Turtles, Carbs and Gattica

 Got up at 4:45 for a morning meeting. That may sound early to you but back in LA, it was 7:45 and an 8:00 am meeting wasn't unreasonable. 

As the sky lightened, I greeted the day with a pot of hot Kona coffee and cream that I barely pass over the cup to achieve the perfect color of black on the side of brown. Meetings aside, I set to writing on the lanai as Lynn and JoJo headed out the door in the beat-up Maui Cruisermobile to exercise the little canine for the day, before it got hot.

Trying to make a routine of it, I forced myself to get on running clothes and head out through the neighborhood and down to the lower Honoapiilani Highway, past S Turn to Kahana where I remembered my days on Maui selling timeshare at the very corner where I stopped. Good times, good times. 

Back at S Turn, I removed my shoes and walked into the cool ocean to get my body temperature back to normal and hopefully assist my purple face from over-exertion to returning to a normal color for human faces. The day was cloudy, slightly breezy and the temp was much nicer than the day before for running. 

When I got back to Lynn's house, I was determined to get my friend in the ocean for the first time in over 18 months. Although she lives 2 blocks from the beach, she's been fearful of her fragility after chemo, surgeries, radiation, surgeries and then a year of not leaving the property. At the water's edge she saw a giant green sea turtle and I grabbed my mask, snorkel and fins to leave her fending for herself while I pursued the green sea turtle for a look-see. I ended up way out on the southern point, looking at a group of 5 sea turtles, some with large tumors on their necks and wondered what's happening in Hawaii to the turtles. When I got out, I asked my personal assistant (Siri) and found out that FP is common in green sea turtles. You don't want to know what FP stands for because the name uses every letter in the alphabet and you'll be no further ahead knowing. When I taught diving in Hawaii for 11 years, I saw plenty of turtles and never saw FP but it was concerning to see a turtle with tumors at S Turn. 

Two swims and a lie on the hot beach in the sun (that decided to show itself) later, Lynn and I found ourselves back at home napping. Hey, I was up at 4:45. 

I couldn't sleep maybe from all the Kona coffee and instead watched my saved/coveted 2nd episode of The Mosquito Coast with Justin Theroux. By the end of the episode I was wide awake (if  you've seen it, you'll know why) so I got up and started to make dinner. I'm trying to stay low carb because I recently lost 15 pounds of quaran weight and do not want that slab of fat back. I cheated with a little pineapple.

I made another salad and chicken accompanied by a baguette for Lynn. After Lynn and JoJo returned from their sunset walk, we ate on the lanai, watched the sun duck behind the horizon and went inside to watch a movie. Lynn's friend Bryant had suggested Gattica with Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurmin which was strange and wonderful to see them and Jude Law as young adults. I rolled into bed as soon as I saw THE END, passed out immediately and dreamed of rearranging furniture in a house to accommodate turning it into a preschool that included monkeys.

Such is my imagination. Three days until my birthday! Lynn and I plan to have some fun on Saturday!

More tomorrow!

KIM HORNSBY is a USA Today Bestselling Author of 15 novels as well as an award-winning screenwriter who has several movies in development with producers. She lives in the Seattle area where her office overlooks a tree-lined lake and has foot warming muses in the form of large, hairy rescue dogs.

Website: www.bit.ly/KimHornsby

 

Floating, Makawao & Salad Recipe!

 Today on Maui seemed three days long!

Woke at 5:30 and worked for hours, thinking how much nicer it is to watch the morning light creep into the night sky on Maui than Seattle. Feeling like I accomplished something, I took a break for an hour to go for a run and there is something so wonderful about running on Maui compared to a treadmill at home. My goal was a beach called S turns and there, I went in the ocean in my clothes (shoes off) to cool off. It was glorious. The ocean here is so wonderful and lovely and rejuvenating. I floated around in my running clothes feeling grateful for having the energy and health to run, then grateful to find the ocean for dip with no one around because it was still early. With shoes in hand, I walked back to Lynn's street, sitting on a grassy spot at the top of the street and put the shoes back on so I could run up the driveway looking like the athlete I am. Lynn was impressed, so my brag goal was met.

