One Thing:
I haven’t taken the time to thank all the people who post here and help me in doing so. Cheryl, Brenda, Debbie and Lisa, I couldn’t keep coming up with idea after idea. So thank you so much for sending me pieces each week.
Love, Carol
Two Things:
There was a 6.0 earthquake in Napa, California on Sunday morning. I’m about 20 miles from the epicenter.
I woke up to the bed shaking like we were in a frying pan. 3:20 am. I jumped out of bed, but the ground wasn’t stable either.
“Earthquake,” I told my husband, whose first thought was that the rattling windows was an intruder. “Earthquake, earthquake!”
Then, “The baby!”
The few feet to her room seemed to stretch into eternity. The quake was over by the time I got there. She’d slept through it. Her rocking chair rocked as if someone sat in it, watching us.
My next thoughts turned to the potential damage for those at the epicenter. I thought it originated in San Francisco, 60 miles away. If that was true, it meant at least a 9.0 magnitude. The city was demolished. Underwater. Millions were dead.
The news took about 20 minutes to catch up, but Facebook was alive within seconds. I cried when friends from San Francisco posted that there was no significant damage, relieved.
Slowly, facts trickled in. Napa is a small tourist town known for its wineries. Damaged buildings, fires, and mostly minor injuries. But thankfully, nothing like the devastation I’d imagined.
So, if I were a main character, my first instinct was to warn those family members who could take care of themselves and shield the ones that couldn’t. The next was to envision the worst possible scenario for the rest of the world.
What would your MC have done?
Cheryl Van Eck
Three Things:
Another “quick” question, at the end of a summer’s madness, to help us refocus (borrowed from The Graceful Lie by Michael Petracca, one of my favorite writing books): List some of your literary heroes.
To delve farther, answer these related questions as well: Would I like to write in a style that emulates any of these people? Are there certain types of writing that I don’t particularly like and would prefer to avoid emulating?
Brenda Bensch
Throwing Up Words 