Is it me or is it hot in here? Lenora Worth

I really do love summer. But after a month of one hundred degrees and holding, well, this is getting old. I got spoiled when my husband and I went on a roap trip all the way to New York City. The weather was lovely everywhere we stopped. Most days the temperature was in the eighties or nineties. I know come winter, I'll be shivering and complaining about the cold, but right now I'm enjoying my air conditioner. When it's this hot and dry, everything seems to wilt. Including my good manners.

But that brings me to the real subject of this post. I believe hot weather brings out the worst in people. Maybe that's why we set a lot of our suspense novels during the summer. It's hot, someone is trying to harm someone, someone's on the run, maybe without water, maybe walking across the desert, maybe stuck in a hot, sweltering building. Tempers flair and bad things happen. That is fodder for fiction writers. But ... it's horrible when we hear it on the news every night.

So, fellow suspense writers, do you believe summer makes people mean?

Let's discuss. I'll be back. I'm going to get some ice cream.

Birthdays and Summer by Leann Harris

The summer means birthdays to me. My entire family has birthdays in June and July, and we cluster. Within 2 weeks time (July), there are 4 birthdays, my dad, daughter, husband and myself. If we include June, we add my mother and brother. My son is the only one who is a Feb baby, but his wife and brother-in-law are clustered then. So, summertime is birthday time. Does your family have months when all your birthdays fall close together?

The beauty around us

Posted by Barbara Phinney
In the summer, I often eat my breakfast on my front porch. I live in a deathly quiet area, and the only entertainment I usually get is either watching the cat use the torn-up lawn (We had geothermal heating installed) use it as a giant litterbox, or else watching the farmer from down the road haul hay bales to his cattle. Like I said, quiet.
The other day, without provocation, I heard the words, "Look around you at the beauty I have created."Indeed, I have been blessed this summer. I had two books come out, and trip to Bolivia to serve God's people there.In an interesting twist, Terri Reed's great book, Covert Pursuit, out in May when my first book of the summer, Fatal Secrets also came out, featured a tropical storm that hit the gulf coast of Florida, and my August book, Silent Protector, had one in the same area.
I like to think that it's the same storm.Regardless, as the summer drifts away, and another storm season approaches, we can, indeed we should, stop and sit, eat our toast or sip our coffee, and hear God's words meant just for us. God has given us this beautiful world, full of quiet warmth and roaring fury, and we should love each day as a new one, say thank you for the abundance of autumn, and prepare for winter.
I hope your day goes well. God bless.
Barbara Phinney

Watching television--Lenora Worth

I just got back from Orlando, Florida and the RWA conference. Disney World was great, as Margaret Daley posted yesterday, but it was very hot! Our trip was good, even if I did have a few issues with a new blood pressure medicine that caused swelling and migraines. But now that I'm home and armed with new information to help me become a better writer, I'm going to take things a bit slow. It's just too hot to hurry, hurry!

One of the things I've enjoyed lately is watching my favorite television shows with my husband. He likes recording shows then sitting through a marathon night of catching up. Here are some of my favorites--(I love action and adventure.) First off, Burn Notice on the USA Network. This is probably my favorite. It's about a spy who got burned (a time out in spy language) and had to settle in Miami. (Horrible that they left him in such a downer of a place, huh???) Anyway, his mom lives there and he has a good friend who used to be CIA and an Irish girlfriend with her own shady past. It's so much fun and the show has a great website to keep things going. Next, one of my latest favorites over on TNT--Memphis Beat. This show sizzles with Memphis blues and quirky characters. The plots are amazingly simple and the crimes are amazingly interesting and they just come out of nowhere. You feel as though you're on a ride-along in the heart of the Delta. Love it. And one more new one--Covert Affairs on USA. This is kind of like James Bond meets Wonder Woman. A new female agent gets into the thick of things and hits the ground running. She's pretty, smart and in over her head. But she is an example of a strong heroine who manages to take care of herself. I like that. All of these shows are good clean fun and a great way to stay inside and escape the heat. It's pushing 104 outside my door today!

We love to write about these type characters in our suspense books and we like to heat things up with our plots and our action and adventure. So when I'm not writing suspense, I can live vicariously through these quirky, out-there shows. And stay cool while doing it. Oh, by the way, I did enjoy one other ride at Disney World. It was the Test Track at the General Motors sponsored exhibit. My husband is retired from General Motors and he came back to the hotel all excited and told me I had to go back and try out the Test Track. He said, "I know how you love fast cars." He was so right. I felt like one of the spies I love. No crash dummy here. Just thrills and squeals. Even in 104 degrees heat! Stay cool.

Summer Heat

It is HOT here in Oregon this week. Temperatures up into the high 90's. Though yesterday it tipped over 100! For some places around the country, that's not high, but for us its awful. Most days in Oregon are temperate, in the 50-60 range. Colder in the winter months but still manageable. This heat however is doing us in. We don't have air conditioning because we only need that for a week or so in the summer and we didn't want to go to the expense of putting on in for such a short amount of use. But today I sure wish we had air conditioning. We did buy two standing units that help cool the rooms they are in. Unfortunately, my office is not one of them. Ugh!
So yesterday to get out of the heat, I took the kids to the movies but even there it wasn't that cool. We will probably head to the gym today. They keep the place very cool.
What do you do when its hot out? Any tips would be appreciated!

The Unofficial Kickoff to Summer And...

What it means to a writer.
Last Monday we in Canada celebrated Queen Victoria's birthday. Most of us get the day off, but just as importantly, it's the unofficial kick off to summer. I hear that many in the US think the same way about Memorial Day.
Take my brother in law for example. To him, summer means barbecuing. He serves up grilled chicken and those delicious sausages with cheese in them, and juicy homemade hamburgers. To him, summer has started. Gotta love a guy like that!
To me? I'm a writer. I'll have my head deep in murder and mystery and like Margaret said earlier this week, deadlines.
I have two deadlines this summer. I'll be attending a big writers' conference this too. And I want to write a devotional.
It's going to be hard. We have a short camping season here, and I love to camp.
Well, I've got it solved. I'll burn the midnight oil during the week, and when we camp on the weekends, I'll lounge in a folding chaise, with sunglasses and a cold drink and grunt out the occasional word in my sleep to my fanily and friends, just to show them that I'm listening and not sleeping.
Of course the ruse will be up when I sleep through the aforementioned barbecue.