We made a brunch of salads, fruit, fresh bakery bread and sat on the lanai eating while JoJo stared at us with his puppy dog eyes because, well, he's a dog. I gave in and fed him from the table because Lynn told me that's his kuleana (his thing). Even though I picked out this little rescue dog several years ago for Lynn at an adopt, don't shop event at the Maui Mall, JoJo doesn't remember me and is scared shootless of me. He has no memory of his first night with us when I took him to a hula show and held him like a baby in my arms daring the cocktail waitress to kick us out for having a newly adopted rescue dog. She let us keep him.

After my run, I grabbed the car keys and took off north to Kapalua to do a little snorkel but at 11 am, the beaches were already packed and parking was non-existent. Where did all the people come from? I drove down the road to Napili Surf to find the next public beach access spot and snagged the last parking spot with Lynn's car that has dents and a door barely hanging off the chassis. It's fun to see people's reactions to this old KIA as I drive by because it honestly looks like the person driving is semi-blind and has been in lots of accidents. I feel like a proper badass.

I walked through the beach access to Napili Bay and never having snorkeled there before, I had little to compare it to but, after realizing I brought the wrong snorkel mask to Maui and did not have the one with the vision corrector diopter built in, I decided to give it a go and see how compromised my vision was with no vision correction. I snorkeled around the bay cursing Climate Change and the lack of live coral, then headed into the beach and back to the car. It was a Wham Bam Thank You Snorkel and soon I was showering at the house to get ready to head "upcountry" with Lynn to cruise the shops of Makawao. Leaving JoJo at home for a few hours, we drove through Lahaina and over to Kahului and upcountry to the cowboy town of Makawao. It used to be you could shop and actually afford a piece of jewelry or a piece of clothing in this quaint town but the price tags were around $300 for a linen top from Italy and browsing was mostly what we did. It rained and we ran between shops, laughing and talking, then back to the car and through Paia to West Maui. 

At home, JoJo had waited for his mommy and pulling up, the awesome twosome, (Lynn and JoJo) took off immediately for his sunset beach walk while I reported to the fridge to make us a salad and to take on Happy Hour alone. 90 minutes later, we ate on the lanai, got into a discussion on diversity in the film industry over some drinks with Lynn's friend Bryant, and eventually called it a day. A wonderful day.

 Here's the salad I made to go with my Michelob Ultra Spiked Seltzer (no carbs!)

Low Carb MAUI Salad

Romaine lettuce - 1 head

Tomato - from Lynn's garden

Celery - chopped

Carrot - stuck in upright (just kidding, chopped or shaved)

Parsley - Lynn's garden

Avocado - Lynn's tree

20 Toasted Almonds

10 chopped Mac Nuts

Shaved Parmesan - a lot1

Beechers Just Jack Cheese cubes - Bought at SeaTac airport

Broccoli

Snow Peas - Lynn's garden

Green Pepper - Lynn's garden

2 Hard Boiled Eggs

Bacon bits

Chicken - Costco Roast Chicken cut in cubes, sautéed in garlic butter and salt

Full Fat Creamy Caesar Dressing with low carbs

KIM HORNSBY is a USA Today Bestselling Author of 15 novels as well as an award-winning screenwriter who has several movies in development with producers. She lives in the Seattle area where her office overlooks a tree-lined lake and has foot warming muses in the form of large, hairy rescue dogs.

Website: www.bit.ly/KimHornsby

Getting to Maui during Covid

 Aloha!

If you follow my blog, you might know that I write blogs from Maui every year when I visit.

Last year was a pass because the week I was to fly, we got the Stay At Home order and I took that to heart, being  a rule follower and a good citizen.

I had a free ticket to use before June so as soon as I was vaccinated and past the 2 week mark, I booked the flight and told my best friend Lynn to expect a visitor. She's been on furlough from her hotel job and gardening for a year and boy does her yard reflect the 380 days she's spent there! Yowza. And like loads of us, her little poi rescue dog has gotten so needy and clingy!

To enter Hawaii these days, you need a negative COVID test done 72 hours before departure. That's 3 days for anyone  math challenged. If you want to get your test done at the airport, it's about $150. If you want to have the test done at your neighborhood lab, unless your doctor specifies you have symptoms, it's out of pocket for that same amount (in WA state.)

However, Walgreens does drive through testing for free and even though it took a few days to book an appointment in a town an hour away, I pulled up to the drive through on Sunday, was given a swab thing to do my own test,5 swirls inside my nostril, then sent my swab back through the chute and had negative results right after I arrived home. Then, I uploaded the lab results to Safe Travels as instructed by my airline. 

https://travel.hawaii.gov/#/welcome

I filled out the health questionnaire, got an email with a Q Code to use at the airport, to get my okie dokie wrist band to get on the plane and started packing. All checked in I got on the plane wearing 2 masks and reminded myself that everyone on the plane had had a COVID test in the last 72 hours except the small children who were maskless and several rows away.

