On Weekend Fun with Family

This weekend was spent hanging out with my family.

The Marine was home, the Niece worked shorter hours, and the Munchkin was surrounded by love.

Friday night, after a quickly prepared meal, we got the Munchkin ready for bed, did the story thing, and sent the menfolk out to get fixings for smores.

Since we live in an area with an almost continual burn ban, and we don't own a fire pit on legs (though I've thought on more than one occasion to acquire one) we made our melty, marshmallow and chocolaty goodness in the microwave.

It's a rarely known science.

An art, if you will.

We sat around the kitchen table, chatted, laughed, and relaxed while inhaling our weight in sugar.

It was the most fun I've had in a long time, and I'm so glad I got to share it with people who are important to not only myself, but to my daughter.

Here is to many more nights of sugary bonding, and to family--not only of blood, but of the heart as well.


How has your weekend been? Did you do anything fun and exciting--like sky diving, or did you sit home and relax with loved ones?

R.S.

On Fight Scenes and Death

The first things I ever wrote were of darkness and death. Fights filled with smoke, sweat and blood. Terror and torture so detailed the reader was sucked in and had to fight beside the hero to get back out.

The hero always overcomes the circumstances, no matter how brutal and mentally damaging it could be.

After all, it's fiction. If it were real life I wouldn't want any part of it.

Some days the words of violence and battle flow like a river after the Spring Thaw.

Today is not one of those days.

The last week my stream has been more like a wash in the desert. Dry and cracking.

I'm two chapters from the end of the first book in my YA series. The same one I thought I'd finished a month ago, only to decide it had ended too abruptly. I guess that's why it's best to put it away for a while and come back to it later.

At the rate I'm going, I'll still be two chapters from the end when the Munchkin turns four..and I turn... well, I'll get older too.

This is unacceptable to me.

I live for the violence--interspersed with happiness, love, and sexual tension--but over all, I look forward to writing the battles.

Power amazes me.

Strength enthralls me.

I blame it on being married to a Marine--my very own Super Hero.

I've never been to a war zone, but I can write a scene like I'd been next to a Marine on the front lines.

Smoke burns my eyes as it blows on the wind, the copper scent of spilled blood clogs my sinuses, and the gritty  taste of desert sand fills my mouth. Gunfire rings in my ears, and the weight of my gear drags at my exhausted body.

Adrenaline is the only thing keeping me awake.

So, why then, can I not write the final battle of the book? It's not even a huge battle just the conclusion to the minor problems of the first part of the story.

It should be a cake walk.

It isn't.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm open to them.

What do you most enjoy writing? What do you do when the words don't come?

R.S.