Sunrise At The Beach

What a glorious start to the day! I woke up at twenty of six (one of my roommates was snoring--names omitted to protect the innocent) and hurriedly dressed, grabbed my room key, banana, notebook and pen and slipped out.  I walked out to the beach and was the ONLY person out there.  I was both thrilled and saddened. I loved having the beach and the sunrise to myself, but felt sad that there was a whole town of people who had the beauty of the beach and sunrise at their disposal but chose not to be there.  Maybe every day is so beautiful they just get used to it.

Or it could be the cold.  It was just warm enough that you couldn't see your breath--just barely. But I stood on the beach and looked from one pier far down the beach on my left to the other pier far down the beach on my right, and I was the only person. The surf crashed and foamed and flocks of sea birds circled the water. Every now and then one of them would dive bomb the water and come up with a small fish.

There was a quarter moon high in the sky and then the sun appeared at the far edge of the ocean.

It was this beautiful neon-pink color. As it rose (which was rapid -- maybe a minute before it appeared as a full round circle above the ocean) it turned to a neon-pink/red, then a neon-pink-orange. The light reflected on the surface of the water, the birds called to each other, the water crept nearer where I stood.  Just a wonderful start to the day.

So far it's been a great weekend. We wrote for hours yesterday in our room, taking a 30-minute break at one point to watch a pod(?) of dolphins feeding and playing in the water.  They were close to shore and from our 5th floor room we had a perfect view of them. We could see their tail fins as they dove and one time 3 of them rode in toward us on a wave. They were stunning. And, as Maggie said, good luck. We all three had a strong writing day.

I'm a little nervous about keeping up today.  It's exhausting to write and write and write. Yesterday I free-wrote on my story.  Not trying to write scenes in order, but rather just writing scenes as they occurred to me. They may or may not make it in the final book, but it's a way of staying in touch with your characters and exploring their personalities and seeing what they do in various situations. Also, it keeps my pen moving.  It's more important to just keep writing then it is to write "good." Writing good is what the editing process is about.

Okay, it's 7:20 AM and I'm hungry. I'll go see if there's any sign of life from Bernie and Maggie and if not, eat breakfast on my own.