Off to Brazil

If I were to do this blog-post-a-day through November (NaBloPoMo--good grief), it would probably contain a lot of posts like this:

Using  J. M. Barrie's "Hook at Eton" speech as a source of inspiration has led me some directions I likely wouldn't have gone by on my own, most particularly to Brazil. Barrie describes an event that takes place off Manaus whichI was going to allude to only briefly in passing, until I realized about a month ago that I need a freshwater setting for piranhas--and it makes more sense in all ways to use it as the setting of a critical plot turn, thereby being far truer to both Barrie and literary consistency. My original reservations turn out to be invalid--it would take the ship only about a week to travel to Belem and then another week up the Amazon River from the Windward Islands, and events that take place aboard the ship can happen on the river just as easily as on the open sea. The additional research is, well, research. I'm up to the task. I'll stop here lest I give too much away, as I always think I'm close to doing.

 The Rio Negro meets the Amazon just west of Manaus, Brazil.

I hadn't originally intended to use "Hook at Eton" as the source material it's turning out to be, but once I'd read it, going against Barrie's history of Hook was too jarring for me to consider for long. I still maintain that he didn't get all the facts right, but of course he wouldn't have, Peter Pan being less than a reliable source and the media being what they are.

Assuming I do this--what was it? NaBloPoMo--thing, this blog will be filled with research bits about Manaus in 1908 and the Amazon River and such, no doubt written in more haste than normal, for a bit. Stick around for the excursion, if you're so inclined. I plan to continue with my normal Thursday "strange things I have discovered or considered" posts as well.