Write what you know, they tell us. But that’s
a tall order for those of us who write science fiction romance. We might be
pilots, scientists, military vets, cops or medical professionals on the job,
but it’s for certain none of us have traveled in an interstellar spaceship or
stood on the surface of another planet. And for many of us our day jobs are
even more mundane; working the front desk at the Y was no help at all in
writing my Interstellar Rescue
series, I can tell you.
Thankfully, like any SFR writer, I have a big
imagination and a voracious appetite for books of all kinds. I’ve also seen
wonders on this Earth that no author could ever imagine. If you think about it,
so have you.
 |
| Bison chill by the hot springs in Yellowstone |
My husband and I just came back from a trip
to the first U.S. national park, Yellowstone, with takes up parts of Montana,
Wyoming and Idaho. As every schoolchild knows, Yellowstone sits on a massive
caldera, the magma climbing from deep in the earth to near the surface and
heating ground water to form bubbling mud pools, hot springs, fumaroles and
geysers. Chemicals in the water turn the springs and pools dramatic colors and,
seen at a distance, the ground seems to smoke. Who could make this stuff up?
Yellowstone has been on my “bucket list” for
years. But I’ve seen some spectacular things over the years, many of which I’ve
used in some way in my writing:
2) Homestead Crater Dome in Utah—a hot
spring inside a huge limestone dome. I went swimming in the warm water. Dark
and a little creepy, but fun!
3) Mammoth Cave in Kentucky—the world’s
longest known cave system. Stalactites and stalagmites, squeeze-through
passages, an underground lake. Unforgettable!
4) A giant sequoia tree named General
Sherman in California—the world’s largest tree (by volume) and its
longest-living organism.
5) Stonehenge on the Salisbury plain,
England—How? And why?
6) Aquamarine waters falling over a chalky
white terrace in Pamukkale, Turkey—so bright it hurts your eyes and so delicate
visitors must remove their shoes to step over the rock.
7) The Grand Canyon in Arizona—Phenomenal!
8) The ocean glowing with phosphorescence on
a moonlit night in The Gambia, West Africa—Tiny diatoms in the water glowed in
the dark.
9) An elephant—Think about it. No alien
would ever look stranger or evoke such speculation that sentience lurked in a
creature’s eyes.
10) An active volcano—Mine happened to be
Kilauea in Hawaii. We stood on a cliffside of freshly-made black volcanic soil
and watched lava flow out of the side of the mountain down to the sea, where it
disappeared in a billow of steam. Primal!
I’ve been lucky enough to see these things
in person. But long before I could travel, I had books, then television and
movies, to take me there. I “know” a lot more than just what appears outside my
window.
How about you? What spectacular sights have
you seen here on Earth that inspire you to create new worlds in your fiction?
PING PONG
I enjoyed Pippa and Laurie’s vastly
different takes on PASSENGERS this week. I particularly appreciated Laurie’s
line-by-line take-down of the critics on this much-maligned movie. But then, you
and I obviously agree on the salient points, Laurie! I’m glad you enjoyed the
film despite its flaws, Pippa. At least you gave it a chance, which is more
than I can say for many of the critics out there. Unfortunately, the state of
criticism these days is such that professional film geeks tend to confuse “ponderous”
with “deep” and “bleak” with “sophisticated.” Out-of-the-box thinking is not
their forte, and this was an out-of-the-box film.
Cheers, Donna
