Run-DMSteve

The flight to Boston was easy, just under five hours. I didn’t have to cope with snakes or zombies, there was only one unhappy baby, and the 10-year-old female up-talker behind me was quickly neutralized by Netflix. The overlarge stranger beside me spilled over the arm rest into my area, but he was polite and quiet. The pilot addressed us occasionally, but his monotone muffled all the words so I didn’t have to pay attention.

I wrote for three hours. It was tough getting started at first. The space was narrow, my hand cramped, and I found out why SCRAP sells cool pens for $0.25 per handful when the first one died in the first half hour. But then I warmed up. I tuned out the distractions, worked through the cramp, and pushed forward toward the end of the chapter I’ve been circling around in. Plus I had a brainstorm: Since my book is set in 1947, I could plausibly write obituaries for most of my characters. I wrote three and figured out the general arc of their lives (and thus learned more about my story). I felt pretty good about that.

Traffic around Boston was no worse than it was during the Battle of Bunker Hill. At least today we have HOV lanes. We drove south to Providence, then headed east toward our motel in Seekonk, the city that never sleeps. We drove into Ye Olde Seekonk and found what may be the only restaurant that was owned by locals and not a chain: Lum’s, where I had the fried haddock sandwich and Special D had the clam roll. All of the totally delicious seafood had been caught that day. All of the accents sounded like home to me.

After dinner, there was still some light in the sky, so we tried to investigate the Edna Martin Nature Preserve. Ms. Martin was a ninth-generation Seekonkonoid who donated 35 acres to the town on her death. (I can understand a family that has lived in the same state for nine generations, but in the same town? There’s got to be a story there.) We were swarmed by mosquitoes as soon as we left the car and that was the end of that expedition. What do they eat when they can’t get Hobbit?

Everything’s good here at the motel. And that was Day 20 in the Write-a-thon.