hoooooo boy. I’ve been meaning to write several posts here since the spring, but it’s been so busy, I might as well get cracking on that. I’m writing this entry from my house, which is currently 82 degrees fahrenheit, due to a serious lack of communication in setting up the new air conditioning system.
In the last four months, I’ve been the farthest south, east, and north I’ve ever been. I’ve also been to the highest elevation I’ve ever been (not including being in a plane.)
Six months ago, I moved out of my Boston Apartment and back to my hometown to help out after my dad’s open heart surgery(don’t worry, it was a planned surgery and it went really well! He’s doing great now.). I went back to working full time at my family’s jewelry business, and replaced ‘having a social life’ with ‘going to the gym’ – all of this while re-drafting, editing, rewriting and doing other general work on my second novel, AND trying to promote the first (still haven’t really figured out how to be effective there. oops).
My schedule, when home, consists mostly of getting up around 5 or 6 in the morning, working on my book or book related things until I go into work around 10, coming home at 6, going to the gym, eating dinner, and passing out to repeat the cycle over and over again. I promise, the rest of my post won’t be so boring, just stick with me.
In March, I set my alarm for 2:00 AM and drove myself up to Logan Airport, fighting off a cold and fighting to stay awake, I made my 6 AM flight to Ft. Lauderdale, half-conscious and bleary eyed. I’d intended to work for the duration of the flight, but found I was too exhausted to be very productive, so I ended up reading instead (Shoutout to A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon). On the way down, my ears popped so bad I thought I was going to go deaf or start bleeding out of my head (Thanks, congestion). When I landed in St. Croix, I couldn’t hear out of my left ear for 24 hours.
For a little bit of context: My friend Jaimie was finishing up her Master’s degree at U Miami, and she was doing an internship for the NPS down at Buck Island National Monument, right off the northern coast of St. Croix. What does this mean? It mean’s Jaimie’s job is really freaking cool. She gets to hang out on boats, scuba dive on the reef, and do a lot of really smart marine science stuff that goes *way* over my head.
Jaimie picked me up at the STX airport in her grey Jeep Wrangler, and we drove through the island’s interior. Hens and Roosters roam free with trails of chicks chasing after them like overgrown dirty cotton balls on toothpick legs, non-native mongoose terrorize the local ground lizards, imported by those with sugar-cane interests in 1884. The water couldn’t be more turquoise, and the lushly jungled mountains rise in the distance west of Jaimie’s place in the hills of the interior. She showed me around downtown Christiansted while we waited for Katie’s late flight. to arrive.
The three of us have known each other since the very first day of freshman year of college. Swim team.
The island proved to be a spectacular place. The people were friendly, the prices were great (especially to Katie and me, who were used to NYC and Boston prices, respectively.), the beaches were endless, and the sun didn’t quit.
The island is laced with history from its Dutch colonial roots, to its much earlier settling by the Carib people, who came up from Guiana, South America, and before them, the Tainos. We walked around the bright yellow fort of Christiansted, which I found to be well worth it, as someone writing a book series set in a 1700s-inspired fantasy world (more on that later!)
Saturday, the three of us drove to a secluded little beach, shaded by a tree-filled shoreline, and spent the afternoon swimming, sunning, chatting, and searching for shells, glass and coral.
Unlike most of my vacations, this one involved a lot more tropical cocktails and sitting on the beach instead of chugging plastic-infused water out of my osprey backpack while I fight for my life to get up the side of a mountain. It was a lovely change of pace.
The last day was the coolest. Jaimie brought us with her to work.
Though we didn’t scuba, Katie and I were lent snorkels and fins by the park service and brought out to the reef on the boat to treat coral reefs that are sick.
I’m not sure how helpful we were.
Staying still and staying down when the waves and the air in your lungs want nothing more than to push you up and away from the chunk of abrasive brain coral you’re trying to medicate is no easy feat. And of course, there’s the plastic syringe in your other hand, that you have to plunge down upon with greater force than the pressure of the water you’re currently under. All of this while holding your breath and trying to rub the medication into the sick coral. It’s tough stuff, folks.
Once I successfully got *one* done, I mostly just followed Jaimie around the reef and watched her work while I looked for critters. I caught the attention of some very socially awkward and curious barracudas, who seem to enjoy floating in the middle distance and giving you side-eye.
Luckily, I made it back to the boat with all fingers and toes accounted for.
As someone who’s always had a lot of anxiety surrounding the ocean’s contents and creatures, getting below the surface and seeing everything so clearly (thank you, crystal clear Caribbean waters), really helped me understand the ocean better. It’s a lot less scary down there than it is when you’re sitting on your surfboard off the coast of Cape Cod, waiting to feel a Great White take a test nibble.
It was a pretty spectacular experience.
Before I get into the rest of my silly little stories for the last few months (of impromptu karaoke room at midnight on a Sunday, MacGyvering a very not waterproof rental tent from REI in the Rockies, or getting stuck at the US-CAN border on the way to our return flight from Calgary) I want to say…
My second book comes out next week! This book has frankly kicked my ass. As the plot thickens and subplots emerge, learning to get organized and keep everything straight has proven to be a challenge for me. I’ve never been a huge planner, more of a pantser, I guess, but I’m learning it actually works for me. Go figure!
Summer of Storm & Strife follows the core five characters introduced in Wayward as the Wind: Lukas, Ferrin, Ash, Rhi and Soviel. My dad has joked that I should put something about a hand or a fist in the over-all series name as a reference to the five of them.
If you liked the spy aspect of book one, just wait.
If you wish book one had more boats and pirate-like stuff, just wait.
If you are an enjoyer of sexual tension and fraught angst between people who should probably be in therapy, but aren’t because it’s a fictional 18th century setting, JUST WAIT!
I can’t WAIT for this book to be out in the world (of course… I am also quite nervous). The meat of the story and the overall plot really picks up in this book, and the characters start coming into their own.
Alright- signing off here for now, I have a few final details to deal with on SOSAS (and a cool acronym to boot!). Stay tuned for more mayhem.
Whitney