Hi friends,
First off, thanks to all of you who have supported our Aftermath post-apoc series. Searching for Victory, the finale, is coming out next Friday!
We hope you love the nail-biting showdowns for our two heroines, Rita and April, though we’re sad to say goodbye to the crew.
Searching for Victory: Aftermath #6
And second: I survived!! We made it alive to the other side of the U.S. 😀
After two long days in the car, over 1600 miles and a teen driver taking turns to get some hours toward his driving test, we finally arrived safely to visit our huge extended family out west.
My son took the wheel a few times during the long trip. Often, the drive was loooong stretches of just freeway, fields and the occasional windmill:
And other times, we hit road construction mixed with tons of crazy drivers when we passed south of Chicago. Let’s just say I didn’t take any pictures and was a teensy bit anxious giving my teen directions from the passenger seat.
I’m sure some of you can relate and probably have stories of training your own teen drivers.
Thankfully, my guy has a cool head. At one point, he was driving on a crowded and narrow two-lane construction section. On one side, he had a humungous RV towing a car next to him while on the other, orange construction barrels whizzed by. The RV suddenly drifted into our lane and there was nowhere to go.
I forgot to prep him on horn use for this type of situation and froze for a critical moment on what to do, other than to hit the brakes. I pretty much just kept repeating a panicked, “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. . . .”
He somehow kept from hitting either the barrels or the encroaching RV before the other driver noticed and corrected.
When we were safe again, my son turns to me, looking a little panicked himself. “Just saying ‘Whoa’ was NOT helpful, Mom. Maybe something a little more specific next time.” LOL.
We said a few grateful prayers after that situation. 😀
And if you were wondering about how well the comfrey worked on my broken toe: all the bruising and swelling is completely gone, just leaving the tender joint where the break is still healing up. I hope the info helps some of you out with similar injuries. I love how well comfrey works!
We’re really enjoying our visit and are staying at four different homes during this trip. Luckily, we have multiple families who can accommodate us. The joys and extra work of a huge family.
In another week and a half, we’ll troop back east where it’s just us again . . . until next year.
What about you? Any fun adventures this summer? I’d love to hear!
______________________
Misty’s Writing Update:
Um . . . vacation writing is pretty much limited to this newsletter. Hopefully, my adventures with tons of family will give me a whole new set of experiences I can weave into future characters.
It’s interesting how life experiences bleed over into my writing, hopefully making the characters come alive with triumphs and struggles that touch readers.
It seems that readers tend to enjoy one of two types of characters:
- The heroine/hero who has all the best in life that the reader might not: money, love, superpowers, success, strength, abilities, etc.
- A more relatable character who starts the story with real flaws, weaknesses and struggles. These, they eventually overcome to emerge as a triumphant hero/heroine at the end.
Sometimes, Steph and I get praise for our heroines being real enough for readers to relate to. Other times, they’re too weak at the start of the story for some readers.
We got a recent scathing review that was upset at how ‘irrational, overly emotional and borderline unhinged’ our female characters are. Sigh. 🙂
On the other hand, I think that is probably a pretty accurate portrayal of how many of us might act and feel if we were suddenly thrust into a world-ending disaster. Too bad the reviewer didn’t keep reading the rest of the series, because our heroines persevere and overcome the obstacles, emerging much stronger by the end.
Which type of character do you like best? The ‘over-powered’ (a gaming term) character who has it all from the start? Or the one who starts just like you and takes the full story to reach hero status?
Just curious. 🙂
Happy reading this week!
— Misty 🙂
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