Category Archives: Old Spirits

Life begins again

Posted on August 26, 2008 | Leave a comment

Boy, it is REALLY easy to tell when school starts when you live in a tourist mecca. I could have lunch at Whataburger today. During tourist season, no way can I get through the door, much less find a parking place. There usually aren’t many people out on the beach at 8 a.m., but today–I saw even fewer–though the beach still was groomed. (They take a big bulldozer out with a rake and rake up the sand every morning.)

The seagulls have all lost their pretty black heads. And there are brown gulls amongst them. I saw a brown seagull the other day and was very confused. Laughing gulls are not brown. They are shiny white and gray and have black heads–or dirty-looking white ones. (They never do loose all their black feathers.) And then I remembered that the babies are brown. They are the same color as the beach sand. I didn’t see one of them sitting in the groomed sand, until I looked really close.

I saw crab tracks this morning. I couldn’t figure out what they were at first. They look sort of like a 4-inch wide net was pressed into the sand, a delicate-looking pattern. Then I saw the hole in the sand at the center of all the tracks. I suppose I could take my camera next time and hope I see the tracks again. They were really cool looking. I’m pretty sure it was blue crab, or something besides hermit crab (though they are local too), because there was no tracks of a shell dragging behind the skittery leg tracks.

Also saw a couple of seagulls carrying shrimp around. I decided they must have stolen them from the fishermen out on the jetties, because shrimp are bottom feeders, and seagulls don’t dive. It was pretty funny looking though–white shrimp dangling from the gull beaks.

Spent much of the weekend shopping. Didn’t intend to go out and shop, except for books. (The boy wanted the last Terry Goodkind Sword of Truth book. I haven’t read any but the first one, and don’t intend to, but he’s been caught up in the series. I bought 4 paperbacks.) But they were having a big sale at Dillards. HUGE sale. The fella and the boy bought suits and shoes and sport coats. I bought pants. That are Long Enough!! (This is an issue for me, especially since most of the pants I already owned are too short, and the mirror in the bathroom at the newspaper tells me every time I go in there.) I had to hunt amongst the britches on sale for the ones that did not say “Short”–but I found them. (I’m really only average…) And I bought tops and shirts. I wasn’t sure about one pair of pants and one top, and wanted the guys to come upstairs and give their opinion–and while I was waiting for them to finish buying sport coats (they’d already bought suits), and show up, I found two more tops to buy. So it was their fault I bought more. But I look fabulous. (My pants are long enough now. 😉 )

I am reading lots. Need to be writing lots–but I did finally get all that I had written typed in. Tomorrow, it’s time to start with new stuff. And I have 240 pages typed. I don’t think I’ve reached midpoint in the story. Maybe the 1/3 point. (sigh) Which means there will be large amounts of whacking and thinning and trimming going on later. (sigh again) However, I’d rather whack than add, so…

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Posted in Old Spirits, pastimes, the beach

Post-Holiday Rush

Posted on July 9, 2008 | Leave a comment

Last weekend was a holiday weekend. After running like a crazy person all of last week, the weekend arrived and I had a chance to relax. Somewhat. I did a little bit of running to get downtown to the parade, because the fella was going to be in it. It was kind of a short parade, and I forgot to put on sunscreen ahead of time, and the shady places weren’t the best parade-watching places, but it was a nice parade. I saw him glide by in the Mustang convertible, but was too far away to wave. And then we wandered around the Railroad Museum and looked at the model trains and listened to a few of the speeches, and went home again.

The boy’s girlfriend came down for the weekend, which was fun. He’d asked for days off, but he had to go in and report before he could officially get off–though he did every time. And that was nice too. Friday the Fourth, we were very lazy. After the parade, we “rested” until time to go watch the fireworks off the 37th Street jetty. It’s nice that they can shoot fireworks over the water, because it really cuts back on the fire hazard worry. And they were some spectacular fireworks, about a 30 minute show. I enjoyed it a lot. Then we drove home and grilled steaks. Yum.

