' DEGA BOUND!!!

Gentlemen....START. YOUR. ENGINES!!!!

Can you hear the Vrrooooom?

I'm back from the races and can still hear it. LOL!

Was MIA from blogdom for a few days. Went to the NASCAR race in Talladega, Alabama.

Since my good friend Camy Tang informed me that ideal blog posts are 250 to 400 words, I'll keep these shorter from now on. LOL! I'll spread the info out.

Above are pics from the Mountain Dew Series Truck races.

I'm sorry to inform you that all the good wrecks happened as we left the park Sunday. LOL! Seriously, glad no one got hurt, but cars got crunched for sure. Disappointing for drivers.

We hope to be in Atlanta Motor Speedway at the end of the month.

Met some wonderful people while we were there. More info and pics in a different post. For now, suffice it to say we got to hang the entire weekend with some of the greatest people to walk the planet. Downhome kind of people who, once you meet them, you don't want to leave their presence.

Most were affiliated with the River band who does NASCAR entertainment. http://www.abandcalledriver.com/ and Bob's Party Bus folks. Fun weekend! Great music!

Took lots of notes while I was there and got several ideas for really unique character careers. In addition, for future sensory descriptions I had notecards. At the top of each, I'd written: "Sight", "Sound", "Touch", "Smell", etc. I filled out each of them. So when I go to write these stories, I'm not having to rely solely on my brain to recall it all. LOL!

I took copius pictures of the strangest things so I could get my scene and setting descriptions accurate and realistic. Took lots of notes and asked tons of questions.

If you write and go on vacation or a research trip, take notecards with you.

I kept them on me at all times as I walked around. I tried to be supersensitive to everything. Even down to what the red dirt looks like. (Do you know how hard that stuff is to get out from between your toes?)

Talladega has THE most wicked fire ants. Found out that sensory detail the hard way when one crawled in my dusty crock and couldn't get out. So it kept stinging me. That, or there were two in there. OUCH. Still hurts. Write down everything you sense, see, hear, smell, see, feel, touch, taste (like the mouthwaterint jumbalya our cajun friends served us. Needed a fire extinquisher when I breathed afterward though. LOL! GOOD food. Great people) even if you don't use it. Even nuances of their accents, I listened.

When one of my senses took something in, I'd write a description of it. Be intentional about it. If I didn't know what something was, I'd ask the people with us, or experts around me what that was. For example, the alcohol gasoline smell and why there are a team of rappellers gearing up before the race.

Tune in this week to find out more. I'll devote the time to talking about where some of my character and story ideas come from...because this weekend...after being around 400,000 people....I have some GREAT character ideas. GRIN!

No story ideas yet. On this future racing story, I'll have to know my characters first I guess.

Remember, I'm working on my PJ (Pararescue Jumper) series right now. I worked on the synopsis on the drive to Talladega, bowed out of Friday's concert and race to proofread, then polished it on the way back. I'll probably keep tweaking it until I get my critique partners' verdicts then mail it off.

I start researching books 6 months to five years before I begin writing them. Since I'm contracted and things may move a little quicker, it will probably be more like six months to a year before I switch gears (pun intended) and speed off with a new, non-military series.

We'll see what comes of it. Regardless, we had a BLAST this weekend.