Noticing More Synchronicity
Why is this happening?
The C-130. I just think they’re neat.
Last month I crossed 2,000 books on Goodreads under my “Read” category. One of my key takeaways? I’m pretty good at spotting tropes in genre fiction, to the point where I am unlikely to be surprised after the first thirty pages.
Call it pattern recognition (something I’ve been good at from time to time) if you like. I think it’s the natural result of consuming anything at high volume; you know what you like, and what you don’t.
I think a consequence of this is that I continue to recognize patterns in my own life. A Facebook memory will pop up and I’ll say “Hey, I was thinking about this two days ago…apparently mid-July is when I encountered it in 2016, too.” Life gets cyclical.
The weird thing is when synchronicity happens. That’s not cyclical, that’s just the same thing happening from two different directions without any major impetus to drive them along.
Take my current manuscript, written in the vein of National Treasure with Michael Bay-esque spectacle (minus the strippers, this is a family channel.) A team of guys from the Mountain West join forces with the President’s inner circle in a post-EMP America, seeking the keys to a shrine in the Heartland that will restore power to the nation—or so everyone thinks.
This week I worked on a scene where the team flies out on Air Force One (in this story it’s a C-130 retrofitted with VTOL engines so it doesn’t need a runway) and they have to find a MacGuffin in San Antonio—specifically, at the Alamo. I did a lot of research on [national landmark redacted], the [airplane redacted], and [federal security clearance redacted], among other things.
Then Saturday rolls around, and there are four families at church who needed help moving in or out of their homes. It’s normal for us to help people move, it’s unusual that there are this many in one day. Based on my schedule I showed up to help one family, and it was just me and another dude helping a guy of advanced years (won’t dox him) to load furniture into a truck.
Fortunately this guy has moved before and is a decent human being, so everything was prepped, wrapped, and boxed, just needing to be loaded. As we worked we got to talking, and it turns out this guy is an engineer. He’s moving from my city to the exact city where Redacted National Landmark is, so that he can work on Redacted Airplane, with Necessary Redacted Federal Clearance.
I didn’t tell him about my book, I just kind of laughed inside my head and said “Man, that’s really cool.” I told my wife and she got a kick out of it too.
Nothing cyclical here. Straight up synchronicity. I could have helped with any other move, but that’s the one I went to yesterday morning. Will wonders never cease?
Anyway, I read 16 books in July. Best one had to be my reread of JURASSIC PARK, followed by finally finishing ALWAYS WITH HONOR and LIFE OF WASHINGTON. The book BUTLER was a surprisingly good read, and NIGHTLAND RACER was just nuts. Then I finished a lot of comics.
If you want to track my reviews in real time, always follow the channel. Go buy one of my novels on Amazon and read it! I recommend HOWLING WILDERNESS, a high-octane race down the Appalachian Trail, set in an alternate fantasy version of the United States. Machines, monsters, and mayhem ensue!