April 18, 1906

In the week coming up, well, next week, too... such an 'odd' week of birthday and event anniversaries that all strangely fell during the same seven-ten days:
Hitler's Birthday: April 20
Titanic Sinking: April  14/15
The American Civil War, April 12
 and so many more!

On April 18, 1906, the Great San Francisco Earthquake occurred. That has always fascinated me, even when I walk the streets of that city, wondering what it would have been like. I did  a lot of research when I wrote THE TIME OF HIS LIFE, Andy Mackpeace's Second Time Travel Adventure, because he and Miranda accidentally end up there.

An excerpt from Chapter 6:

Opposite Andy was the stairway leading down to the first floor. It too was intact and still attached to the wall. At the top of the stairs was another bedroom door. Miranda stood in that doorway, motionless.

“Miranda!” Andy yelled. “Are you okay? What is this? What happened?” His friend didn’t respond. 

“Miranda!”
            Miranda was a very intelligent girl who clearly understood an earthquake when she saw one, but she was also a girl from New Hampshire where earthquakes were not likely to happen. Reading about them and experiencing one were two very different phenomena.

“Miranda!!” Andy shouted again.
            “It’s an earthquake,” she yelled, snapping out of her shock and coming to her senses. “We have to get out of here!”

She headed for the stairs when the second, more deadly tremor hit. Miranda was thrown forward by the shock and her face hit the steps. At the same time, Andy was shoved to the ground backward toward his bed. He had no more control over where he landed than if a quarterback had picked him up and heaved him.

As much as he tried, Andy couldn’t get up. Another quick BOOM! and the massive bed lifted up, fell over and buried him up to his waist. The large wardrobe keeled over too, and Andy barely had time to cover his head with his hands. If it weren’t for the fullness of the bed acting as a cushion, Andy would have been crushed.

As the house rocked, a terrific screeching noise started to happen. The stairway was wrenching loose. With every BOOM! the stairs pulled away a bit, then slammed back into the wall. The nails holding it together were coming undone with each pull and slam. Like a stubborn dog playing tug of war with a toy, the stairs moved out from the wall, then back, then out, then back. With each tug, the stairs grew shakier and shakier.      

The house groaned and when the nails popped, the stairway came crashing down, the steps, the railing, the carpet, all of it. It folded into itself and landed with a giant heap on the first floor hall. Dust and dirt swept up and around Andy like someone had emptied out a giant vacuum cleaner bag.     

Once again, the earthquake stopped.

Silence.

Andy opened his eyes. He coughed and spat out the dirt that filled his mouth.

The house, by now, was completely tilted. The room, the floor, everything was leaning toward the stairway, or rather, where the stairway used to be.  Andy pulled and struggled and squeezed out from under the bed and looked over at Miranda’s bedroom.

Miranda was gone.

A great nod to Rebecca Stead

I just finished reading Rebecca Stead's Liar and Spy and was very glad to see a male protagonist who actually has emotional, vibrant, living breathing, what else can I say, organic relationships with other characters in the novel. It was reassuring that a piece of work written for Middle Grade could still have the capacity to move me.

Frankly, I don't resonate with adventure stories where the protagonist (male or female) simply zips around from hair-raising adventure to another without a moment of reflection or emotional recovery. While I understand that sometimes an adventure is just an adventure, those types of stories are not for me. I think a truly good story has to have, at its center, a heart.

In my novels, my male protagonist has some kind of visceral connection with other people, especially another male. In the time travel series, Andy's best friend is Roger; in book 3, All the Time in the World, Andy also finds a role model in Eric. In The Sculptured Rocks, Dan has his best friend, Tom, as well as a bully named Krenshaw. Later he meets the young farmer, Nate. In The Time of His Life, Andy meets Jake Hollis at the camp and of course, in The Promise of Living, Ryan and Dave are inseparable.

But to continue with Stead. She has the ability to sum up a whole slew of emotions by one simple sentence. When the protagonist starts 7th grade, a minor character, Jason, has the ability for him to reflect:
"I go back to thinking about Jason, who was my every-day-after-school friend until the end of sixth grade, when he went to sleepaway camp for seven weeks and then started sitting at the cool table in September like he'd been there all along."

Way to go, Ms. Stead! That says so much and you do it so extremely gracefully without a bit of self-pity.
Here's another sample: if you've read the book, you'll know the backstory. If you don't, no worries, nothing is spoiled:
"Bob draws Candy's blue dot, making a perfect circle and then coloring it in.
When he's done, she looks at it up close. "So what does this mean again?"
Bob tells her. "It means you're not alone. No matter what."
The book is filled with extremely tender moments, and they often took me by surprise. While Ms. Stead certainly doesn't need my Seal Of Approval given her recent success, I can't wait for her next book.

My New Kickstarter Project

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/454459234/time-travel-and-literacy?ref=live

I started a new project in the hopes of promoting literacy and awareness. Please give it a look!

Both of my novels IN THE NICK OF TIME and THE TIME OF HIS LIFE are now on Smashwords.com for any type of Electronic device.