fasten your safety belts

Hot air rises. This is the reason that blimps and zeppelins stay up, that eagles and vultures can climb to ridiculous heights without flapping their wings the whole bleeding time, and that certain politicians are elected to high office. Due to the increased energy of its heated molecules, air becomes less dense as it gets warmer, thereby rising above the cooler, denser air down below. Trust me, this information will come in handy later.

Hello there! And a Happy (Early) Mother's Day to you. This post shall chiefly concern the latest work-related buzz, and recent (helpful) revelations about novel-publishing. You probably won't find any links to related websites in here, though. I'm feeling rather independent today.

Where shall I start? How to explain the myriad little things that happen every day on the job which would delight and entertain you no end? The many interesting people flitting to and fro in our little airport here in Apple Valley (to say nothing of the airplanes)? The incidents, the dialogue, the parade of human condition that marches past on a daily basis? It's impossible to document it all. Especially since I keep forgetting to bring my darn camera to work. I'll just give you the highlights.

We had a Cessna Citation visit our humble airport on Thursday, the second one this year. If you don't know what a Cessna Citation is, I'll delineate for you: it's one of those airplanes that was designed to cause civil unrest. Take a look for yourself. As if that wasn't orgasmic enough, a couple of Stearman biplanes sneaked in while we were out on our morning mission. You know, the planes that killed King Kong?
Then a Wheeler Express 90 wheeled in from Tehachapi. And a Bellanca Cruisemaster right after that.

I think I drooled on myself.

Furthermore, I pulled off my first (perfect) landing in the Mooney the other day. It was our new Mooney, nicknamed "X-Ray." It's a heck of a lot easier to fly. Admittedly, this was the morning flight, when the air was smooth as butter. Still, I could've done a lot worse. Maybe I didn't pull back quite far enough on the yoke when it came time to round out and touch down. But I really greased 'er in. As Mr. Mooney said, "you just kissed 'er down." He was full of praise, which made me feel pretty dang good, seeing as how he's a former Air Force pilot and has done more flying in more godawful weather than I can imagine.

Of course, I ruined it. It was later that same day, during the afternoon flight. Things were admittedly a little bumpy, and there were more people in the landing pattern with me. But still—my approach was perfect—straight-on to the runway, good glide slope, ideal speed, everything. I just flared too high, that's all. I was 50 feet off the ground when I started leveling off. Even I could not tell you why I did this. I know perfectly well that 50 feet in the air is no place to start rounding out. When you raise the nose, you get slow, and you do NOT want to getting slow 50 feet off the ground on a landing approach. You're already so slow that the plane might quit flying and fall out of the air. I've just got this hang-up about Mooneys. You really have to point them down at the ground in order to descend. And the M20E's approach speed is 80 miles per hour. So there I am, nose-down, heading for the ground at freeway speed. That freaks me out. Like I said before, I'm used to flying slab-sided Cessnas, which float on down at a leisurely 65. I like to go down slow, I guess. And the thing with Mooneys is, they're finicky. I was ten miles too fast on my final approach, doing 90. In any other airplane, ten extra miles ain't gonna matter. In a Mooney, of course, it does. If you try to flare at 90 you'll start climbing again. You have to have your speed right, or else.

This is where most newbie Mooney pilots get into trouble, on landings. Flare too high (like I did) and they bang the tail on the ground or crack the gear on a hard landing. Go too fast (like I was) and they flare, climb up suddenly, panic, point the nose back down hard, overcompensate, and hit the propeller on the ground, or go off the runway.
"This is why I like Mooneys," Mr. Mooney told me, after we'd parked (and he'd finished explaining to me what I'd done wrong). "They land like fighters."
Oh, great, I thought. In addition to my landing problems, the weather seems to have arrayed itself against me. Now that the spring winds seem to have gone (whew), summer is fast approaching. And being in a wide, flat desert with plentiful sun and lots of open ground (a good mix of sand, rock, and asphalt), we get these things called "thermals."

You probably have some pretty innocuous ideas about thermals. Right now you're thinking, "Oh, right, thermals! Those are those lovely warm currents of air that rise up from the ground, sending eagles to soar and gliders to kiss the azure sky!" That's what you're thinking, right? I must admit, I once belonged to this school of thought. Then I went out flying in a small plane for a couple of days. The sun was shining and the thermals

(convectioncurrentscausedbyunevenheatingoftheplanet'ssurfacebysolarradiation)

were in full swing. If you want to get an idea about what thermals are like from a pilot's perspective, picture an invisible fist, dozens of yards across, rocketing skyward and slamming into the belly and wings of your airplane. Got that? Okay, good. Now picture hundreds of invisible fists, shooting up from the desert floor like a barrage of anti-aircraft missiles, each one a mile high, whooshing through the air all around you, buffeting your plane up, back, forward and sideways. That's what thermals are like.

We're getting into a pattern here in the desert. It's the usual for the summer months. Calm and cool in the mornings, and then in the afternoon, when the sun has heated the air, the breeze kicks up. As long as the sun's shining here, you know there'll be thermals and crosswinds galore below 5,000 feet AGL, especially with all the mountains. (The mountains, in fact, amplify the thermals and winds, like a skateboard ramp.)

