Friday, October 4, 2013

When Real Life Follows Fiction

If you follow this blog, then you know by now that I've had been holed up writing my third novel, Emily's Heart. Emily's Heart is set in an Apocalyptic America. To get a grip on the world building for the book, I began to write short stories. I play with different ideas, all a variation on the theme "What if?" Like, "What if a growing number of people were psychopaths?", or "What if the police stopped caring?"

As I make the mad push to get this story out by February, I've shunned most media. I came up for air today and saw this story in the news.  Strangely, it contains the essence of one of "What ifs" that sparked one of my short stories. And even weirder, it happened in my home town of Tucson, Arizona!

Check it out:


And here is a snippet of the short story that relates to this video. Is it art imitating life? Or life imitating art? Do you see the correlation? Or have I just been spending too much time in my cave?

From Emily's Heart, arriving February 1, 2014!

.     .     .
Sophie felt tears well in her eyes. What should she do? What had my dad said? Why hadn’t I paid closer attention? There was something about getting the driver’s insurance information. But that would require her to get out of the car. Fat chance!
Call the cops. Yes, she was supposed to make a report. That she could do. She didn’t need to leave the safety of her car to dial.
Her fingers shook as she pressed the three numbers, 911. She put the phone to her ear and heard it ring three times, then five, and six. Isn’t anyone going to pick up? I have an emergency here!
Finally an operator came on the line.
“911, what’s your emergency,” he said. The operator sounded as bored with his job as she was with folding clothes at her job.
“I was just in a car wreck,” she said.
“You and half of L.A. Welcome to the club,” he said.
Sophie didn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t even seem to care!
“Okay,” she finally said. “That’s great, but I really need a cop to come here and help.”
“What’s your location?” the operator asked.
“Ummm . . .” What’s my location? She hadn’t paid attention to street signs as she texted and listened to music and otherwise tried as best she could to pass the time in the traffic jam without being bored out of her skull. She looked up and around for exit signs or other markers, but she was in a spot without any signs. Shit, I don’t know where I am.
“I’m not sure exactly. I’m on the 405 between Culver Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard.”
“How the hell am I supposed to dispatch someone to you when you don’t even know where  you are?”

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