August 2021

    August is usually the month I take some vacation time, and this year was no different. It's the month of my wedding anniversary, and the weather is usually great. That's why we picked August to get married. 

    Our August vacations are usually sticking around Maine affairs with multiple visits to the coast and dips in the ocean. There is nothing quite like a cloudy day when you have driven from a part of the state where it is almost 90 f to another part of the state where the temp has dropped into the high 60's. It feels cold and amazing. Those are the best times to cautiously step into the water before running full-on into the biggest wave coming in your direction. 

    I'll usually get thrown about by the giant waves for 45 minutes or so before I've had enough. Then I drag myself out of the water and onto the beach, exhausted. My perfect beach day involves solid cloud cover and big waves. 

    I finished the ghost story I was working on. That's another good reason to take a vacation. Get caught up on things you've meant to get to. It was fun to write, but I don't think it's a good ghost story. I may try to hack away at it and see if I can make it something better. I always try to finish the story I am working on. I don't like to have unfinished half-written things waiting around to bother me. Finishing something badly and moving on is better than not finishing anything. If I have something to edit, then I'll never be looking for something to do. 

    I also took a look at my superhero death row origin story, and by 'took a look,' I managed to cut out 3000 words from a 10,000-word story. I don't think I've ever cut so much from something I was editing. It felt good, but it was also tough. I was trying to get it under 7000 words for an anthology I was going to submit it to. The anthology is about death row, and there is a good chance I did not take the subject seriously enough. The death sentence is a big deal and an awful thing we still have in many of our states, but as I started writing, the story took me off the more serious path. We'll see how that pans out. 

    I finished the book by Kazuo Ishiguro called Kara and the Sun. It's set in a dystopian future and told from the perspective of an AF (Artificial Friend). Klara is a robot, and the writer tells her story of how she becomes an AF for a sick young girl. The writing focuses on the light Klara sees, and as I read it, my brain was full of sun-filled images, storefronts, rooms, barns. I can't actually remember a description of a night in this novel. I loved it like I have loved all the Kazuo Ishiguro novels I have read. 

    Next up, after a quick reread of Fahrenheit 451, I'll be reading N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series. My daughter read them, loved them, and recommended them. They have also received Hugo awards for every book in the series. Seems like a great choice. 

    Next up, for writing, is an alien story. I have never written a story with aliens, so this is a first. I'm not sure what it will be about, but I'm hoping and trying to think of something nice. I think I'd be happy if I can make it an uplifting story, something that makes me feel good. Not a romantic love story, though but something with love. We'll see. I haven't even started to think about it too deeply, but maybe I'll have something by the end of September. At least the seed of an idea and a few thousand words written. Goals. 

That's it for August.

Thanks for reading,

Here's a photo of me walking at Popham Beach in Phippsburg, Maine. The tide was out, and there was a lot of sand. We had to walk almost half a mile to get to the open water. (Photo by Jennifer Gammon)