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| Coffee on the porch |
It was a quiet day around the McKye homestead for Father’s
day. Hubs had the early morning to do edits on his manuscript and I got to
sleep in. Not that this was hard to do since I had stayed up late the night
before doing my own writing and keeping an eye out on progress of the thunderstorm. Just in case.
A bit later we had a chance to sit around and drink some coffee outside
and catch up on our week before it got too hot and muggy. Chatted about all
sorts of things and, of course, the latest changes in stories and publishing.
He deplores the need these days of stories having to be nonstop action from the
get-go. God forbid that the reader might have to wade through any narrative
before someone dies or is kidnapped or some danger rears its head. The need to
grab your audience but still do a good set up of a suspense story is a fine
balance, I agree. He does make a good point about Michael Crichton, Patterson,
Dan Brown, and even Robert B Parker’s books. There is a lot of descriptive
narrative, but the point I made was these authors were established long before
this new style came into play. I bet if they were debut authors submitting,
there would be chunks of that narrative cut. But because these authors are
well-established moneymakers who’s going to tell them they can’t? They’re
bestsellers. Their name alone sells books.
Hubs is an early bird. He should have a lifetime supply of
worms by now. The day doesn’t matter because he’s usually up by four or
four-thirty a.m. everyday. Sleeping in late for him is the very rare
six. Of course the poor dear generally falls asleep in his chair before nine in
the evenings. I finally had to order the HD recorder because he can’t seem to
stay awake for his shows, which frustrated him to no end. So now he records
them. I’m telling you, that recliner is like a lullaby for him.
I’m not, by nature, a night owl, although I did go through
my phase of it many years ago. But with my blog and getting that ready tends to
keep me up a bit late—especially when the stoopid formatting issues start to
rear it’s ugly head. I make sure I have a good nap to handle that and those are
the days I sleep in until eight, otherwise I’m up by six-thirty because that’s
prime writing time for me. It's quiet, I'm fresh, and there are no distractions (the internet is off).
I treated hubs to dinner Saturday night at his favorite
steak house and plied him with his preferred top shelf margaritas on the rocks
with salt. He enjoyed that. Son got his dad Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
and I was able to get him some of his most wanted goodies from Cabellas. I even
found the perfect card, featuring a recliner type chair on it and all the sweet
mushy stuff. I saw it and laughed. It suits him so well. Then I left the room
and shut my office door because he wanted to watch golf. I’m a player not a
watcher and televised games tend to drive me bonkers. Tonight we had a nice
dinner and watched the, oh so excellent, Game of Shadows.
It was a nice relaxing weekend for the both of us as we’ve
been running way too much of late—Hubs with his job as a community Outreach Coordinator for the army, and me running around doctor's offices and getting things in
order for Son and college. Some how I don’t remember preparation for college being quite so onerous and time consuming. Just a few more things and we’re done. Good thing. I’m
about done in after all this. Last week was hard and I was run ragged by
Friday and so practicing the art of relaxation was nice.
- How did you spend Father’s day? Do anything special?