Saturday, we went to see “Get Smart.” I actually liked it better than the TV show, because Max had some smarts. The fella and the boy had already seen it, but the girlfriend and I hadn’t. So we made them take us. There are still a few movies I want to see. I’m hoping the grandboys haven’t seen Wall-E yet, since they’re coming for the weekend. It would be fun to take them.

This week hasn’t quite been as wild and woolly, but it has been busy. The boy’s vehicle isn’t repaired yet, so we’re having to take each other to work, depending on who has to work longer hours. I got the car today. He gets it tomorrow.

I’m trying to get a synopsis written so I can send a partial off before I go to San Francisco for the RWA National Conference. And once again, I know some things that will happen, but I don’t know exactly how or why they will happen. I’ll figure it out when I get there. I got most of the plot events figured out, right up to the finale, and then Pthfthffftttttpbthpt. Nothing.

I know that the hero and heroine will essentially rescue each other. Or team up to rescue themselves and beat the bad guy. But I have no clue exactly how they’ll do it. I’m not entirely sure just how far their teaming up will go. I don’t want it to happen like it does in New Blood, but … Hmm. Well, usually, if I leave it alone and let things bubble in the swamp where my stories come from, something will bubble up from the primordial goo. And I think the fermentation is already making wine…or something. So that’s where the writing is.

Oh. I walked yesterday. So I’m one more mile towards Rivendell. That makes–um–7? (Yeah, I didn’t walk far. But I walked.)

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Posted in family, life, movies I watched, New Blood, Old Spirits

How is Reality TV like Genre Fiction?

Posted on June 26, 2008 | 3 Comments

I was scanning the blogs I have come to read semi-regularly, and one of them had a post about Reality Television.

Now, I don’t watch much reality TV. I don’t like the Survivor-type shows, or the Bachelor shows, or the ones where they try to screw up peoples’ lives. I have to admit that I am even enough of a prehistoric antediluvian (if those words don’t mean the same thing), that I don’t watch American Idol.

I do however like a good many of the “fix-up-your house/yard” shows, and will watch Dancing with the Stars with the fella. (He also likes Iron Chef–which I have to admit is sometimes fun.) Still, I’m just not a big reality TV fan. So when I read this post about how writers like Reality TV, I thought “pfffftthh–yeah, right.” I do see how other writers might like it, but frankly, I think Reality TV is far less real than the scripted stuff, because People just Don’t let out their real gut-deep stuff. We hang onto our secrets.

Anyway, one thing said hit me.

The plot takes the viewers on a journey, from the opening credits of the first episode to the closing credits of the finale. The number of episodes and even types of challenges might remain the same from season to season but, couple it with the characters, and the story becomes something a bit different each time.

And suddenly, I had a rebuttal for those who complain about how genre fiction always has such a predictable ending. (Although, it’s usually only romance that gets those kinds of complaints, sometimes one gets them for other sorts of genres.) Reading a romance or a mystery novel is about the Journey and the Characters, not the ending.

Admittedly, the folks who sneer at romance and other commercial fiction also usually sneer at Reality TV–but regular, scripted television shows are the same. Except in that case, you even have the same characters facing the same kinds of challenges. Characters discover a crime. Characters solve a crime. The end. Then again, those folks sneer at pretty much all television. I tell ya, it’s almost like you’re flat not supposed to enjoy anything at all.

These are the same people who get all shocked when you talk about reading something Just For Fun. Who think you must read Edifying Fiction (or strictly non-fiction).

Well, phooey on that. By the time you get out of school (and some of you are taking longer about that than others), life’s too short to spend time reading a book (or watching television) unless you Enjoy it. Don’t think you “ought” to read this or that. If you like it, then read it. If you don’t, then don’t–and don’t apologize to anybody for it.

No wonder there are so few readers left–when so many in the world are sucking all the FUN out of reading!

Okay, I will get off my soapbox now. I’m just frustrated today, I guess, by all the people who seem determined to suck the fun out of–reading, if not life…

No writing this week. I did get all my revisions in the computer for the Old Spirits partial. I printed out the first couple of chapters of New Blood to read at ApolloCon. Never did put that on my website, did I? Sorry.

