The late afternoon sun was about to set behind the mountains–can you see the shadows?
But as I stood there watching, the surf on this rocky coast near Monterey, California had its own agenda. Endlessly the water attacked the rocks, foaming, rushing, churning.
I love experiencing the ocean. It allows me to be still near its constant motion. It moves, and I don’t have to!
The cure for anything is salt water:
sweat, tears, or the sea.
~Karen Blixen (Isak Dineson)~
Because I write mysteries that strongly identify with place, I am on the alert for other authors that do the same thing. The best I’ve found recently is the author of the Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Series. I’d like to give a shout-out to Dawn McKenna!
For example, here is a selection from the beginning of LOW TIDE: “The seagulls bounced around him, lighting just long enough to snatch up the pieces of bread, then hovering in the air, wings whipping, to wait for more…To his mind, it was one of the few places left that actually felt like Florida, with its century-old brick and clapboard shops and houses, the marina filled with shrimp and oyster boats and people who couldn’t care less about Disney World.”
Ms. McKenna takes an interesting approach to her series, in that the first four books take the time you rarely have with a mystery series to introduce you to a unique set of characters who live on the Florida coast, a romance that delights with its unfolding, and enough suspense to survive a hurricane!
You can buy each of the first four books of the series, LOW TIDE, RIPTIDE, WHAT WASHES UP, and LANDFALL separately. But if you’re like me, you’ll be hooked after the first one. Save yourself some money and buy the set.
Writing teacher Donald Maass in THE EMOTIONAL CRAFT OF FICTION says the way to pull readers into your writing is to engage them emotionally. Ms. McKenna does just that.
Highly recommended!
I arose early, seeking to experience the dock in the solitude of a Sunday morning.
Later, there would be boats moored to each side, and fisherman throwing out a line, and honeymooning couples strolling arm-in-arm along its length. But for now it was quiet, content, satisfied in just being.
Sometimes we feel like a dock, waiting for our ship to come in. But the wisdom is knowing that our future is already here inside, waiting to be discovered.
When one has much to put into them,
each day has a hundred pockets.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
It was low tide on a sunny day, and we ventured far out on the rocks, searching the life left by the waves. Hidden in the cracks, just visible here, we found thousands of tiny white mussels, fed by the surging waves that were channeled into the crevices between the granite boulders.
How did these tiny shelled creatures sense that here, and only here, they would be nourished by the very waves that threatened to destroy them?
For every ailment under the sun,
There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it;
If there be none, never mind it.
~Mother Goose~