 If you're planning on flying, be warned, masks are often worn below the nose by about 10% of the population traveling, even by one flight attendant who kept pulling it up over her nose as she served drinks. Blind faith, hope, and a month past the vaccine carried me to the Valley Isle where Lynn awaited in her Maui cruiser with her poi dog and off we went to Lahaina side to get groceries before we landed at her house in Kahana. As I said, her yard looks great, she has veggies growing everywhere as well as the papaya and plumeria, bananas, lemons and avocadoes. 

We talked almost non-stop until bedtime, even as we drove to Fleming Beach to walk the doggie who mostly meanders around sniffing, then back to the house for dinner on the lanai to watch the sun set. 

Talk continued like two friends who hadn't seen each other in a year, and carried on until 9 pm which was midnight for me) and off to bed we went. It was a joy to sleep with windows open and the cool Hawaiian trade wind floating through the bedroom. 

More from Maui later!

Aloha

KIM HORNSBY is a USA Today Bestselling Author of 15 novels as well as an award-winning screenwriter who has several movies in development with producers. She lives in the Seattle area where her office overlooks a tree-lined lake and has foot warming muses in the form of large, hairy rescue dogs.

Website: www.bit.ly/KimHornsby

The RomCom

 I taught a quick class last weekend on how to write the RomCom and ended up going over the 2 hour mark. There is a lot to say about how to write one of these movies, turns out!

However, I just discovered that all you need to know about RomComs is right here in this Tweet thread I just had with Aminah Hughes, another screenwriter on Twitter.

There was a joke going around in screenwriter twitter saying "Hello, I'm the gal on TV driving a car and don't need to look at the road for a full 10 seconds while I talk to my passenger," or "Hello, I'm the doctor in movies giving a shot who wastes half the shot by squirting the contents into the air first" etc.

Funny stuff.

I wrote one and it carried on for a bit with Aminah like this:

Me: Hello, I’m a woman in a RomCom who works at a failing but charming bookstore and I live in an adorably cute cottage in a nice neighborhood on $12 an hour.

Then Aminah Tweeted

Aminah: OMG I think I know you! Do you also ride an adorable old-fashioned bicycle with a basket on the front? I think you were in the first screenplay I wrote in film school! Hi!

Me: That's me I also have a kooky best friend who wears overalls and big glasses that slide down her nose

Aminah: Give her my love! And pass on my best to the grumpy old man with a heart of gold who owns the bookstore. I know how hard it'll be for you when he finally carks it & you have to fend for yourself in the big bad world outside the beautiful bookshop bubble.

Me: Especially because my parents are dead and I look to him as a parent

Aminah: At least his long lost son is coming home for a visit soon and you'll finally get to meet him. Heard he's grumpy like his dad. Probably won't like him at first.

Me: I already know I dislike him immensely because he wants to sell the bookstore! Dang, why is he so handsome?

Aminah: Stupid city slickers, coming into our lovely town with their ... big city ways! You'll soon show him who runs this bookstore! He so rude. Stop LOOKING at him over the top of that book!

Me: I can't help it! We once kissed, kinda by accident when his face got really close and I'd been crying and he was comforting me and it just happened And now I can't forget that his lips are soft!!!!

Aminah: You must remember that he wants to dishonor his father's legacy and take away the only place you've ever loved (and felt safe - remember, believing that you're capable of stepping out into the world & finding your own path is SCARY!)

Me: When I see his shoulders straining against that tight shirt when he puts books away on the quaint rolling ladder thing, I think I might just be able to convince him to give up the corporate job and move to Niceville.

Aminah: Especially when his hair accidentally gets messed up for a second and hangs over one eye.

Me: And when that puppy got lost and scared and he held it in his arms, I could almost forgive him calling me a "naïve small town temptress" at the Niceville Corn Roast and Charity Dance.

Aminah: I just hope he's gone by Christmas. I know how hard the holidays are for you without your parents. Be terrible if he got snowed in and had to stay...

Me: Oh I love Christmas. I hope he doesn’t spoil it for me. I'll probably end up hating him, then loving him and we'll get married and run the bookstore.