I’m hoping I won’t have to go look after the parents before Sunday afternoon–Mom had surgery that was more extensive than we expected (still relatively minor), so… I’m pretty sure I’ll have to go up sometime, though, because I’m not sure just how competent Daddy is with the looking-after.

OH. And the boy wrecked his car. Nobody hurt. Something of a slow-mo crash–low speeds. The other person got a ticket, but his car isn’t drivable, and this is the third time it’s had front-end damage. (I don’t think we’re counting the tree that fell on it…) We may have to get a new car. But for right now, we’re dealing with being a 2 car family with 3 drivers. He dropped me off today, and will pick me up, but I’m leaving the island tomorrow, so he and his father will have to deal with car issues then.

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Posted in family, New Blood, Old Spirits, rant, writing

Rain! and Hecticness

Posted on June 24, 2008 | 1 Comment

It’s been a very dry spring on my island. We just barely missed making the Top 5 Dryest Springs Ever because we had a little stormlet two days before the official first day of summer. Then on the first day of summer, while I was driving back to town from Fort Worth, The Sky Didst Open and The Deluge Didst Pour Forth.

While I was on the highway. And I had to visit the little girls’ room (so to speak). I’d’ve made it all the way home, except everybody slowed way down–because when the Sky Opens here, the Deluge Really Does Pour Forth, and the freeways tend to flood three or four inches deep. And when they flood, people hydroplane and crash into the other cars if they drive too fast. So it’s a good thing that people slow down. But I had to get off the freeway and find a pit stop. Then I had to squeeze my way back amongst the cars driving slowly in the pouring rain, because it didn’t show any signs of slowing. And it didn’t. Rained all the way home. Rained me into the house. Stopped long enough for the fella to bring my stuff in the house without raining on everything. Then it started raining again.

Rained again today. Hard, but not terribly long–though it’s still sorta sprinklish. We have friends in town, from our little Panhandle town, come to the beach. It will be fun to get to see them again, but there’s a lot of cleaning up that has to be done. And grocery shopping. I did already get by the fish market… You know we have to serve boiled fresh shrimp to all our visitors.

This is going to be a VERY hectic week. Besides our visitors, our “bureau” at the paper is short one person, because she got slapped in the hospital before she keeled over, and they need me to put in extra hours, if I can, but there’s a funeral I ought to go to (relative of a relative), and I’m taking Friday to head over to ApolloCon. There’s a couple of other things too, that I may skip out on–or maybe not. Depends on how everything else goes. But I’m tired.

And I’m trying to pull together a partial of Old Spirits to send the editor. I think my chapters look pretty good. But I need to write a synopsis that makes sense. That’s not going to happen this week. Not as crazy as life has gotten just now, but I’m thinking about it. Trying to figure out how to summarize stuff I’ve written, and sort of exactly what will happen in the parts I haven’t written. I think I need to pull a big chunk of courtroom stuff out… of all the courtroom stuff, maybe. It’s very loosey-goosey just now, and I know I’ll need to tighten the heck out of it before it’s done. But for now, I guess I’ll go with it.

Going to read from New Blood at ApolloCon at my reading Friday night. Hope a few people will be there early enough to want to hear it. Have to print it out to be ready to read.

Here I have written this huge long blog post, and I haven’t even mentioned the cool beach stuff. Like, beginning last Friday, when I went out to walk on the beach (sans Dolly), and the fish were WAY in shore. And of course, the pelicans and dolphins (and I even saw a skimmer, which was way cool) were inshore chowing down on them. I love to watch the brown pelicans fishing, because they’re so cool about it. When the fish are thick, the pelicans will fly just ten or 12 feet above the water, and when they see a fish, the feet will drop like webbed landing gear, and BAM! They’ll hit the water. They dive so fast, and there’s always a splash–a big one, given the size of the birds. But it doesn’t faze them–up they pop, maybe float a minute, and off they go, into another take-off to get ready for another dive. They can dive from as high as 50 feet without getting hurt, but given how murky the water often is, I wonder how they can see fish in it. Maybe that’s why they fly lower. But then, I have seen them dive from way high up, so they must be able to spot them. It’s so much fun to watch that drop–Bam! (er, splash?)

