Southern Comfort

Heave to, and prepare to be boarded!

Why, hello there Gentle Readers! So, there were no posts last week because I had a furiously busy Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday then The Wife, The Kid, and I piled in the car and decamped for our annual pilgrimage to North Carolina. Now, after stops in beautiful Columbus, OH and quaint Lynchburg, VA, we have finally arrived in the Outer Banks. See, every year for the past ten or so years, The Wife's step-uncle, who is a wealthy restauranteur here, has invited us down to spend a week. We, and when I say we I mean roughly twenty adults and children, stay in a huge, fuck-off house on the beach with a pool and direct access to the ocean whereupon we cook, eat, drink our faces off and play a lot of board games and cards. Last night The Wife and I spent a nice evening teaching our nieces and nephews, fine young men and women between the ages of ten and fifteen, the finer points of Pandemic, which was awesome. So, you may ask, is there some kind of downside to ten days of concentrated awesomeness in which we travel through the part of the country where American History was invented and culminates with hot and cold running mojitos and sand in our clothes? Well, kinda yeah...




You see, for me at least, this is also a working vacation. Ever since I started writing full time I've been bringing my work to the beach with me. It started when I wrote the majority of Macross down here back in '08. Then last year, even though I had turned in the manuscript before we left, I spent the week worrying little bits of UEEF Marines. You see where that got me. Now of course I'm a freelancer and you know what that means, I don't work I don't eat. I'm well under water with stuff from Fantasy Flight. I've got two deadlines, one is an outline due at the end of the week and a full outline due the Monday I get back. Then I've got copious amounts of rewrites for a Deathwatch book since I still have a hard time getting my brains around various points of the 40K IP.

It's not that big a deal, though. People generally leave me alone, I can filter out the chaos (mostly), and this year the added complication of caring for The Kid has been handled by a gaggle of enthusiastic nieces who just graduated from a Red Cross babysitting training course. Even with all the noise and slamming doors I got a few thousand words written yesterday, so I'm not too worried. Then, of course, I'm leaving early to truck on up to Indy for GenCon whereupon I'll be kissing hands and shaking babies and begging for work networking. 


I, uh, I seem to have run out of steam here. So I'll leave you with some local attractions that I enjoy, and I'll talk at you again Wednesday. Probably.

Hatteras Light
Wright Memorial
Navy Museum
Tidal Research Station at Duck
Wreck of Queen Anne's Revenge
Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum