Perfect Weather

This is the best time of the year in the Las Vegas Valley. Clear skies, temps in the 80's during the day, clear crisp nights in the 60's. It seems like we go from summer right into a one month autumn then on to our brief winter here in the desert. April and October, the two most pleasant months out of the year.

Photo by R. Jones
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Sometimes I take the dog out for a walk while it's still dark. We explore a 2-mile radius from the house and often I have the camera with me. Sunrise over Henderson is beautiful most mornings and by the time I return to the studio I am all fired up to write or draw. I use the dog-walking time each day to plan my next plot moves in my books, try to define where the story is going, and generally just have to fill in the blanks when I sit down to the keyboard.

Right now, I am heavy into The Belt Loop (Book Three) and so far the working title is up in the air. I think the destruction of a couple of human colonies by the Varson will upset a lot of folks in the Colonial Navy and I look forward to writing the  pivotal chapters in this continuing story.

Unlike the Mojave Desert, the Loop and the Fringes are very dangerous places. People meet sudden death at every turn and sometimes the outcome of the battles do not favor the home team. There are no easy solutions to war. Violence begets more violence and each and every time mankind has tried to carve out another foothold in our vast universe, many don't make it home. We have seen this scenario repeated many times in the pageant of life here on the planet; here in our orbital skies; here in our oceans. Thousands of years from now, in my mind, these scenarios will often repeat. In an infinite numbers of universes, they will repeat an infinite number of times.