NaNoWriMo 2010

Some of you may remember that last year I took part in NaNoWriMo, which is a one-month whirlwind of fiction writing. People across the world take part, writing a 50,000 word first draft of their novel during the month of November.

I finished my novel last year (well, I finished editing it last weekend, and am still not 100% happy with it) and decided to go for it again this time around.


I am still working on the plot, but here's the back-cover blurb. It could well change a little, a lot, or completely between now and November 30th, but it's a start.

Rose Cooper has almost everything a girl at the end of the nineteenth century could want: a loving family, a handsome suitor, a fulfilling social life, and a great future ahead of her. The only thing she doesn't have, the one thing which threatens to drive a wedge between her and the most important people in her life, is the vote.

The women in the fledgling colony of New Zealand are fighting to overthrow the Victorian oppression of the British Empire, and become the first in the world to have their say at the ballot box. Despite the misgivings of her family and the treachery of her opponents, Rose is determined to stand tall with her suffragette sisters as they fly in the face of everything society expects of them.  But is the price worth paying when every political move she makes threatens to tear her personal life apart?

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Manchester Courts

Manchester Courts is a seven-storey building on Manchester Street in the city centre. It was built in the early 1900s and at the time was the first "skyscraper" in Christchurch. It's a listed heritage building, but unfortunately it was badly damaged in the earthquake and is very dangerous at the moment. A 5.5 or bigger aftershock would probably send it crashing to the ground.

This is how it looked before September 4th:

This is how it looked straight after the earthquake:

And this is how it looked last time I saw it:

 

That is normally one of the busiest streets in the city centre, and it is very strange to see it blocked off and completely empty of cars and pedestrians. Obviously the businesses in the immediate vicinity have been forced to close as well, which must be causing a lot of problems for their owners, staff, and customers. I found this out the hard way when I went on a lunchtime trip to Dick Smith's to buy a new pair of earphones, completely forgetting that Dick Smith's was located on this corner.

The demolition was bitterly opposed by those who thought the building should be saved at all costs, although I don't remember seeing any useful suggestions about how to raise the many millions of dollars that would require. If the building had a steel frame there might have been some hope for it, and newspaper reports from the time it was built suggested that there might actually be a steel frame, but that turned out to not be the case. Engineers used radar to scan for a steel frame and saw nothing, and then they drilled into the supporting pillars and found nothing but brick. The only steel is in some horizontal beams and internal columns, not in any of the load-bearing features.

The demolition is expected to take six weeks or so, assuming that Mother Nature doesn't speed things along. There is a webcam here where you can follow its progress (use that link, don't rely on this photo updating itself):

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: A very bad aftershock

Just before lunchtime on Tuesday we had a very violent 5.0 shake, shallow and close to the city, that caused minor damage in my office building and forced the evacuation of all staff for an hour while structural engineers were brought in to check the place. I understand that it caused more damage around the city to places that were already vulnerable. I took a half day from work so I could go home and check our own house. We have some more minor cracks and damage to plaster but nothing that looks serious.

I found this clip of a liquor store during Tuesday's aftershock. (For comparison, here is video from another branch of the same chain on the morning of the 7.1 earthquake.)

I can't help but feel that I partly brought this one on! I was at a vendor presentation that morning by an Australian company who are hoping to sell us some very expensive software, attended by about 20 local staff. The two presenters had just arrived in Christchurch and I thought to myself, "I hope we have an aftershock just so they see what it feels like." Twenty minutes later, BAMMM! The place felt like it was about to come down around our ears. Of course we had to stop the presentation because the building was evacuated, and I never went back. I wonder if the presenters (who had never felt an earthquake before) were able to hold it together for the rest of the session when they had just seen half their audience panic and run for the doors!

The panic reaction was quite interesting. I am not a panicker by nature (except inside my head), but I could feel the actions of those around me influencing me. A couple of people lost all dignity in their haste to run for the door and they spurred me into action, although in retrospect that was not the smartest thing to do at all because you're meant to duck and cover where you are even if there's nothing to duck under (I had been aiming for the nearest wall). At least one chair was knocked over and one lady had to be escorted out of the room afterwards because she just fell apart. If there had been a larger audience today that could quickly have become dangerous if the crowd lost control of itself.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: Ongoing in October!

We still rock and we still roll. It's not to the same extent as last month, thank God, but still noticeable.

