Terri--

I don't think your comment is fair. What the medical community is asking for is vigilance, with respect to handwashing and covering up for coughing and sneezing. Let's face it--as a population, our social hygiene stinks. (Candid cameras have shown an appalling number of people don't even wash up after using the restroom!)

They are also asking that when a case is documented, known contacts practice "social isolation" during the period during which they may be contagious, so that we can limit spread of the disease.

Neither of these measures is a great big deal. The first is something that should have been part of our daily lives all along. Social isolation? Well, in the past, when we were sick, we actually felt OK about taking time off and giving our bodies time to heal. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to return to those days instead of pushing ourselves to go to work where we expose our coworkers. Perhaps this all has a bright side...

I should add that we don't know why the flu isn't killing in the United States the way it is in Mexico. We HOPE the virus has changed for some reason (climate? distance from original host?) to make it less virulent, but we're not sure--and the danger of complacency is too great to risk complacency.

Michael--

As a physician, I'll admit that the media has hyped this up, but it's a very real fear. There haven't been many deaths in the United States yet (and I don't consider the single death a U.S. death), BUT... the potential for total devastation exists. This is a case where we'd do well to learn from history.

This is not like our usual killers. In Mexico, the death rate is somewhere between 5 and 7%. Because of the delay in getting the final serology results, and the inability to exhume corpses, we're not sure on that exact number. Those who are dying are NOT the old and infirm, but the young and previously healthy... between the ages of 2 and 45, for the most part. Those with NO prior health problems. Those who have otherwise enjoyed long and healthy lives.

In 1918, 40% of the world's population (at least) came down with the flu. That pandemic started out quiet and slow, like it would be no big deal. There weren't a lot of deaths. Officials weren't worried. Spring and summer seemed relatively calm. Then, in the fall, it came back with a fury and wiped out 50 million people. That's 50 million previously healthy people. The world was devastated.

Imagine, if you will, a world where you are walking down the street and 1 in 20 of your friends are gone because over a period of a few short months, they've died from the flu. Imagine a world where there is medical care available to help some--but not everyone can get that help because there isn't enough care to go around. Imagine riots and violence occurring outside hospitals as family members demand care for their loved ones, and hospitals can't provide it, because they don't have enough ICU beds or ventilators to go around... and people standing like vultures at the bedsides of those about to die, waiting for the bed/ventilator.

The media COULD pick up on those images, but it hasn't--thank goodness. Doctors, on the other hand, have those images in their minds... and the concern is very real. We don't ever ant to see anything like that happen. We think we can avoid it, but only if we can get the public's cooperation with prevention--and that means closing businesses and schools, handwashing and other hygienic measures. We're also working on a vaccine, but that takes time, and we're not willing to count on beating the clock.

I wish the media would do a better job of explaining WHY we're doing what we're doing, instead of just hyping up the fear aspect. The thing is... we (the medical profession, scientists, CDC/WHO and the leadership of this country) think it is better to over-react to the pandemic that never was than to be caught doing too little too late for what could be a tragedy discussed in the history books for centuries to come.

Gay Walker, MD
American Board of Internal Medicine
Fellow, American College of Physicans
gaymwalker.blogspot.com

I like the description. It intrigued me and has a Sam Spade-like feel (which is not a bad thing; Dashiell Hammett did quite well with his Sam Spade books).

If I were you, I'd want to figure out the major conflict and where you were going with this before I continued--maybe not every point, but at least the major plot points. And I'd be careful to maintain the POV of an outside narrator from the character of interest, and also the voice. It's not an easy voice or POV to pull off, but if you can do it, it will make for a page turner.

(Have you read Rasley's POV book? It's a great one and could come in handy as a reread before trying to pull this off.)

I'd suggest being selective about which Twitter comments go to FB. If you tweet a lot, you'll annoy your FB pals with frequent updates and you'll find yourself losing a lot of FB friends. I used the app for about 3 hours, then quickly disabled it after I received a huge number of complaints from friends. Glad to know there's a way to pick and choose which tweets go through.

Waking up from anything is a cliché, and is one strike against you for getting a story published. The rest of the writing will have to be exceptional... If you want to stick with the idea, then you might reorder the first paragraph, so that the opening sentence "grabs" more... perhaps: "Cline drank each nigh to forget, but every morning, as he slowly ascended through the watery haze of a hangover, swimming carefully to the surface of consciousness, he remembered his past." Play with it... but something like that. You can then use your wonderfully evocative feel about the awfulness of his neighbors.

Neither of my favorites are listed: Loving Frank by Nancy Horan or my VERY FAVORITE, The Ha-Ha by David King.

I'm with you, man--in the trying to force myself to get things done. I'm not always successful, but one thing I've tried (and that usually works), it's refuse to allow myself Internet, Twitter or e-mail time until I've done X-amount of writing, and then I parcel it out as a reward for every chunk of work I get done. It helps. Also look into "THINK"--a freeware program that blocks out distractions.

We (the writing group I've worked with) have a whole series of things to do when you're stuck , ideas we've collected, that is... things that won't necessarily become part of the story, but that can get you moving forward again, freshen the story, get you excited again.

One can be to take the character to lunch and ask him to recall the most unusual thing that happened to him in childhood, then have him tell you why it was unusual. Sure, that absolutely WON'T have anything to do with the story, but it will tell you things about him that will help you see him differently.

Another will be to step back and look at the room your characters are in--really look at it--in great detail, right down to the pattern of the fabric on the sofa, if there is a sofa. Look at it in such detail that if it were a house and it burned to the ground, you could reproduce it so accurately that its owners would never realize that anything had happened. Now, search for an object that seems out of place to you. What object is that? Why is it there? Who put it there? What purpose does it serve? That may well play a role in the story.

Yet another thing you can do is ask yourself what the four worst things that could happen to your character RIGHT NOW would be, and if they happened, how might he handle them. Okay, now suppose those answers weren't available to him, THEN what would he do? (This will amp up tension. Sometimes you won't want to do any of these things, but thinking in this direction is a good thing.)

In my novel, we wanted the mother to be able to tell her daughter a story about lying to her best friend, and it had to be a lie that was bad enough the daughter would be really shocked. So my buddy and I brainstormed, and we decided the mother ditched the best friend to go out with a boy. But that wasn't bad enough... so we decided the friend had asked the mother to a Fleetwood Mac concert and the mother was supposed to be the driver. When the mother bailed, she left her friend high and dry without a ride, and the friend had gone to incredible contortions to win those tickets (it was her favorite band). It took us a while to add layer upon layer, playing the "what if" game until the scenario was right.

It's easier to play around with this stuff if you tell yourself that your "experiments" aren't wasted. I save all of mine in a "snippets" file. Some I'll repurpose later, others may show up as "outtakes" on the web site after my novel is published (you'll note that I'm thinking positively here.)

--Gay
http://www.gaymwalker.blogspot.com

Your story is on the right track when your characters become real. I've never had a story end as I envisioned, at least not one I liked. The characters always take over, and that's how I know the muse has showed up to work... What I've learned about my writing is that when I pick up the pen (or sit down at the keyboard) I need to give up my preconceived notions and get out of the way, and just let the words flow... and I need to be willing to let the spontaneous detours occur. My chracters will sometimes blurt out the damnedest things and take the plot in directions I hadn't anticipated, and when I let them, magic happens.

Trust Cline. He knows what he's doing.