The Day I Get My Yearly Novel Case Study
It seems like once a year while I'm writing my novel, there's an incident that happens in my actual life that is seminal to the year's topic. Or if not influencing the topic while I'm writing the topic at least has something to do with the topic.
As I've mentioned a few times in not so pleasant ways, this year's novel so far has been about the boredom that happens at first being stuck somewhere with no escape possible but with no immediate danger - or at least very little.
Well today on the way home from Dallas I got stuck at Milwaukee General Mitchell Airport after my plane was deverted from O'Hare due to weather conditions.
The entire plane ride home was a bit of a nightmare. We were supposed to get out of DFW (because Dallas DFW would be redundant) almost 45 minutes behind schedule as the weather conditions in Chicago were planned for by air traffic control. But we actually ended up taking off from Texas quite a bit early and before I knew it (as I was writing some NANOWRIMO stuff of course time went too quickly) the captain had made an announcement that we were less than an hour from O'Hare and were about to start our initial descent.
Then over Des Moines, Iowa the reality of the situation set in as we were put in a holding pattern. We held and held and held and were warned it could take up to an hour before we were given clearence to proceed into Chicago from the southwest. However, 20 minutes later we were told by the captain (I love a captain who gives constant updates as to why things aren't going right rather than letting my mind race) that we were being brought out of the pattern and were going to be approaching Chicago from the northwest instead over southeastern Wisconsin.
As we descended into O'Hare I was scared out of my wits because the plane was being wind sheared left and right in a way that I'd never been through that low to the ground (I mean we could already see cars moving on the streets) and all around us thunder was crashing loudly and we could see lightning.
Still the pilot was doing his best to put us down safely close to home (though with how the wind was blowing I wouldn't have been surprised if we got blown so far off course I landed on my roof). Though at the last minute even his will gave out and probably 300 feet off the ground he pulled back up.
As soon as we were at a safe altitude, he came back on the speaker and let us know that we didn't have enough fuel to go into a holding pattern around O'Hare (since we had used it all making crop circles) and that we were going to land in Milwaukee.
While it wasn't preferrable to do this, I had all sorts of contingency plans like taking the Amtrack home the 1.25 hours between Chicago and its giant northern suburb or even sharing a rental car home with my seat neighbors (everyone had escape on their mind right from the start).
That was until we all found out that we had no gate in Milwaukee and we were going absolutely nowhere - not even inside the airport. We sat there on the tarmac in heavy rain in Milwaukee (though not nearly as bad as in Chicago) with no fuel and with no chance of escape. But at least we were safe on the ground.
Though the pilot did decide to put a hint of danger into the equation by letting us know that we couldn't refuel until the lighting storm stopped because, "the last thing [we] wanted was to be in a big metal object with gas being poured into it if we were struck by lightning."
We kept getting updates every few minutes and they were never good. It seemed like there was always another hour to go before we could get fueled and get off the ground. Who I felt bad for were the people who had a connector flight to Milwaukee who had to be flown back to Chicago and then try to get a flight back to Wisconsin (of which the last one of the night had probably already left). There was one guy on the plane who needed to catch the last flight of the night to London out so he could get on another plane to India for an important business meeting.
I could only imagine his stress levels as mine were going through the roof and I had nowhere to be. The confined space, the lack of food (the poor woman two seats over from me hadn't even ate before she got on the plane because it was a really short flight), and the boredom were really getting to me.
Still, everyone on the flight managed to keep a pretty good disposition considering. People were cracking all sorts of jokes about pretending to be flight attendants and breaking into the liquor stashes or hijacking the fire engine that accompanied the fuel truck and driving it back to the terminal (where they'd take a bus to Chicago under similar dastardly means).
But the one thing that I noticed was that like in the novel I'm writing people of all different walks of life began to talk to each other like they were long time friends even though most of us had never met before. The two women next to me were swapping stories about their children, people were talking about their jobs. Hades, I even got into a conversation about New York City (speak of the devil) though I didn't let on why that was central to my mind right now.
Finally we took off and within 20 minutes (it really is a piddly flight) we had touched down in Chicago. The captain joked, "it's another on-time arrival at what appears to be O'Hare...the connecting flight information is...good luck with that." Sure enough, we were four hours late, on the dot.
While I expected people to be really angry at the captain (despite the fact that it was the weather's fault) everyone took the whole thing really well (though I didn't hear the people at the airline desk trying to negotiate the rest of their trips).
I guess what the night showed was that people really do resort to humor when the situation looks bleak but isn't dangerous. It's not just some sort of Hollywood created mechanism. This case study made me feel somewhat better about my novel (though not as much so as writing over 2,000 words today during the flight and the El ride home).
Though I wish the study hadn't been such a pain in the behind!
---
CURRENT WORD COUNT: 13,997 words
As I've mentioned a few times in not so pleasant ways, this year's novel so far has been about the boredom that happens at first being stuck somewhere with no escape possible but with no immediate danger - or at least very little.