________________________________________________

So there you have it. 

A Twitter thread to get you started writing your own RomCom. Make sure you make some substitutions like the bookstore might be a hardware store and the Corn Roast is a Fish Fry, or Aminah and I will have to pursue legal action. Ha ha.

www.Twitter.com/KimHornsby

SCUBA Diving - Yes or No?

When I first thought about trying scuba diving, I had two emotions—terror and wonderment.

I’m an avid swimmer, lifeguarded during high school, but also saw the movie Jaws and didn’t go in fresh water lakes for years after that. Also, I’m a wee bit claustrophobic and wondered if the pressure of all that water on top of me would trigger something that made me want to rush to the surface for fresh air. Rushing up is a big no-no in diving.

Turned out, I loved it. And the feeling was the polar opposite to being closed in. I felt like I was flying. Slowly flying through a dense medium, but suspended and free from gravity and the need for feet to propel me forward.

My first dive off Nassau was spent trying to gain neutral buoyancy and keep up with the group because the instructor had given me too much weight to keep under, but the distraction of swimming alongside fish and floating through coral gardens was not lessened by pushing off the sand every few minutes.

I went on to dive off Maui on a vacation in my mid-twenties and loved it so much that I signed up to take my dive certification class over the next five days. It’s a crash course they offer in resort areas where you can cancel all other planned activities to stay wet for five days learning how to dive safely. I then went home (which was British Columbia, Canada) and took the courses needed to become a Dive Master. Diving in dark, frigid water was much different from the turquoise, clear waters of Hawaii but it made me a better diver. And gave me an appreciation of diving in a shorty wetsuit with no hood or legs!

Then, I quit my job and moved to Maui to take my instructor course and work as a dive instructor. I ended up certifying hundreds of students, making over five thousand dives in eleven years and loving almost every minute of it. I say almost because I did have some moments I could have done without like being on a sinking dive boat in the middle of the ocean, getting trapped inside a dark cave with a shark and having a student lose a finger when his wedding ring caught on the boat handrail and he jumped into the water. Even writing that last sentence makes me cringe.

I did see sharks down there, and they had no interest in me as another large sea creature. I swam with dolphins, saw Humpback whales, had an octopus suction on to my bare armpit, dove caverns, caves, went on night dives with an underwater light, and ran a successful business called Kimberley’s Scubadventures. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

In my bestselling book The Dream Jumper’s Promise, the hero is a dive instructor on Maui and has a fear of the ocean after her husband goes missing while surfing. She can’t teach or even go on her dive boat. When an old boyfriend shows up with a strange way to help, she must decide if she trusts him enough to allow him back in to her life. There are lots of diving scenes in the book and I’ve been told it’s quite thrilling to read them.

Write what you know, and I know diving.

Was it good to push past my fear of being under the water to try diving? Absolutely! It opened a whole new world to me and led me to the fantastic life I now lead, even if I only dive on vacation twice a year now like in these photos of me diving last year at the Cathedral Caverns off Lanai, Hawaii. Conquering fear is a wonderful way to feel good about yourself. And as I always say to my daughter who is very fearful of many things, “It’s not brave if you aren’t fearful in the first place.”

Do you have something on your bucket list you want to try but haven’t because of fear? 

Tell me…

 

Link for The Dream Jumper’s Promise – http://amzn.com/B00AA4FAJC

Kim’s Amazon Page – www.bit.ly/kimamzn

On Your Mark, Get Set, CHRISTMAS!

 Christmas Movies are Here

I love Christmas and I love Christmas movies and books. I write Christmas movies and books but I love to keep that magic going from Thanksgiving to New Years. Actually, as someone who writers Christmas stories, I keep the magic going all year.

Just since Nov 22nd, I've watched several Holiday movies including HOLIDATE (not sweet or without swearing, Netflix), LAST CHRISTMAS (sweet but modern take on dating Netflix) THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES (fun and magical, Netflix) and ELF (Classic and hilarious concept, Netflix).

I plan to fit in a few Hallmark Romances, The Polar Express, The Grinch, Jingle Jangle and maybe even Chronicles 2 soon. Something that Kurt Russell said in the first Chronicles stuck with me:

"People need Christmas to remind themselves how good they can be."

Christmas is a time where people dig deep for their best sides to give to others, be more tolerant, understanding and able to forgive. If you had magical Christmases as a child, it's only human nature to want to recreate that feeling of wonderment and joy again.

