The beach is a great place to just relax. I’m pretty good at turning off thoughts about my day job these days but life is always interrupting our creative lives too. And then I have been reading more on line lately but I don’t regret spending the time, seeing what other writers are doing. A new friend had a post on her blog that really struck me. This writer (Tara Ford) from the UK if I remember correctly, had a post about seeing one of her characters! That is something only a writer can understand.

I did have that same experience for the first time maybe about six months ago? It was the younger version of one of my main characters in Miss Bascom which I’m planning on revising again. He was just outside a restaurant a few blocks from my house leaning against a post, looking at his phone. I wasn’t too surprised to see him. I did set the book in my neighborhood and I probably saw him sometime before I wrote the book and just didn’t remember. I don’t normally base my characters on anyone outside of my imagination but I guess it’s natural to remember a “type” or some such. I felt like going over and knocking the phone from his hand because it looked so unnatural to me.  In the early 1980’s, he wouldn’t have been using a cell phone – I don’t think they were even around yet. But there he was, probably sending a message to one of his “girls”. Miss Bascom would have had a fit! 

Anyway, chill friends. A small vacation from writing is a good thing too as long as it’s just a vacation.