We
have lived through a real natural disaster here in the Northern Rivers of NSW
(along with other parts of the country) with many of our local towns and
villages flooding. SBS shows an aerial view of Lismore and it's shocking.
Our
family wasn’t flooded but we couldn’t pick up our son from Gold Coast airport
when he flew home last week. We were a bit panicked as we didn’t know if we’d
be able to get someone to him at all as areas to the north were also starting
to flood. We had to get relatives to drive from Brisbane (over 200kms return)
to pick him up and he had to stay up there overnight until the floodwaters over
the Pacific Motorway receded. All a bit dramatic, but not nearly as bad as for
some who had houses flood to the roof and businesses destroyed. Truly awful.
Every
experience is useful to a writer. Not being able to get to your child is
certainly a nerve-wracking time and I wrote in my diary about it so as not to
forget how it felt – all for future reference.
Natural
disasters force people into unusual circumstance and this can be a useful tool
in fiction. Just running through the story angles of all my books, I realize I’ve
only written one disaster story – The Love Deception - in which a hurricane causes havoc in the
Caribbean. I know some of my LoveCats friends have also written about disasters
(thinking about one of yours at the moment, Rachel Bailey).
Have
you read a book recently that featured a disaster? Or have you lived through
one yourself?
