chasing the sunset.

those of you have read either my blog or my book know that me and flying do not get along. it just seems a bit much. how high? how fast? how far? come on.

the problem is, of course, if you really like other places then planes get you farther faster, and if one wants to see what is on the other side of an ocean, or the world, they’re pretty much the way to go.

so, i’m going to the other side of the world. australia. i’ve done some math about it:

chance of engine failure = chance of engine failure/km * km traveled

i told my friend greg this today, and he pointed out, unhelpfully, that my equation was flawed.

“i don’t think it has much to do with how far you go. it just happens or it doesn’t.”

so, what he is saying is it could happen at anytime. if so:

chance of engine failure = chance of engine failure/flight * number of flights

either way.   the only thing i am glad for is that the enforced spatial celibacy of my cramped airplane seat has allowed me to write. at least this far.

crying baby. why is that always the way?

chance of having crying baby in audible distance = 0.7

it’s just a law, like pi.

so, i’m off to australia, for the sydney writer’s festival. i’m so thrilled. i’ve never been to the continent, but know the sway it holds on people, because nearly everyone i know who goes there comes back to stay. often for years.

it’s not just cause i get to be 6/7th of the way through continents that makes me excited. i get to talk about my book. why i wrote it, what it means. i might get a chance to talk about how i thought so deeply about pacing, knowing i had to forsake the relentlessness of the true experience for the reader to experience the inensity, how my editors pushed me to describe how i was feeling in particular scenes but i was reluctant, often saying “you read it. how did you feel?”, how i wanted to cut and cut and cut words and pages and sentences until the book was just bones and i still wanted less, and how my first draft dragged in the middle because those weeks really did drag and that’s what those six months were like. all those things. or some. or none.

it’s my first book, but i’m sure it is an experience every writer has. to have so many ideas, hundreds and hundreds of them, some small, others obvious, dozens undiscovered. i know because as a reader, i only recognize a few. but in every chapter of every book there’s a plan, in each sentence an intention, in a comma …no…no comma…the line just hurtles no hurdles and you just go right to the end fast fastfast.

like in a book, so too in one’s day. the good deed that goes unnoticed, or the bad one that goes unpunished. in the end, what matters most is from where it is borne. and that you tried in the first place.

i’m glad i get to talk about it. it helps my understanding of the book, reminds me of where it came from. last weekend i was in conversation with james orbinski and prabhat jha at the globe and mail’s open house. avril benoit asked questions about our stories, why we did the things we did, about our intentions (check vid here) .i read a review, one of the first, that said my treatment of one my characters, a little girl who came to the hospital abandoned and alone and ended up staying there through my whole mission, was not heavy nor frequent enough. as i was preparing for our session, for the day, going through my book, i realized something important and got to say it for the first time:

“the whole book is about that girl. the whole thing.”

i’m glad i get to talk about it. it helps me understand the story, even though i lived it.

it’s late now. or early. crying baby still going strong. wow. strong little lungs. indefatigable.

and, for some reason, the plane just veered. sure, it could be some kind of correction, but don’t they have a carefully planned computer trajectory? it’s just basically straight, no? what are you guys doing up there? facebooking?

eyes on the skies, captain. sunset straight ahead.