Well today on the way home from Dallas I got stuck at Milwaukee General Mitchell Airport after my plane was deverted from O'Hare due to weather conditions.
The entire plane ride home was a bit of a nightmare. We were supposed to get out of DFW (because Dallas DFW would be redundant) almost 45 minutes behind schedule as the weather conditions in Chicago were planned for by air traffic control. But we actually ended up taking off from Texas quite a bit early and before I knew it (as I was writing some NANOWRIMO stuff of course time went too quickly) the captain had made an announcement that we were less than an hour from O'Hare and were about to start our initial descent.
Then over Des Moines, Iowa the reality of the situation set in as we were put in a holding pattern. We held and held and held and were warned it could take up to an hour before we were given clearence to proceed into Chicago from the southwest. However, 20 minutes later we were told by the captain (I love a captain who gives constant updates as to why things aren't going right rather than letting my mind race) that we were being brought out of the pattern and were going to be approaching Chicago from the northwest instead over southeastern Wisconsin.
As we descended into O'Hare I was scared out of my wits because the plane was being wind sheared left and right in a way that I'd never been through that low to the ground (I mean we could already see cars moving on the streets) and all around us thunder was crashing loudly and we could see lightning.
Still the pilot was doing his best to put us down safely close to home (though with how the wind was blowing I wouldn't have been surprised if we got blown so far off course I landed on my roof). Though at the last minute even his will gave out and probably 300 feet off the ground he pulled back up.
As soon as we were at a safe altitude, he came back on the speaker and let us know that we didn't have enough fuel to go into a holding pattern around O'Hare (since we had used it all making crop circles) and that we were going to land in Milwaukee.
While it wasn't preferrable to do this, I had all sorts of contingency plans like taking the Amtrack home the 1.25 hours between Chicago and its giant northern suburb or even sharing a rental car home with my seat neighbors (everyone had escape on their mind right from the start).
That was until we all found out that we had no gate in Milwaukee and we were going absolutely nowhere - not even inside the airport. We sat there on the tarmac in heavy rain in Milwaukee (though not nearly as bad as in Chicago) with no fuel and with no chance of escape. But at least we were safe on the ground.
Though the pilot did decide to put a hint of danger into the equation by letting us know that we couldn't refuel until the lighting storm stopped because, "the last thing [we] wanted was to be in a big metal object with gas being poured into it if we were struck by lightning."
We kept getting updates every few minutes and they were never good. It seemed like there was always another hour to go before we could get fueled and get off the ground. Who I felt bad for were the people who had a connector flight to Milwaukee who had to be flown back to Chicago and then try to get a flight back to Wisconsin (of which the last one of the night had probably already left). There was one guy on the plane who needed to catch the last flight of the night to London out so he could get on another plane to India for an important business meeting.
I could only imagine his stress levels as mine were going through the roof and I had nowhere to be. The confined space, the lack of food (the poor woman two seats over from me hadn't even ate before she got on the plane because it was a really short flight), and the boredom were really getting to me.
Still, everyone on the flight managed to keep a pretty good disposition considering. People were cracking all sorts of jokes about pretending to be flight attendants and breaking into the liquor stashes or hijacking the fire engine that accompanied the fuel truck and driving it back to the terminal (where they'd take a bus to Chicago under similar dastardly means).
But the one thing that I noticed was that like in the novel I'm writing people of all different walks of life began to talk to each other like they were long time friends even though most of us had never met before. The two women next to me were swapping stories about their children, people were talking about their jobs. Hades, I even got into a conversation about New York City (speak of the devil) though I didn't let on why that was central to my mind right now.
Finally we took off and within 20 minutes (it really is a piddly flight) we had touched down in Chicago. The captain joked, "it's another on-time arrival at what appears to be O'Hare...the connecting flight information is...good luck with that." Sure enough, we were four hours late, on the dot.
While I expected people to be really angry at the captain (despite the fact that it was the weather's fault) everyone took the whole thing really well (though I didn't hear the people at the airline desk trying to negotiate the rest of their trips).
I guess what the night showed was that people really do resort to humor when the situation looks bleak but isn't dangerous. It's not just some sort of Hollywood created mechanism. This case study made me feel somewhat better about my novel (though not as much so as writing over 2,000 words today during the flight and the El ride home).
Though I wish the study hadn't been such a pain in the behind!
---
CURRENT WORD COUNT: 13,997 words
posted by incendiarymind at 8:17 PM
1 Comments:
Your experience reminds me of one New Year's Eve when my flight to New England had been halted in a holding pattern because of a snow storm and then had to divert to Baltimore because it was dangerous to land in any airport in the Northeast corridor. And unlike some of your fellow passengers, my fellow passengers were steaming mad. The holidays must have had something to do with it...
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