Through Christmas movies and Christmas books we stir those emotions again and become nostalgic for childhood innocence.

That's why Christmas stories are so popular.

I keep my novellas inexpensive so anyone who needs a Christmas boost can afford to find that nostalgia and entertainment without taking out a second mortgage to their home and my set of 4 novellas is cheaper if you buy in bulk!

Here you go to get you started this season:

The Set of 4 Christmas Romance Novellas $2.99 

Buy HERE

The Individual Novellas 99c

Christmas in Whistler (somewhat sexy)

Christmas in Crystal Creek (sweet)

Maui Kalikimaka (somewhat sexy)

The Christmas Challenge (sweet)

And Here's an Anthology I Belong to This Year with 8 Awesome Authors!!!

NEVER ENOUGH CHRISTMAS - Set of 8 Books by Bestselling Authors - 99c

Fill Your Kindle with uplifting stories this year for under $10!

KIM HORNSBY is a USA Today Bestselling Author of 15 novels as well as an award-winning screenwriter who has several movies in development with producers. She lives in the Seattle area where her office overlooks a tree-lined lake and has foot warming muses in the form of large, hairy rescue dogs.

Website: www.bit.ly/KimHornsby

Halloween Reading - Scary Lite!

MOODY & The GHOST is perfect Halloween Reading if you don't want Horror elements that will keep you awake at night worrying. 

When I started writing Moody, I gave myself permission to write 1st person, my favorite, from the viewpoint of a slightly snarky person. How wonderful is that? I'd written this quirky character in a book called Dream Come True about a ghost interfering in the lives of a family who lived next door and I liked the ghost hunter, Mrs. Moody, so much, I gave her a series of her own.

As a reward for all my hard work that year, I allowed myself to write purely for fun, to inject my sense of humor into the paragraphs and characters and to be as strange as I wanted. But first, I wrote the TV pilot. Why, you ask? I'd met a producer I thought was looking for content that could be shot in Oregon so I hurried to write the pilot to pitch to him. Turned out he was not looking for material after all, instead changing careers to real estate BUT I had the beginnings of a pretty good TV show. Then, I wrote the novella with the intention of making this a long series. A serialized series that continues. I didn't realize that readers have mixed views on cliffhangers at the end of books. Actually, many readers don't appreciate being left hanging, the way a TV show does at the end of the week's episode. Oops. I continued on, knowing if I priced the books low, readers might forgive me for leaving them hanging and having to buy the next book to see what happens next.

The TV pilot has gone on to win several awards, the latest of which was at the Austin Film Festival as a 2nd Rounder, something I'm very proud of. The script has had coverage, consultations and editing up the yin yang to be the final version it is this month. 

As for the books, they have a faithful following of readers who think Caspian Cortez is their book boyfriend and Bryndle Moody is their alter ego. I'm proud of the fact I introduced time travel and didn't end up going bats in the belfry nuts over the logistics. It wasn't easy keeping track of all the time travels and twists in the story arcs but according to my readers, I delivered and for that, I'm proud.

Moody & The Ghost books are written from the viewpoint of a 28-year-old woman who has gone blind in a car accident but finds she can see in the presence of a ghost. The spirit, Captain Caspian Cortez (named by one of my readers!) just happens to be a very handsome sea captain from the 1850's and as Bryndle Moody copes with his comings and goings and the life of a blind person, she gets in all kinds of sticky situations.

I like to say the tone of the story falls somewhere between The Haunting of Hills House and Scooby Doo, then add a romance like in the movie GHOST. There's a fun team of paranormal investigators led by Bryndle and they travel around in a van called the Marshmallow. But also, there's this amazing romance that comes to fruition in Book 3 that is doomed and conflicted and desperate.

It's Ghosts, Suspense, Time Travel, Humor, Romance and you even get a few Recipes with each book!

5 Books with a 6th on the Way

99 cents each. 

On KINDLE UNLIMITED for Free

eBook and PRINT

Kim's AMAZON LINK to Books: www.bit.ly/kimamzn

KIM HORNSBY is a USA Today Bestselling Author of 15 novels as well as an award-winning screenwriter who has several movies in development with producers. She lives in the Seattle area where her office overlooks a tree-lined lake and has foot warming muses in the form of large, hairy rescue dogs.

Website: www.bit.ly/KimHornsby