Today, I took Dolly back out again. She’s really pretty good, but I think I’m letting her get into some bad habits. I think she figured out how to jump around in the surf while on the leash–she can run in circles and still run and jump. I think she watches for the bigger waves (still not very big, but she’s short) so she can jump them and let them float her a second or two. There were all kinds of dead fish on the shore–some of them really big. I saw one that was a good 2 feet by 1 foot from dorsal to ventral. Big fish. I don’t know if they just got stuck in the shallow water, or what, but… Lots of great big feathers from the pelicans too. Dolly couldn’t figure out how to pick one of those up to carry it with her. There were big washes of broken shells that were still big enough to hurt my tootsies. And more sargasso, but not enough to make blankets. After the sargasso cometh the jellyfishes… Come on, seaweed! Keep coming. Don’t want jellyfishes.

Since Catie has encouraged me to walk to Rivendell, I’m going to do it. I don’t remember how far it is, but I’ve walked 6 miles on the way. According to the Eowyn Challenge, I have made it into Tookland. It’s going to take me a Really Long Time to do this. At least the only thing I have to climb are the rock jetties, every half mile or so…

Words written–who knows? (I’ve typed in 92 pages–but I’ve written lots more than that)–I did write 20 pages last week.

Miles walked to Rivendell: 6

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Posted in life, New Blood, Old Spirits, the beach, work, writing

In the Water!

Posted on June 16, 2008 | Leave a comment

I finally got in the water for the first time this year, and it was as wonderful as I thought it would be. I really like the Gulf. I like the warmth. I like the mild waves. I like floating and, well, I just like it. I wanted to go out this weekend, but you know, there are rules about swimming.

I believe in the Buddy system. You just do not go swimming–especially in the Gulf of Mexico, off the Texas coast–without a buddy. Yes, there is a lifeguard, but you need somebody there With you, paying attention To you, who will notice when you’re not where they thought you were. So, I had informed the fella I wanted to go swimming. But he wasn’t feeling well. (He’s been dealing with allergies and bronchitis all week.) I was hoping I could get him to at least come down to the beach with me to sit on the sand and be my swim buddy while not swimming. But the boy got off work early. He came home at 6 p.m., instead of the 11 p.m. hour we were expecting him. And I got him to come with me.

We also took the dog, because Dolly likes to swim too. We walked over. I still think that’s total coolness, that I can WALK to the beach to swim. We had to take turns going out to floating depth, because dogs are short and one of us needed to stay with her in the shallows. I was walking back to our stuff to put the boy’s glasses on his shoe when he was out past the breakers, and Dolly slipped her collar. She didn’t mean to–she just wanted to go sniff something else–but she came back and let me put the collar back on her. There was a little Yorkie yapdog barking like crazy at her, and she wanted to go over and say hello, and we were mean and wouldn’t let her, because the Yorkie was behaving so aggressively, it would get itself eaten. And then people would be mad.

I had a wonderful time in the water. I went out twice to float–just laid back and let the water rock me. Got caught once when it broke over my head, but I didn’t have to touch bottom. Just spit out the water and straightened out again. Oh, and I was body-surfing in, and got stuck in water just a tad too shallow. See, it’s kind of a production for me to stand up when I’m on the floor, or the ocean bottom (those bad knees again)…and the water kept knocking me over before I could get up. It got rather comical, before the next breaker sort of pushed me up to my feet… The second time, I started walking a little sooner.

Then we had dinner and all of us went out to see the new Indiana Jones movie. I enjoyed it, though the fantasy elements had me rolling my eyes a little. Just once. It was fun.