On Friday night I was playing pool with a few friends when a shallow 4.6 struck. The whole venue wobbled noticeably, resulting in what would have been a hush if the band hadn't kept playing, and the slight displacement of all the balls on the pool table, then a sudden burst of conversation. I have to say one thing about this earthquake: it has given us all something to talk about. No matter who you are, what you do, or who you know, there is common ground ripe for discussion. Over the last few weeks I have had heartfelt chats with friends, colleagues, cleaners, taxi drivers, neighbours, sales assistants, and random strangers at the bus stop. It's way better than the weather as a subject for small talk!

Most of the weekend was quiet, but this evening we had a 3.something that made the ground wobble as if we were at sea. Most of the aftershocks are shaky but some of them have a very rolling motion which leads to queasiness. It can go on for 30 seconds or more and leaves me feeling a bit strange for quite some time.

Looking back at the 7.1 and the immediate powerful aftershocks, the worst memory for me is the lack of any way to get away from this. There was no refuge, nowhere to flee to. Roads were broken (at the time we did not know how badly), the airport was closed, the port was out of action -- but even if those places had been available I would have been too scared to travel to them because the ground was so unstable. There was literally nowhere to go that would get me away from the earthquake. It's a horrible feeling to be scared and insecure in your own home. If your home isn't a refuge then what is? That first night I made a nest for myself in the bedroom, with emergency food supplies, torch and batteries, cellphone and charger, laptop and charger, and I holed up in there for the night. The ground woke me up on probably an hourly basis, but I felt safe there because nothing had fallen on the bed during the 7.1. Other things did fall in the room but nothing actually fell on me. I was by myself for a day and a half, until my husband got home from Ireland, and I barely left that room the whole time. I just didn't feel safe in the living room or kitchen, where so many things had already fallen over, and it took about a week for me to relax in those rooms or anywhere in the house outside the bedroom. As I said, it's a horrible feeling to feel insecure in your own home. I hope I never feel like that again.

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: And still we rock and roll

Three hours after my last blog post we were hit by a 5.0 aftershock, the biggest in weeks. Clearly this isn't over yet.

At any other time a 5.0 would be a newsworthy earthquake. But because it followed a bigger one we have to just shrug our shoulders and put it down as an aftershock. It doesn't seem fair, does it?

Christchurch earthquake September 2010: One month on

It's hard to believe the earthquake happened a month ago. It all seems so long ago, and yet it's fresh in my mind too. We haven't had any noticeable aftershocks in a couple of days, but that doesn't mean they've stopped -- they're still going on and there's no guarantee that we won't have any more big ones. The three we had last Saturday night did some visible damage to the plasterboard in our living room, so I do hope we don't get any more like that, but nobody really knows.

Damaged plasterboard with the panels visibly out of alignment (ignore that bit to the left of the light switch)

The city feels largely back to normal, but of course it isn't normal at all. We're just doing better at looking past the broken buildings and the rubble. Many people still don't have basic sewage services in their homes, or even homes at all -- every day there are more stories of people packing their belongings and moving on. It must be very difficult to spend such a long time not even knowing if the house can ever be repaired, or even if the land can be built on again if the house is demolished.

Our City O-Tautahi -- an old council building, propped up from all angles

There are many businesses that can't reopen yet because they are beside or underneath something that has been damaged to the point of being dangerous. Ordinarily those dangerous buildings could be pulled down (although that is a huge job in itself), but the difficulty lies in deciding what to do with the ones that are a valuable part of the city's heritage. It could take years to make those right, but what happens in the meantime to the people who are affected by the very presence of a tottering mass of bricks?

The old Civic Building, with smashed and boarded-up windows

Just about everybody has minor damage to report even if there aren't any structural problems. As well as the damage to our plasterboard at home, there's clear evidence of it at my workplace and in just about everywhere else I've been. Of course it's hard to tell what cracks were there before the earthquake! But I'm sure most of the damage to concrete and brickwork is only a month old.

Emotionally I'm doing okay but not great. Loud or sudden noises make me flinch, and a rumbling lorry going past gets my attention now where before I wouldn't even have noticed it. It's hard to keep my mind from going back to September 4th and reliving the terror and uncertainty of the hours after 4.35am, and I don't know if it would be better to let myself think about it or to try and shove it away. Cycling to work through the city centre (my route takes me past many broken buildings) brings me to the verge of tears almost every day -- I feel wound up like a clock that is almost but not quite wound too far. All it will take is one more turn of that key and I'll go BOINNNG!!! and it will all come out.