The Very Bad Thing

Sarah Palin Wins Stunning Election Victory; President Obama "Devastated"

Republican darling and unlikely presidential candidate Sarah Palin won a stunning election victory in the nation, taking a landslide amount of the votes, unseating President Obama and leading the Republicans to astounding gains across the country. In her victory speech, she promised to serve at least one year before thinking of handing the reins over to Vice President Elect Glenn Beck. Addressing crowds in her home town of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin vowed to put God, guns, and good old fashioned conservative values back into every classroom and home in the nation, before exporting her brand of political beliefs to every corner of the planet. "Like our founding father Benny Franklin would have said, this is our manifest destination, you betcha, by golly... What do you mean, it wasn't Franklin who said that?"

Did I scare you there?

Don't worry, I'm sure the Yanks won't be crazy enough to elect her. And if they are... well, at least it won't be a dull four years. Or one year, by which time she'll have grown bored and resign.

Yes, that would be a very bad thing, particularly when she unleashes her secret Human Blood For All Vampires agenda.

Anyway, I'm not talking about Vampire Sarah today... as tempting as it would be.

I've come to the threshold in writing. I'm about to set out on writing the Very Bad Thing.

For those of you who might just be coming in late, I'm in the midst of a book I'm calling Heaven & Hell. It's a spy thriller, set largely in the Middle East. I've been alluding in blogs to the Very Bad Thing. It's the central event of the book, and in fact the genesis of the whole project. Years ago, watching a newscast about the eternal Israel and Palestinian question, I asked a question. That question is where the book started. Unfortunately I can't just say the question here... because the Very Bad Thing would be out in the open.

I will say this much. It's a bombing. A very big bombing, taking the terrorist group much time to prepare. The death toll involved will be catastrophic. I had once thought that such a book shouldn't be written first off, given the likely controversy it would entail, but Norma talked me into running with this one.
And I've come to the point where I'm about to go into it. The chapter I'm just starting to write now is called The Road To Hell. Very appropriate title, I thought, given what I'm about to unleash in the book. The attack is close at hand, just a day away, and the Covenant is ready to drive the entire Middle East into war.

The challenge now before me is... how much is too much? I want to be as descriptive as possible about the explosion. There is a line though, and for those of you who've read Tom Clancy, you'll know what I mean. Tommy likes to stop his narrative in the middle to explain to you about his favourite new toy, whether it's how a nuclear explosion happens or who designed the missile rack on an F-35. I find that profoundly annoying, and that's a line I don't want to cross. I don't believe it'll be a problem, but as I'm writing, I'll have to take care to remember not to, oh, stop in the midst of carnage and tell you precisely what happens when a human body is ripped in half.

Though I'm sure Vampire Sarah would love to go into detail about blood and gore and how she can feed her Tea Party minions on the blood of liberals, you betcha!