Beach or Mountains?

 RHYS BOWEN: I’ve just come back from two weeks on the beach in San Diego. Absolutely heavenly, (apart from five family members coming down with Covid, one after the other, necessitating confinement to various parts of the house we were renting, masks and eating outside. I find that beach time is something absolutely necessary for my sanity and peace of mind. Walking barefoot on warm sand while looking for shells, standing at the edge of the waves as they lap over my feet, sitting on the sand and running it through my fingers, or just watching the waves all sooth my soul.

When I am in and around water I feel truly at home. This is strange because I grew up in chilly England where the water is usually too cold for swimming and  beaches usually windswept. We often went to Wales and one year my father and I made a bet that we’d swim every day of the vacation. This involved driving the car onto the beach, shedding outer layers while still in the car, then sprinting to the water, gasping with shock as we dove in, sprinting out and back through the waves and then rushing back to the car, teeth chattering.  We did it but I can;t say it was fun.

But these days I love every minute of beach time. Gliding over the surface in my kayak, as the paddle dips effortlessly into smooth water, boogie boarding when the day is warm enough and the ocean not too rough or even snorkeling are all perfect for me. I was never really taught to swim but the moment I put fins on I became a mer-person. When I snorkel on coral reefs I lose all sense of time and place. I am fully engaged with the sea life around me, sometimes I little too fully. Once, in Grand Cayman, I followed the reef out, never looking up, not hearing John yelling that I was going too far. When I finally did look out the shoreline looked as if someone had drawn it with a pencil. I was really, really far out and there was nobody or nothing in sight. Just me and smooth ocean. Then it occurred to me that if a shark took me nobody would even see.  I made it safely back to shore but I have been a tad more careful since then.

I wonder what it is about the sea that draws us so much. In England lots of people drive to the seaside, then sit in their cars watching the waves. I too love to watch the waves at sunset, preferably with a glass of wine in my hand. Why are we so fascinated?  Is it something primeval, reminding us that we all originally came from the sea billions of years ago? 

Are you a beach person or do you prefer the mountains, or maybe you’re a city girl? What is your ideal vacation?

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Water girl here, by inclination, geography and astrological sign. I live by a river, I’m a half hour’s drive from the ocean and I have a dear friend with a lakehouse (thanks, Celia!) Water - seeing it, being in it, hearing it - puts me in my happy place. 

One of the things I love about my pre-knee-replacement PT is that it’s done in a pool! This may be the first time I’ve ever been eager to go to physical therapy and disappointed when it’s done. Forty minutes exercising in that pool makes my whole day.

JENN McKINLAY: Beach, lake, river - even though I’m a fire sign, I love the water. I grew up alongside a river, a lake, and then the ocean in CT. The only reason I can survive in AZ is the time I spend at our beach cottage in Nova Scotia and our annual trip to San Diego. Also, we have a swimming pool. Gotta have water. That being said, I do love the mountains, but water is vacation for me. 

HALLIE EPHRON: Give me water, too. Among my fondest memories are body surfing in Malibu. And I love pools though I’m a terrible swimmer. Hold the boats. 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Beach beach beach. A big umbrella, a little back chair, the pelicans skimming over the water, a view of the vast uninterrupted horizon, a book, and only the sound of the waves. 

(I am not fond of the mountains, except from an airplane.) 

LUCY BURDETTE: count me in as a beach person too, although I’d say it’s more water than beach. Even though I am a Capricorn and deeply rooted to the earth! Our grandkids were here this past week, and they never wanted to get out of the water, spending hours in the Long Island sound and then transferring to a neighbor’s pool as soon as they got home. I am sure they will grow up being beach people. When I went off on a solo adventure after college, I had been planning to land in Boulder, Colorado. But I remember so clearly feeling that the mountains made me claustrophobic.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Beach, here, too! I find the ocean incredibly soothing and love to be around water of any kind. Mountains, not so much. I understand that they're beautiful, but they just don't strike that chord with me. But give me the gentle rolling hills of southern England and I might even give up the beach...

Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer.

 RHYS BOWEN: When you read this I'm on the beach in San Diego, spending a wonderful week with my whole family. Fifteen of us in a big, lovely beach house--sunbathing, reading, swimming, eating, drinking and laughing as we play silly games. What could be more perfect?

This is a repeat of last summer's adventure, which took the place of a house I had booked in England and of course we couldn't travel to. We had such a good time that we're repeating this year. It might be the last time that the whole family is together like this. Granddaughter Lizzie has just graduated from UCSD and plans to spend a gap year in Europe before going to dental school. The twins are college-bound. 

The situation is perfect, with the ocean and Mission Bay right on our doorstep. We bring kayak, paddle boards, boogie boards, volleyball etc. You might be interested to know that I still love to boogie board--a little more gently now, but the old girl has still got it!

I also love to kayak.  I leave the volleyball to the younger members.