So I'm beginning to realize that I'm in for an interesting time during the afternoon flight. Thermals and turbulence are at their worst when you're low and slow. So I'll be climbing out of the airport, only a thousand feet or so off the ground, and those crosswinds and invisible fists will start hammering at me. The nose of the plane will be swerving back and forth like a car on ice. First one wing will be pushed up, then the other. Sometimes the tail gets caught, too, and our attitude suddenly goes from nose-up to level flight! Things haven't gotten really bad yet. But I can only imagine what'll happen if the thermals get any stronger. You all know how strong turbulence can be in a big jetliner. Imagine how it'll be for me, sitting there in my little Mooney. There'll be little else to do but tighten my seat belt, clench my buttocks, and try to keep the plane pointed straight ahead. It won't be the catbird seat, that's for dang sure. The weather is making it warm for me. Literally.

But that's just what I need: a challenge. Think of how much better a flyer this is making me. Between landings, handling a complex airplane, crosswinds, and mile-high geysers of hot air, I'm getting a crash-course in what Mr. Mooney jokingly refers to as "the survival gene."

And now, an addendum about novel-writing: It's continued to be a tremendous relief, taking it easy, not badgering myself to get published. Sitting back, taking a deep breath, and having a think about all of this has made me realize a couple of things.
First, I sent the manuscript out to my readers too soon.
There were a lot more edits I should've made before I did that. It was just too soon to send it out. Through phone calls, I've discovered that my readers having a lot of trouble, even just a few chapters in. They're not getting the most out of the story, and as a result, I'm not getting the most out of their feedback. I should've slowed down, taken it easy, paid attention to what I was doing when revising, and made sure I had a manuscript that was as tight as I could make it before I gave it to readers, to get the maximum profit out of their effort. And perhaps to ease that effort, too.
Second, I've been neglecting the blueprints I laid out in my character bios.
I don't know why I've been writing (let alone revising) without my notes and outline open in front of me, but I have! And a few days ago when I went back into the character bios that I'd written, I rediscovered some data that made it clear why I'd been having such difficulty. The reason for the intangible hardship I've been experiencing in writing/revising became clear on the instant. Now I knew why I thought my first three chapters were so shallow. Why character development in the second novel was stagnating. (All three of these things have put me on the verge of pulling out my hair, no joke.)

There's some things I've left out: my main character's tragic past, for one. The secondary main character's estrangement from his father. Both men's life histories, basically. The reason I've been disliking them so much, the reason I can't seem to have fun making these two guys think and talk and walk and battle, is because I don't know them very well. Reading the outline I'd painstakingly hammered out months ago (to prevent these frustrations from blossoming in the first place, ironically) made me understand what was missing in my work. There were some gaping holes in my manuscript, some vacant opportunities for characterization and plot development that I could now exploit. Armed with this new (or rather, old) information, I can turn my rickety, half-baked, puerile manuscript into a damn good novel.

It was a revelation, to be sure. Boy, I'm glad I decided to sit on this thing for a while! Mind you, I haven't been entirely bone-idle. I'm going to cast an eye over the novel again this weekend, just superficially, you know, in passing. Maybe jot down a few notes, using my character bios and my outline: things I need to change, or add in, or embellish. A few days ago I sat down at the computer and did some real work: character interviews. Recognizing that I didn't know my characters very well, I decided to call 'em into the office and have a chat. I gathered my notes, looked up some good questions on the Internet, and went at it. (I had several questions of my own, of course; like "Well, let's just get the toughie out of the way: what motivates you, MC?") And lo and behold! I didn't believe it, but it worked. I found the words—both my own and my characters'. They flowed off my fingers like wine past a Greek hero's lips. I saw my MCs—both men in their mid-twenties, idealists of a sort, one cooperative and friendly, the other surly and profane, sitting across from me as I peppered them with awkward questions.
How well do you get along with your father, MC #2?
What made you decide to come to Washington, MC #1?
What do you hope to do with your life, you guys? How did you meet each other, anyway? High school, wasn't it?
I finished up with a sense of supreme satisfaction. The plot was rounding itself out. With the info in my character bios, I was setting up some terrific foreshadowing for character development down the road. Most importantly, I felt a great deal more familiar with my characters. Up until this point, I had been talking to them on the phone, reading about them in the newspaper. Now I've met them face to face, and like 'em a little more for it.

Watch yourselves, writers. It's easy for novelists (especially first-time sapheads like me) to get too involved in the story and overlook the characters. Every decent writer I've run across insists that an author must know his-or-her characters like the back of his-or-her hand, the door of his-or-her refrigerator. If you don't know your characters, talk to 'em and have them tell you who they are. It'll make writing about them a lot easier. If I hadn't quit on publishing for the moment—thereby giving myself a much-needed breather—I never would've figured any of this out, probably. None of the all-important revelations would've come to light, none of the important research would have been done. (Oh, research! How could I forget that? Booting the publishing fever has given me ever so much more time for research. I've got five library books on my nightstand and another on the way.) Even if I had somehow realized something with the printing press bearing down on me, I likely would've despaired of ever fixing the novel. Incorporating all of the new (um, old?) information would've seemed an impossible task.

Now, it seems anything but. Fasten your safety belts. There's a whale of a tale coming, Mr.World.