That looks like the sun rising in the image above, but it’s actually the full moon climbing out from beneath the Gulf of Mexico. My wife and I spent a four-day weekend at a vacation rental in Surfside Beach, a place we’ve been to numerous times over the years. It’s a nice close getaway, less than a two-hour drive, but it feels like we’re in another world when we’re there. We don’t go completely off the grid, but we do minimize our time online, so it is quite relaxing.
We left on Thursday afternoon. We had torrential rain the morning, but that packed it in around noon and from that point on, we had nothing but sunshine. It wasn’t oppressively hot, in the seventies for the most part, so that was nice. Despite taking precautions, we did catch a bit of sun, mostly in the face. Nothing serious, but enough for people to take note of the fact that I’ve been in the sun. Of course, I tend to burn if I get too close to a 60W light bulb…
The rental house is right on the Gulf, behind a protective dune. It has a big deck where we sit and listen to the water crashing in and watch the people who are visiting the beach for the day. Unlike in most places, people are allowed to drive on the beach in Surfside, so the beach is lined with cars parked perpendicular to the waterfront. Every so often, vehicles get stuck in the sand, which is always a source of amusement for us watching.
As the sun moves across the sky, we scoot forward on the deck to keep on the edge of the roof’s shadow. Close enough to feel the warmth but out of the direct sunlight. You could almost set your watch from our position on the deck. It was the long walks on the beach that did us in, I think, even though I was wearing my Indiana Jones hat. Light reflected from the sand, probably.
The moon was quite full when we were there, too, which was nice and atmospheric. We had some great meals, drank some wine and some Surfside Tea (their version of Long Island Iced Tea) and read. I finished The Pandora Room by Christopher Golden, Lord of the Flies (first time I’ve read it since junior high) and Cold Paradise by Stuart Woods. I found the latter as a battered paperback on a bookshelf in the vacation home and it looked like a good beach read. It was–I zipped through the 400+ pages in a single day. I was rather bemused to find a passage early in this novel, first published in 2001, where the main character is being given a tour of Palm Beach, FL. “That’s Mar a Lago over there – the home of Marjorie Meriwether Post, now owned by the awful Donald Trump.” Yes, nearly 20 years ago, we knew. We knew.
Some stories take a long time to germinate. I’ve had this idea–only a title really–for nearly two years, and it finally turned into something. I’ve always been interested in hearing how Stephen King has, at times, worked on story ideas as he goes to sleep at night. Telling himself the story, a little more each night, until it either demonstrates it can work or fizzles. I remember him saying that about The Green Mile, and I recently read he did that as early as The Long Walk, the first novel he finished writing.
I do that every now and then, although I generally fall asleep quite quickly, so I don’t get far. But I decided it was time to take this story title idea out for a test drive. I got a little way with it, but it wasn’t until I actually put pen to paper that the story came to life. I wrote a couple of pages yesterday morning and a few more today and, in the process of telling myself the story, I discovered what it was really about. It is so cool when that happens. Things popped out from wherever details come from that I didn’t at all anticipate when I started writing it.
I enjoyed Black Summer on Netflix. It’s yet another zombie flick, but it does some interesting things with how the story is told and the direction is intriguing, too. A neat King cameo in one episode in a library (Rich Chizmar cameo, too). The episodes are of different lengths, dropping down to a mere 25 and 20 minutes for the last two. Yhere are instances of people doing dumb things to serve the plot, but on the whole I quite liked it. The last couple of minutes made my jaw hit the floor, but I have a theory about that.
I have my ticket to see Avengers: Endgame on Saturday. I just might watch Infinity War again in preparation for it. The following weekend, I’m off to Prince George, BC to attend Northern Fancon. It’ll be a quick trip, but I’m very much looking forward to it. I’m also booked into NECON and, for the first time, Bouchercon at the end of October, which is in Dallas, a mere three-hour drive away, which in Texas terms is as good as next door.
