Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Always An Adventure

I know some of you think that flying is always an adventure, and that might be true, but sometimes the adventure is sort of lame. Like yesterday, for instance. We boarded the plane on time pulled away from the gate, got in line to take off, and apparently, that's when things went to hell in a handbasket. The radio system in Kentucky went down and they had no way of communicating with planes over their airspace. Since a ton of flights are routed that way, that meant we were all grounded until someone could make the radios work. This took over 2 hours, then there was the backlog of grounded planes to handle. So we sat on the runway for over 3 hours - doing nothing - just sitting. What an adventure. Ha!

And the worst part was, we were one of the lucky planes. Over 100 flights that didn't get away from the gate were cancelled over this fiasco. And once again, I must say "Thank God for First Class upgrades!" At least I had a semi-comfortable chair, chocolate chip cookies and drinks. So I took the time to call my mom and work on my taxes. Altogether, it was a thrilling afternoon spent in a hot plane on the Dallas runway. Oh, did I mention that the air conditioning doesn't really work on planes unless they're in motion??????? Yeah, it was beautiful.

These are the kind of adventures I could do without.

Which makes me think about writing. Someone once told me that fiction was life but with all the boring stuff removed. How right they are. Can you imagine writing a heroine sitting on a runway for 3 hours? Fine if it's a hijacking or something, but if she's doing her taxes and talking to her mom, who the heck wants to read about that.

I mean sometimes we have our characters eat and shower (although even my shower scenes tend to have some action), but we don't cover everything they do. I don't recall ever having a character brush their teeth, but I'd like to think they have. My characters also never go grocery shopping or stop to fuel their car. It's life but with all the boring, normal stuff removed. Which is interesting when you think about it because I'd be willing to bet that most of our real lives is the boring normal stuff. So what do you figure - 5% adventure, 95% boring normal?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

My sweetie & I got stuck on the tarmac in Chicago several years ago when a thunderstorm came through. They couldn't let us off the plane because they'd already confirmed us on the computer. (Yeah, keep people in a metal tube on a flat concrete pad during a thunderstorm, rather than voiding the tickets & re-running them.) I think we sat for a good 2 or 3 hours before the plane finally took off. My sweetie by the way is 6'6" and 300+, and was stuck in the window seat. The guy in front of him kept trying to recline. Finally sweetie lurched up to loom over the dude to tell him that the seat WASN'T GOING TO RECLINE SO QUIT!!! Dude didn't move again until we landed in California 5 hours laters.
I don't know that the 95% of normal stuff is necessarily boring, at least not to me as I live it ... after all, I have such scintillating thought processes that everybody should want to listen in. ;=P
I think it's more that most of us don't live lives that are STORIES. We have events, happenings, what have you, that occur, but they don't string together in coherent & relevant story lines. Does that make any sense?

Pink Pelican

Anonymous said...

I used to enjoy flying. I have no desire to ever do it again, however.

Wendy Roberts said...

Hugs for being stuck on the tarmac so long, Jana!

I think I started writing to relieve boredom. This morning I woke up chipper and grinning like a fool not because I was off to do anything exciting outside my house but because I had one of those rare moments when I woke with an exciting scene almost pre-written in my head. Bliss! I couldn't wait to write it. Yup. That was the most excitement I've had in months LOL.

Jana DeLeon said...

LOL Pink - I would have paid to see the look on that guy's face when your husband loomed over the seat!

And I see what you're saying about our lives. God knows, I have all sorts of interesting things happen, but just never in succession. Now in my mind - well, I'm with you. Everyone should want to know what's going on in our minds. :)

Jana DeLeon said...

tori - what???? Did I turn you off the travel industry? I'm sorry. Well, not really. :)

Jana DeLeon said...

Aaaah Wendy - I am sooooooo jealous!!!! I love those pre-written scenes. It simply doesn't happen often enough!

Anonymous said...

No, no! I'm not against traveling, per se. But I have this strong urge to travel by rail. :)

 
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