Father’s Day, the boy offered to take his dad out to dinner at the restaurant where he works, but since the fella will be having lunch there three times this week, he said “anywhere but there,” even if it is one of the nicest places in town. (Darn.) So we went to the Chinese buffet, because the Japanese place is closed for lunch. And we took naps and I had a really good Father’s Day. Not so sure about the father in the family… 😉

This will be a very, very busy week, with stuff going on just about every evening. No, not just about. Every. Single. Evening. And to get everything done, it cuts into my morning writing time. I am going to work like mad to try to get at Least 2 pages done every day–and I’m afraid that will be a tough job. Still, I did get my 2 pages for today, between sticking a chicken in the crock pot for supper, doing laundry, cleaning up for group meeting at our house tonight (still have to buy ice cream on the way home…), and… I’m sure there was something else I was doing this morning. Oh yes! cleaning the boy’s bathroom, because he didn’t do it. And we’re having people over tonight. (The ice cream is to make root beer floats.) 2 pages. Basically, I finished up a “confrontation” scene. I had ideas on where to take it next, but had to write them in the margin, because I was just out of time.

(Had to go to the bank, the post office (My bookrak books came in, Yay!), and to Comcast to take back the old converter box and get a new one, before work. Fortunately the Comcast office is right next door to the newspaper office, literally.)

Who knows when I will get to go back into the water… I’ve got a “roundtable critique” thing in Fort Worth this weekend, ApolloCon next weekend and… well, there’s bound to be something else going on, but darned if I know what it is. At least it doesn’t take long to get to the beach… :)

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Posted in food, life, Old Spirits, the beach

The Tuesday Blog

Posted on May 20, 2008 | 2 Comments

It’s Tuesday and I’m blogging again. I seem to post a lot of blogs on Tuesday. Mostly because Monday tends to be really crazy and I never manage to make it by here but I Really want to post at least one blog a week so y’all won’t think I’ve forgotten you, and Tuesday seems to be when I can make myself get over here and do it.

The problem is that many times, by the time Tuesday gets here, I can’t think of anything to blog about. I’ve forgotten whatever it was I did over the weekend. Maybe because the weekend seems so far behind me. Anyway, it’s Tuesday again, and I’m blogging.

About what? Um–we went to see Iron Man a week ago Sunday, and out to dinner for Mother’s Day. This past weekend, I overdid it a little on the flower beds and pretty much slept the rest of the weekend–though we did buy some “previously viewed” movies and watched American Gangster Sunday night. I want to go see Prince Caspian, but haven’t found the time yet, and since we’re moving into Graduation Season, I’m not sure when we will. Maybe we can go on a Wednesday, or something.

I did walk on the beach yesterday morning. Still haven’t looked up those silly plover birds, because I can’t find where I put my bird book. I think it’s in my office, but where??? No special observations yesterday–seagulls, shells, sand, water–the beach is always great, and before 8 a.m. on Monday, I pretty much have it to myself.

The writing is moving ahead. Only 3 pages yesterday, but I got 6 today, and now I need to think about my book’s theology before I can forge ahead. Since this book is about spirits, and demons have cropped up already, and ghosts and “ascending”–I have to think about that sort of thing. I know how it works–I just have to figure out how to explain it, and decide how much explaining I want to do at this point.

A fantasy novel requires a lot of explaining, and I’ve set it up so that the explaining makes sense–one of my characters doesn’t know much about the magic and has to be told. But I do sometimes feel as if the story’s getting bogged down in all the explanations. Today, though, it went well. I didn’t expect this particular scene at this point, but it works well, does what I need it to go and sets up one of the major complications that will come into play later. So yeah. I’m feeling good about the writing.

RWA chapter meeting today. I’m totally not interested in this program, but I’m going anyway, because hanging out with other writers and talking writing gets my writerly juices flowing, and I need as much flow as I can get. I also get to hang out at the book store. Yay!

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Posted in life, movies I watched, Old Spirits, writing

My first Art Contest

Posted on May 16, 2008 | 2 Comments


Okay, here’s the painting that made the cut, that will be in the show. In this light, you can see some of the brush strokes that don’t show in artificial light (I took it outside to photograph), but this is the painting. (Didn’t win a prize, but it’s in the show! Not bad for my first try ever.)

You can’t see the one that didn’t make it, because I haven’t taken its picture yet. Sorry. It’s a painting of three little boys playing at the beach. With sucky hands and feet. I could stick it on an easel and try to fix the hands and feet, and the arm that’s … just wrong. But I don’t think I will. It will just have to be wrong. (sigh) I still like it anyway.

