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Writing Recharge: Postcard from Ocean City

Dear Alison,

Summer fun.
Summer sun.
Summer ain't done.

(I know--it's really quite amazing I haven't pursued a career in poetry.)

Every year, my family of five joins my parents, my brother's family, and many, many cousins, aunts and uncles for a week in Ocean City, New Jersey.

Imagine five beach chairs on a patch of sand. Times it by five. Add beach carts, umbrellas, wading pools, buckets and shovels, sunblock, sunglasses, boogie boards, skim boards, and five coolers.

Our beach footprint rivals that of a small country.

We laugh. We swim. We board. We laugh some more. And when we're not at the beach, we eat donuts. Dots Donuts on 32 and Asbury Ave. has the best cream donuts in the entire world. We eat sticky buns. Mallons on 13th and Bay Ave produces the most delicious sticky buns in the entire world. We eat fudge. We eat chocolate covered macaroons (Yes, they are as good as they sound.) For the record, calories don't count when salt water's within a five block radius.

But even if the calories did count, we bike every morning, walk the boardwalk every night, miniature golf, plus get tackled by waves all day.

I almost forgot about the jaw muscle workout from eating all those baked goods--don't forget that workout.

One thing I didn't do this year was write. I don't normally allow myself so much time away from my WIP, but this year, I needed a true writing recharge--after seven months of solid writing time I needed a little break.

And my writing recharge worked. I woke up early this morning renewed and ready to finish Starr Gone, Book Three. I can't wait to get back to it, so I'll say goodbye for now, but not without leaving you with a postcard from Ocean City.


Can you sense the writing recharging?

Here I am with my oldest and dearest friend, Nif. Our dads became best friends when they were eight or nine. They are family to us and we spend a week every year with them at the shore. Many years ago in Ocean City, during one of our long walks I whispered to Nif that I wanted to be a writer. She didn't laugh. She didn't judge. She's been my biggest fan. I love her. Ocean City not only recharges my writing life but brings me closest to the ones I love the most.

So my friends, where do you recharge your writing batteries?


Sharing the writing love one letter at a time,
Kim






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