Something that Peruvians get used to is the all too frequent earthquakes (known as tremblors down here) that occur. In the first half of the year, Peru had over 200 earthquakes that registered with the people who keep track of such things. Of those, I felt four or five of them. Most take place away from Lima so the shaking is barely noticeable. Even the ones I felt weren’t frightening. Glasses rattled, the furniture barely moved, a rumble like approaching thunder came and went, and as far as I know, there was no damage or injuries. At least there were none here in Lima. This is interesting to me because I lived the majority of my life next to one of the larger fault lines in the US, the New Madrid Fault. In all those years, I only felt one earthquake. I guess the earth is a lot more active down here.
I have decided to take a step back from my second book. The storyline has become muddled in my brain. I need to kill off another character and I’m having trouble visualizing it. I want the killing to take place in conjunction with some other actions that take place at the same time and I can’t quite figure out how to make this flow well in a single chapter. In the meantime, I have pulled out my novella “The Suitcase Murders.” The book is a prequel to the first book. I wrote it to give me a better feeling for my main detective’s character. My friend Amanda went over it about six months ago with a fine tooth comb and has made suggestions for improving the story. I will work on incorporating some of those suggestions in the next couple of weeks. I hope that the concentration on another piece of work will free up that little block in my brain. I also need to add about another 500 words to finish up the novella.
I’ve been consistent in my workouts at the gym. Right now I’m going five days a week. Monday thru Thursday I alternate upper 
and lower body work outs that consist of 45 minutes of weights with cardio, another 45 minutes, for a total of 1½ hours each day. On Saturday I do full body and the cardio which gives me the 5 days a week. It’s rough but thanks to encouragement from Steve, I haven’t been slacking off.
I met with most of my friends this week. On Friday morning, Mark joined Larry and I for our weekly coffee and chat session. We talked a lot about economics, especially as it affects Peru and us as Expats in particular. But we also covered book read, my writing, Larry’s column and the terrible drought in the US. Afterwards I joined my friend Kano at Café Z for lunch. Recently, he helped a church group paint a school 
and translated for them in a poor area outside of Lima. He was very excited about it and gave me a lot of the details. It was nice of him to offer his services to them. I met Diego twice this week for coffee and critique, last Wednesday and again this morning. We discussed each other’s work and talked about how our weeks went. He’s a smart guy with an eastern philosophical leaning so it’s always interesting to hear his perspective on things. My friend Kathy is still absent although I think she might have made a trip to Tumbez this past week. I hope she’s OK. I enjoyed cocktails on the patio with Mona and Kelly again this week. You gotta love Facetime and the ease of international communication these days.
That’s it for this posting. I hope it finds all of you doing well. Get active, get creative, you’ll be amazed at how much your life will be improved.
Tags: coffee, earthquake, friends, gym, writing