a few minutes every day checking email and a few social network posts but that was it. The rest of the time was doing fun stuff. Longest vacation I’ve taken in years!

 

 

Photic Sneeze Reflex

After growing up in the sunshine of Hawaii and being outdoors at least some time during the day, most days while living in California and now Colorado, about ten years ago I developed a photic sneeze reflex. What is this you may ask? It goes by a number of names including photoptarmosis, sun sneezing, and my favorite, Autosomal dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst (ACHOO) syndrome.

Simply put, it’s sneezing when exposed to bright sunlight. It’s estimated that 18-35% of the population has this disorder. I say disorder only in the sense of it being irritating, but there is no serious problem with it unless you’re driving a vehicle and suddenly are wracked with sneezing.

I find that if I go from inside a car or house into bright sunlight without dark glasses and a hat, I will sneeze about three times. As mentioned above, I never had this when younger so don’t know why it started up as I approached geezerhood.

I’ve used this syndrome in one novel I’ve written.

Do you ever sneeze when exposed to bright sunlight?