I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside

Yes, indeed. Imagine that tune playing as you read along. We spent a glorious, and not too rainy week, on the Oregon Coast, courtesy of my in-laws who built their beach house a couple of decades ago.

And what a week it was. (If you are interested in me as a person and not only as a mere dangerous writer who looks like a typewriter, you can check up on our goings-on on my wife's blog, Every Day is a Miracle.)

First, I got to take a siesta on my birthday. It made me want to be Spanish. Then, there were the myriad celebrations of me. There was also lots of reading, and the writing came pouring out.

Is it just me, or does sea air do something to the writing brain? As well as increasing the word count on my WIP, I wrote two new short stories!!

Here's my question for you, dear readers: Do you write more freely when away from home? And where do you find your muse is most frisky: the beach, the mountains, Las Vegas?

Postscript of joy: When I got home I found I'd won two blog contests. One, at Shannon Messenger's, for a

copy of Brandon Mull's and the other at Chuck Sambuchino's Guide to Literary Agents' blog for a copy of Lisa and Laura Roecker's

Now, in honor of the pink-wigged girl, I have to change my typewriter avatar to this: