Time to wrap up my posting about the Charleston trip I took last month. The last day of which we spent visiting Fort Sumter, the place that started the Civil War (as detailed in Madness Rules the Hour).
I’d had no idea Sumter was an island, though I must have read it somewhere. Tracy, Craig and I got on a ferry and headed out across the bay.
Sumter includes Battery Huger, a newer black structure built during the Spanish American War.
The battery is in much better shape than Sumter’s walls.
A few spots have shells embedded in the walls. They’re marked by the threads.
The ring around the flagpole marks the height of the walls before the Union bombardment leveled it (obviously after the Confederates had seized it).
There are cannon still in place.
And a great view from atop the Battery.
The next day I headed home to TYG and our pets. It was a great trip — hopefully we’ll do another before too long.
After this post, our trip to Fort Sumter will be the last from last month’s Charleston vacation.
Downtown Charleston is a pleasant place to walk. And walk we did, about four miles total. They’ve definitely worked harder to preserve some of their older buildings than Durham has. Here’s the view as we left the Isle of Palms to drive there.
Then we wandered around, in between visiting the Slavery Museum.
We also found a place that made delicious crepes, including some vegan ones.
I was exhausted by the end of the walk, but it was still worth it.
I still haven’t uploaded all the Charleston vacation photos so today you get to see the Pineapple Fountain we visited in a waterfront park. When it was built, being able to import and serve pineapples was a mark of wealth and Charleston was both a hub of trade and a wealthy city.
The fountain, with my sister wading in it. Birds did that too.
After a frustrating April, this week went well, despite taking time off Monday to visit Costco. With god knows what about to happen to our economy due to the Toddler’s stupid Iran war, TYG and I figured picking up some bulk supplies now might be wise.
I wrote 6,000 words on the current draft of Let No Man Put Asunder, despite the fact I’m having to change a lot more of the book. As I realized last month, Mandy’s character arc isn’t strong enough. I’ve added a couple of scenes this section that will help with that; hopefully more will come to mind as I move forward. However I also realized I cut out some scenes where she realizes whatever magical transformation she’s undergone is compelling her to quit smoking, something she’s not happy about. It simply looks like halfway through the book she stopped lighting up. I’ll have to go back and fix that.
I rewrote the short story Honey on the Grave and it looks good. I’m reading for the writing group next week; we’ll see what they make of it. If it’s got problems I can’t see, they’ll spot them. I also reread Die and Let Live and started restructuring it so that it’s less of a talk and exposition fest. I haven’t actually written the changes — there’s places where I’ve no idea what to replace the exposition with — but diagnosing what needs to change is the first step. I also reread my short story Inherit the Howling Night (title very much a placeholder) and I want to work on that one next. It has substantial problems — no good ending, no idea of the lead character’s arc, protagonist is a writer and “struggling writer” is a character type that rarely works for me — however I’m starting to see fixes (character may become an actor instead).
I got some work done on The Savage Years and my cover is almost ready to go for Southern Discomfort. It’s just technical stuff like formatting to make it work on the Amazon paperback. I should have a release date soon and hopefully will have some copies in hand at ConGregate this summer. Details soon.
I also got my first article in at The Local Reporter in the new monthly format, a longish one on why Chapel Hill/Carrboro is looking at school closures.
Okay, technically these were wines I saw in Trader Joe’s so I doubt they’re coming from a Charleston vineyard. But I saw them while in Charleston and I’m too tired to post anything more creative.
All rights to label images remain with current holders.
No, this isn’t a political post, it’s more photos from my April Charleston vacation. Charleston did a booming business in slaves and we visited the Custom House — a government building alongside the old slave mart — and the town’s Slavery Museum. Here are some exhibits.
Along with those newspaper ads above, there was this auction announcement below.
And of course, some monuments.
Despite the memorials, I give Charleston credit for not softsoaping the ugliness of slavery in the museum exhibits.
After my long, arduous Amtrak ride, my bro picked me up and we arrived at our AirBnB in the Isle of Palms, a small coastal tourist town that reminded me so much of Destin.
The kettle was one I brought, a collapsible kettle TYG bought me for con trips. Good thing I brought it as I didn’t find one in the kitchen. Here’s a look at the outside of the building, with bonus bunny.
The Destin resemblance is that the Isle of Palms on the water, very touristy and many of the rental properties are much in the same style. There’s also a familiar style of tourist shop selling the usual tchotchkes.
Don’t get me wrong, it was a good place to stay. Harris Teeter and some restaurants within walking distance. And the beach. Black-headed gulls seemed to be the dominant gull species, unlike back in the Florida panhandle. Though it was surprisingly hard compared to Durham to find a place with vegetarian meals, let alone vegan for my bro.
Along with the black-headed gulls, they also had flamingos.
Sunday and Monday mornings I visited the beach in the early morning which was cool.
I came back from my Charleston trip refreshed and rested, ready to write. Only of course getting in at 7 Monday night, I limited Tuesday to blogging and attending to bills and such — I knew I wouldn’t be on top of anything more challenging
Wednesday and Thursday I got back into the swing of things. I sent off two stories, “All Happy Families” and “Mage’s Masquerade,” the first submissions since a year ago. I started work on the Local Reporter story due at the end of the month. And I reread the 40 percent of Let No Man Put Asunder that I haven’t worked on yet. I wanted to refresh my mind about what came next so I could structure the story better.
As I thought, there are several characters, including the mercenaries Peacock and Mountebank, who drop out of the story. I’ll have to work them back in. I still need to strengthen Mandy’s character arc (also a problem I was aware of). The climax needs a massive reworking; fortunately I have the new climax already in mind. I’m also unsure whether to set this up as a duology, my original concept, or leave it reasonably standalone with options for a sequel.
I’d intended to start the next bit of rewriting today; didn’t happen. After several nights of rough sleep, I made up for it by oversleeping, which threw me off. A bigger problem is that while I’ve diagnosed the problems with the story, I haven’t figured out the remedy. I think my mind needs to process a little more. So today wasn’t as productive as I expected. Next week maybe — but I have a lot of Local Reporter work to do, and some household IRL duties. We’ll see.
(The warning sign is because the tea fields include cottonmouth, rattlers and coral snakes).
In other news, the dogs are over their digestive issues and in great shape. Trixie missed me while I was gone and was happy to have me back. Here’s a photo of my little angel and one of her toys to wrap up the week with.
Earlier this year, my sister Tracy proposed she, me and my brother Craig have a vacation somewhere. Craig and I agreed. After some discussion, we settled on Charleston SC for the destination. I didn’t want to drive — four hours when I don’t know where I’m going or what sort of traffic/intersections/merging I might be facing didn’t suit me at all. Flying would be at least $500 and that’s with 30 to 45 minutes to change planes in Charlotte NC. TYG suggested Amtrak, I said hmmm. Sure enough it would only be $160 round trip, leave around 10 AM, get in at 5PM.
Well before I boarded the train last Thursday, Amtrak had extended my stopover when I change trains to five hours, so I was now getting in around 10PM. Still better than flying, particularly with all the chaos lately. I showed up at the Raleigh station —
— where we learned the train would be delayed by a half-hour. Annoying but not a huge disaster; I’d still make my connection and what difference did it make which station I delayed at? The same held true as the delay grew and grew before we finally left a little before 1 PM. However the delays did make me frustrated.
We finally pulled in at Wilson NC, a sleepy little Southern town with a small, old-fashioned station.
According to a sign by the train tracks, Wilson is NC’s “first gigabit city.” Sleepy though it looks, it launched a city owned broadband network to provide residents with Internet access. Which is cool. That part of Wilson, though, was not that exciting to sit in for several hours. The drug store across the street was literally selling nothing but prescription and OTC drugs; the cafe was closed. I’d eaten a large breakfast and brought some snacks but by that point in the day, I wouldn’t have minded a small cafeteria. No such luck.
And then my second train got delayed too. And delayed. And delayed. Until finally we left 90 minutes late, with a corresponding impact on my arrival time. And riding a largely empty train in the pitch-black night is not much fun.
The ride back was smooth so I don’t think Amtrak’s become enshittified — perhaps I just caught them on a bad day? I did make it Charleston, regardless, and had a wonderful time. More photos to come.