Um. I’ve signed the contract, so it’s official. I have definitely sold three books to Tor. There. That’s my news of the day.

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Posted in New Blood, Old Spirits, painting

High Tide

Posted on May 6, 2008 | Leave a comment

First things first, here. I’m donating the prize to be given away at the 2 B Read blog this week. This is the blog of the published authors chapter of RWA, and I’m blogging over there on Thursday. (I’ll remind you again on Thursday. ) If you comment at the blog, you will be eligible to win the contest. So go read the blog posts, and comment!

High tide was at 7:12 a.m. today. I went out to walk on the beach at 7:50 (approximately). So the sea was very, very close to the seawall when I climbed down the stairs. I drove past the seawall parks (wide areas with benches and picnic tables and big piles of pink granite boulders extending way out into the water) to a place where I could walk more than two jetties without having to walk waist-deep in the water to get around the big piles of rocks–and the water came right up to the bottom of the stairway. I stepped of the concrete step into water.

I tried at first to walk around the rocks–because the sand did not cover those right at the base of the seawall. But the water was just too deep. Up to my knees. And I couldn’t see the sand, so I couldn’t see the places where the water had washed it away. It wasn’t safe walking there. But I could carefully work my way up right next to the seawall and walk through the maze of rocks pushing up through the sand. High tide was really high…

But after I got through the rocks and to a section of beach where the waves didn’t wash quite so close to the wall, I was able to notice all the giant rows of giant pelicans flying down the island, ten and twelve in line one behind the other, and the sanderlings and another type of sandpiper-like bird picking at the seaweed. I thought the other birds were kildeer, but I just looked up images of kildeer, and what I saw was different, so I’m going to have to go home and hit the bird book to figure out what they are. I think the birds were probably selecting little bits of the crinkly seaweed to use for nest building, but I’m not sure.

Had a busy weekend. I had hoped to stay home, but ended up not getting to. Wound up having three softball games to watch on Saturday, since the college team — well, they lost their very first game, but won the second Friday game, which meant they got/had to play Saturday morning at 11:30. They won that one, which meant they had/got to play at 2:00. Then they won that one, which meant they had to play again at 4:30… We didn’t stay for the third game. By that time, the team was so exhausted, they didn’t win again. But they had a good run in the regional championship tournament. I enjoyed watching the two games we did watch.

And somehow, even though I stayed under the awnings and shade all morning and afternoon, I somehow managed to get enough sun to burn. My face and neck turned bright red, enough to show through the makeup, which at least toned it down a little. I wasn’t in the sun! Okay, maybe 10 or 15 minutes, because it was cool enough that the sharp wind made it downright cold. And I burned in that 10 or 15 minutes. Good grief. Okay, so no more going anywhere without sunscreen. Especially at midday.

I’ve been able to get back into the writing this week. Except I had to get into my file cabinet to dig out some research. (I am pretty sure I have some more somewhere, but couldn’t find it yesterday.) Which meant I had to get down on the floor to look through that bottom file cabinet drawer. Which meant I had to get back up. Which is a huge production, given the state of my knees and the rest of myself. And since the file cabinet is behind my desk, creating the walkway between desk and closet, I brushed against the lampshade of the lamp on the desk and sent it slowly crashing over to dangle from its electrical cord in front of the desk chair. The lamp knocked over the Coke Zero I’d been drinking, which dampened the page I’d been writing on, which fluttered to the floor. The Coke dribbled across the desk and onto the floor… Big mess.

So today, I re-copied the page that got all wet, because the ink ran on it, and I revised it, and I went on with the scene…and then I couldn’t decide where to go next.

I kind of think I need to summarize a bunch of stuff here and move back to the main mystery, but I keep getting bogged down in logistics. My heroine has no girl clothes. She needs girl clothes before she can really do many of the things she needs to do. She’s rooming with the girl wizard. Do I need a scene to set up how that’s working? How would that contribute to the furthering of the story? Maybe if later the heroine stops showing up at the rooms…? Bleah. Hopefully I can figure all this out by the time I need to start working in the morning.

And I need to come up with a profound–or at least profound-ish–topic for a blog on Thursday, at 2 B Read. I want lots of comments, so I can give away a book. To YOU, perchance–

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Posted in contest, Old Spirits, pastimes, sunburn, the beach

Beach Reports begin again

Posted on April 24, 2008 | 2 Comments

Not that they’ll be any better than sporadic until I get my time organized a little better. But I did get out to walk on the beach yesterday. It was in the evening, so quite a few people were out still enjoying the day. I found my new shorts I bought for my friend’s visit that I didn’t get to wear because a cold front blew in and we had to wear jackets to walk on the beach. I found my flip-flops. And I drove to the beach and Walked.

The water is WARM! YAY!!! At last. It’s not bathwater warm like it will be in September, but it’s warm enough for a pleasant swim, if the sun’s out and the wind’s not blowing too hard. I admit it. I’m a wimp when it comes to swimming water temperature. It comes from living in Texas so many years. If it’s not at LEAST 90 degrees (32+ C) air temp, I’m not going in, and 95 F (35C) is better. Either that, or the water had better be warm. I’ve been swimming in hot springs pools when the air was “brisk” and that was acceptable. But I don’t like to be cold when I’m wet. So, now that the water’s reaching the 70 F (21 C) range, and the air’s pretty consistently close to 80 F (26.6 C), I ought to be able to go out one day soon and enjoy a little wave action in the water.

The thing I like best about the Gulf coast surf is that there isn’t much of it. We just don’t get the big surfing waves that they get on the Pacific coast. Have I said this before here? I just really like the fact that the surf doesn’t beat you to death, and that it’s easy to go out past the surf, where the water is still just chest deep, and let the non-breaking waves just rock you. It’s infinitely relaxing to touch sand between the waves, then ride gently over them as they come rolling in to break (not too violently) twenty or so yards farther in toward shore. Soon. Maybe this weekend. (Though I have plans–Saltgrass Potters spring art show and sale, and maybe the garden club plant sale over in Bayou Vista.) (And getting the car washed. I did get the license plate and its holder put back on my car. Had a bit of a close encounter with a large trailer hitch in the parking lot at Fish Tales… But the beast (aka, my vehicle) is still filthy.)

About the beach–okay, the water was warm. Swimmers were out. Not much seaweed, and it was mostly the little crinkly stuff. No jellyfish yesterday. Lots of shells, and I even found half a sand dollar. First hint of a sand dollar I’ve seen in the 7 or 8 months I’ve been here. So I took it.

Today is our 32nd anniversary, and the fella was, as usual, up to par. I received a lovely arrangement of yellow roses (he knows I like other colors better than red) and some very interesting purple bud-like flower before I had to leave for the paper. (Where I am currently sloughing off by writing this blog post.) I think we’re going to celebrate Saturday with dinner out, and Charlie Wilson’s War at home. We meant to go see it in the theater, and never did make it, and I don’t think there’s anything out now that we really want to go see. I will try and remember to report back in… TRY.

Think I’m through the “going back to fix” pages in the writing, and can start forging ahead with new stuff. If only I can remember where I thought I was going from here… Hmmm. Well, I can write it, and then if I have to, fix it.

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Posted in family, Old Spirits, the beach, writing

Writer’s Weekend

Posted on April 7, 2008 | 4 Comments


I had a wonderful weekend. A Writer’s Weekend.

My best friend–the one I went to New Mexico and Arizona on a research trip with a couple of years ago–came down to the island on Friday with her husband, because she didn’t want to drive through the big-city traffic by herself. My fella was out of town on business, but her guy did very well staying out of the way. 😉

I took them out to lunch at my favorite “local’s hot-spot”, and then we went downtown to see the hawk show they were having for FeatherFest. (This bird is actually a Sea Eagle, and he’s checking us out.) After the hawks and a walk around town to look in a few shops, we had ice cream at the son’s favorite ice cream parlor. (Mine, too. But I won’t let myself go there unless we have company in town.) We drove around the historical district a little bit, and then headed back to the house for a little while.

