Odd Inspirations And Rising Tensions

No, this is not a continuation of my rant from this morning. Though it did feel good to get that off my chest.

A few days ago I was working on a section of the book. The Covenant is busy at the moment preparing for the Very Bad Thing (no, I'm not telling you. Shoo!). As a side project, of sorts, they set off a car bomb to take out a target. The bombing takes place outside a two story medical building in west Jerusalem.

The whole time I was writing the passage, I kept thinking of another glass walled medical building, two or three stories tall, in Toronto. For some reason I was merging the two together, in effect channeling the one building for use in a different location.

As a child, once a year, I'd go down there. Why? My family dentist was there. Doctor Wood saw all of us at once. When we're kids, dentists don't tend to be our favourite people, particularly if one is cavity prone. He seemed gruff and grumbling, and as a five year old kid, I suspected he had a secret torture chamber where little kids went in and never came out.

Hey, come on. I was five. What do you expect?

It's strange, the things that come back to us out of the blue, and that we use in our writings. For me, that glass building got stuck into my head and made a cameo appearance in the book.

I wonder if the good Doctor is still with us today?

Another thing that's been on my mind lately for the book has been the growing tensions that underlie the events of the book. In the wake of an assassination, and then a car bombing, this terrorist group I created is exploiting the natural tensions in the Middle East, cranking it up and up. Every once in awhile I'll add in references to riots, to unrest, to the situation beyond the borders of Israel. The Covenant's actions have made a powder keg situation even more volatile then it is, and once they've got the Very Bad Thing set to go, well....

Oh, right. As usual, I'm getting ahead of myself....