Like my guest, SANDRA ANTONELLI, maths was never my friend and I distinguished myself by managing to fail it in Year 9. My husband, an Engineer (how did that happen?) is mystified how I get through life without the frequent application of a good dose of quadratic equations. Strangely I do...
Sandra and her wonderful husband are well known to those of us in the romance writing tribe in Australia and I am absolutely delighted she can be my guest today. I am in awe of the sacrifices she has had to make in the name of research! Physics related language?... Oh My!!!
On MATHS, F1 RACING and how to manage Anxiety...
I totally suck at maths. This means I
didn’t do as much research for Driving in
Neutral, my love story about claustrophobia, as I did for my previous book For
Your Eyes Only, which has a lot physics-related language. Thankfully, Olivia,
the heroine of Driving in Neutral,
has a past related to Formula 1 Racing, while Emerson Maxwell has a tiny problem
with being claustrophobic. This meant my maths-free research focused on Formula
1 Racing terms and events, as well as phobias and anxiety attacks.
Sadly, no coffee and cookies were involved
in my research into F1 racing. I watched F1 as a child in Europe. I knew names
like Emerson Fittipaldi (did you catch what I did there, kids?) Niki Lauda,
James Hunt, and Mario Andretti. To refresh my memory and bring my work into
this century, I watched races on TV with my race-mad friends, Lisa and Sean. I
learned about the length of the race season (it begins in Australia, runs from
March to November, and finishes in Abu Dhabi), and the lingo, which was pretty
easy to pick up and use as a way levelheaded Olivia views her life.
The phobia and anxiety attack research was
easy and even more fun. My husband is a psychologist and is probably analyzing
you right now. He lapped (no race pun intended there) up my asking him to
describe the physiological and psychological manifestations of an individual in
the throes of a panic attack. Oh, I enjoyed writing about a big, strong man
unraveling in front of stranger. I loved writing the scene where Emerson faces
his greatest fear, and fails so miserably. But I also loved writing where
Olivia finally loses it and ‘spins out of control.’
I wonder how my psychologist husband would analyse
that.
Maxwell
couldn’t breathe. Well, he could, but it felt as if the air was being squashed back
out of his chest as soon as it went in.
“You’re
going to take me down with you, aren’t you? When you pass out, and you’re going
to if you keep hyperventilating, you’re going to fall on top of me.”
“You’d
like that, wouldn’t you?” he wheezed, bending forward at the waist to snatch
his breath back as if he’d just sprinted 800 meters. Shit, he was hyperventilating.
No,
he was hyper-hyperventilating.
This
was ludicrous. He was nearly forty-eight years old and terrified of being in a
very small room simply because it had no window and…his mind suddenly zeroed in
on that important point.
There was no window.
What
if the emergency light died?
What
if the storm outside made the Chicago River flood into the basement of the
building like it did back in “92?
What
if the rubber-coated elevator cables, the cables suspending them in mid-air
above nothingness, snapped?
Any
way he looked at it they were locked in this box…trapped in this vault…enclosed
in this coffin…sealed in this tomb.
Instantly,
his rapid, shallow breathing picked up speed and he began to twitch
involuntarily. His shaking fingers started to curl in towards his wrists, and
he sank to the floor heavily. His head slumped towards his bent knee. Camera
flash splotches of bluish-white appeared to mar his sight, his peripheral
vision compressing into tunneled lines of black. His body capitulated to the
oncoming blackout with an incremental steadiness, his hands and feet fizzing
into numbness, and he moaned.
DRIVING IN NEUTRAL
Levelheaded Olivia Regen walks
away from her car-racing career and the wreckage of a bad marriage to take on
new work that’s far removed from the twists of racetrack. Her new life is about
control, calm, and the good friends that she adores. But
her first day on the job involves getting up close and too personal with her
claustrophobic boss — alone in a broken elevator. Her unconventional solution
for restoring his equilibrium shocks them both and leaves Olivia shaken.
Determined to stick to her plan, Olivia drives headlong into work and planning
her best friend’s wedding, leaving no room for kissing, elevators, or workplace
relationships. But Emerson is not one to be out-maneuvered. Can he convince
Olivia that her fear of falling in love again is just another kind of
claustrophobia – one that is destined to leave them both lonely?
About Sandra Antonelli
I
come from the land Down Under, but I do not eat Vegemite nor do I drink
beer. I drive a little Italian car, live in a little house with a little,
peanut butter-loving dog who thinks he’s my husband. However, as much as I
adore my dog, I am married to a big, bearded Sicilian, who is the moon and
stars above my head and earth beneath my feet.
Website: http://www.sandraantonelli.com
Twitter: @sandrAntonelli
Buy: http://www.escapepublishing.com.au/product/9780857991812
(includes links to all buy sites)