B and I (we sign our e-mails by initials only–I think I started it because I’m bone-lazy, but our little group all started doing it, since we all have names with different initials–and now we call each other by our initials) had exchanged a few pages for critique, so we went out on the back covered patio to go over our pages, and while we were out there, it rained. We were under the roof, so we didn’t get wet, but after an hour or so, it started getting cold and we went in. Had supper at Tortuga’s Mexican Restaurant and watched the wind blow the palmettos around. Then we went back home again and plotted a book for B.

She brought her sticky notes and her big foamcore plotting board and her tape recorder (which kept stopping intermittently unless she smacked it–we decided it had become masochistic…) and a spiral notebook and her AlphaSmart. I never realized just how much equipment was necessary for plotting a story. 😉 She had a huge cowboy boot box for the sticky notes, because the first time we tried plotting with sticky notes, we kept saying things like “We need more colors–we need a color for the villain, and for the hero’s internal conflict, and for the suspense subplot, and for–” So every time she sees sticky notes in the store, she checks to see if they’re a color she doesn’t have already. I think she has enough sticky notes to last the rest of her life.

By this time, we were really tired, so we went to bed. Her fella had crashed a while back–the driving stress tuckered him out.

Saturday, we got up, drove to McDonald’s for some breakfast take-out, and after we ate it, we plotted a book for me. Of course, I have more books plotted than I have time to write, and am having to take a week off working on Old Spirits to drive back to the panhandle this week and supervise the moving of the rest of the furniture, so I’m going to be writing even less (which upsets me no end), but we plotted yet another book for me. While we were plotting, her hubby went out walking down the seawall. He went into every souvenir shop along the way, and wound up walking all the way to 6th Street. Which is almost 5 miles from our street. And then he had to walk back. We’d have come to get him if he’d called, but he never did…

B and I went out and walked a couple of miles on the beach-or maybe only one. I was too busy talking and looking at all the birds to pay attention. I even saw some terns. We did walk out on one of the jetties–one with a paved walking path. It was quite chilly, or we might have gone walking earlier, but we wanted to wait for it to warm up. And we still wore out windbreakers to go walking. We weren’t really hungry, so we went back to the house and had peanut butter cheese crackers and watched movies, then went out to one of the better seafood houses on the island for supper. (Had the charcoal grilled/fried shrimp combo–very good.) The man in the house was snoring by 10 p.m., because of his 10-mile hike…

Sunday, we got up and did speed-writing drills. We wrote 10 opening sentences. Not opening sentences to anything in particular, just opening sentences. Then we switched pages, and drew numbers, and wrote scenes to go with the opening sentence that matched that number. I got one that said, “Oh, honey, with a package like that, I’ll do ya for free.” (B is a stinker, because she KNEW I would have to write from her sentences, and put that one in just so I’d have to write something beginning with that… :P) It was a lot of fun, and we laughed a lot.

After that, I had mentioned a free reception and tours of one of the big mansion museums on the island, so we went to that–looked at all the stuff on display in the basement, and went upstairs to look at the living area and take pictures on the spiffy-cool front porch and such. (This is B and her fella on one end of the porch–yes, it’s a round gazebo-y area.) Then we went to eat at a Louisiana-style seafood place downtown, and look at the stores on that end of the street. And then, alas, it was time to say goodbye.

Most of the time, there are at least three of us on our Writers’ Weekends, but our third couldn’t get away this time. But since, despite his ten-mile hike and aching legs, her husband had a good time on the island, I don’t think I’ll have a lot of trouble convincing them to come back. Maybe if my fella’s here next time, the guys can go fishing. I know mine likes to fish, and I think hers does too… We didn’t even ride the ferry or go out to the state park. And maybe our third can come next time too… Can’t wait.

Now I have to just get busy writing Old Spirits, so I can write another couple chapters of Thunder, and get a little farther toward finishing it, and then I can write Time Catch, and then I can write the third, still-nameless blood-magic universe book, and then I can write this book we just plotted. Sometime in 2010, maybe???

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Posted in Old Spirits, pastimes, the beach, Thunder in a Cloudless Sky, Time Catcher, trips, writing