Tuesday, March 4, 2014

A New Chapter

Good evening.

This blog is beginning a new chapter of its existence. For the next month, I'm going to experiment and post snippets of whatever I've been writing that day, or recently. These will often be rough--a first draft at best. That will be rough for me too, sometimes, knowing that if I wait several months and edit the poem, story, or essay several times it will be more effective. However, for the next month, this blog is simply the rough drafts. I'm hoping it will encourage me to keep writing, to have an audience however intimate. And I hope it may draw you into the conversation of what I'm writing. I need you, too. Thanks.

Daniel


Today's snippet:
(From "Death in the Sky," a historical fiction novel in first draft)

A wave of homesickness washed over him for a moment there, in his ball turret. Angrily he jammed at the microphone button.

"Anybody know how much longer to target?"

It crackled back in his ear. "Sounds like our little friend down below is getting antsy," Catch said.

"Stuff it in your eye," he said back.

"Hang on to your pants," Catch said. "We're almost to the drop."

The plane bucked in the wind. Rudy swung the turret around to face front, looking forward between his legs at the vista before them. Far below, railroad tracks converged out of hills and forests into a giant train depot. Turning his head, he saw that the bombers all around them had opened their bomb bays as well.

"Drop in one minute," Catch said in Rudy's earphone. "Get ready to lay some eggs on Hitler."

The seconds rumbled by as flack puffs began appearing around them, at first silent. Then came rumbles and pops of thunder.

"Ten seconds."

Rudy scanned the sky below them for enemy planes. None.

"Drop!"

The plane bobbed up as their eight 500 pound bombs released, dropping in a cascade from their bomb bay like a bandolier of fat bullets. All around them other B-17s streamed strands of bombs. Rudy watched, mesmerized, as the neat lines of bombs shrank to little dots far below them. Then, sudden and silent, explosions erupted all over the landscape below them. Bright flashes, bursts of cloud and debris lit here and there across the hills and train depot. Train cars flew into the air like tiny toys, flipping and whirling far above the ground as more and more bright flashes broke out. Then the sound, a deep, terrifying rumble, reached up to them and shook the plane. Giant pillars of smoke billowed up from the rails and buildings, and a smell like sulfur was in the air. Flashes continued as the B-17's began to bank and turn back towards Britain.

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