The one thing I won't do is cook. I make it clear that I pay for the house and they are responsible for meals. So every night a different family cooks for us and we get a wonderful assortment of food from shrimp enchiladas to twice baked potatoes with smoked salmon. And we celebrate every evening: birthdays, graduations and Dominic and Meredith's wedding anniversary. A different cake every night!

After dinner we play silly games with lots of laughter. The name game is a favorite. Too complicated to explain here.  So I'm sharing pix from last year in the hope that everything will be repeated. What could be better than sea and sand and surrounded by those you love most?

Are you risking a vacation this year? Daring to fly? Going abroad or sticking to home like this?

Writers' Challenge Week FIVE

JAN: Okay, we are closing in on the end. I managed to write even while vacationing in a house right on the beach in Puerto Rico -- and I didn't check my email for three whole days. It was terrific.

I learned a trick to make myself write when I'm on vacation. I didn't bring my manuscript, which would have involved hauling along a lot of paper -- not just 250 pages of the manuscript, but also a critique from a writer friend. Instead, I decided to start an essay, and I told myself each morning that I didn't have to sell it. Didn't even have to show it to anyone.

And you know what? Writing didn't seem like work anymore. It seemed like this really fun thing I was doing every morning before I went to the beach.

This week I went back to the manuscript and got a lot done. I'm a third into what I hope is the final, final draft. Already new ideas for books are percolating -- a sure sign its time to move on.

After five weeks, I've gotten better about not checking the Internet in the morning, but I can revert to compulsive behavior later in the day. I'll have to devise a challenge for that someday.

Any ideas?

On Fantasy

"But I never let a fantasy get away, because I always stop to analyze it." Shelley Duvall

Charlie Bakst reading Yesterday's Fatal on a beach in Italy.

Jan: I'm not talking about sexual fantasy (sorry guys), but writer fantasy. It goes like this: You are walking through a crowded airport, or through a crowded beach, and all of a sudden you come across someone reading YOUR book.

The perfect fantasy, of course, is when you have no idea who the reader is. He/she is just one of the many fans you never knew existed. In this photo, the reader, who sent me the pic, is a friend of mine, Charlie Bakst, but he was reading my book on a beach in Italy -- so I figure that makes up for him not being a complete stranger.

Once, my daughter, who has experienced the highs and lows of my writing career, called me up from college screaming excitedly. It turned out that as she was leaving the cafeteria, she saw the clerk at the register reading my book, A Confidential Source. So although I didn't actually come across the reader myself, I get fantasy points, right?

A couple of years ago, I was speaking at a mystery brunch in on Martha's Vineyard (hosted by Edgartown Books) and Robin Cook -- yes, the best selling medical thriller writer -- made a joke of hoping to stumble across someone on South Beach reading his book. You'd figure for Robin Cook this would be an everyday reality.

So I'm curious about how widespread this fantasy thing is. Is it just Robin Cook and me (I doubt it) or do we all have a verson of this, not just writers, but artists, musicians, teachers and even lawyers??

RO: It's a rush, no doubt about it. I haven't had the book version yet, but some years ago I produced a video called Say it By Signing, for friends and family of hearing-impaired people who sign; also acquired a book on the same subject. Not a huge market, but if my book does as well, it will be champagne all around. I saw the book in the window of a small bookstore in Bar Harbor, and the video was picked up by a nationwide chain (anyone remember the dear departed Nature Company?) I was ecstatic. it didn't even matter that I didn't make a lot of dough on it...I was thrilled. I think it's the Sally Field, "you like me..you really like me" thing.

HALLIE: My fantasy was to find my books for sale at an airport or train station newsstand. One day, my daughter phoned me from the Los Angeles airport to say that she was looking at a copy of OBSESSED right there at the newsstand! Then I found out they change the book displays every 24 hours.

In a related be-careful-which-fantasy-you-wish-for scenario--I was chatting with a woman author I'd met at a conference a few years ago. I told her my book-at-the-aiport fantasy, she she told me this story. Her husband worked for Hudson News (they're the franchise that owns all the newsstands in airports, Grand Central...) and he was able to use his muscle to get HN to order up 300,000 copies of her first paperback novel. She was ECSTATIC. The publisher was ecstatic, too. 100,000 copies were sold. Pretty great, right? BUT (and this is a very big "but") 200,000 copies were returned. This was very bad news for the publisher because they lost a huge chunk of change, and it was the last novel she did with them.

HANK: Here's a fantasy come true: look at this photo of my Prime Time as one of the staff favorites at the wonderful Willow Books in Acton MA. (Whoo hoo. See it? Right in the middle, top shelf?) Now, as for my next big fantasy: please all of you take a moment to send good karma that I make the deadline for Air Time. I'm not even going to tell you when it is...it's all too scary. Back to to reality.

JAN: So aside from the obvious ones -- book gets made into Oscar-winning movie -or making the NYT bestsellers list - I'm curious to hear about other writer fantasies. Also, the comparable career fantasy in other fields! There must be a chef fantasy, salesman-of-the-year-fantasy, and dermatologist fantasy, right?