Feels like Home

I returned home this week after about a month of off-and-on travel, and it felt so, so good to be back in New York, our little family reunited.

When my husband and I got married (11 years ago already – hard to believe), our wedding song was Feels Like Home by Bonnie Raitt. I love what home means. Home is more than curated wall galleries and a familiar cozy bed. Home is safe. Home is a welcoming space of love and light, no matter if pulls pepper the wool rug or if dents blemish the breakfast table. My dog's claws snagged that carpet fabric. My toddler banged his spoon against that wood furniture. They are our marks, perfect in their imperfectness. They're part of our home, and forever part of our memory bank.

Home is how I feel about writing. It's an action, and an art, but also a space within you, that gets imprinted with its own marks and memories over time. While right now I'm writing a serialized middle grade for Storybird called SOME PIG IN THE CITY (details here), it's been pitched & plotted, its path clear until it wraps up at the end of next month. Usually I have several projects going on at the same time, feeding off the creative freedom that fresh, shiny manuscripts can offer. But I'm taking a little break from free writing to refocus on reading and research. These little breathers from writing are good. They rejuvenate the inspiration well and teach subconscious lessons on craft and story and emotion. Sometimes writing is not writing, and that's the stage I'm in right now.

But the excitement is building within me for when I'm ready to take pen to page again. I have a little idea, but I don't know what to do with it yet. I want to protect it and listen to it. What type of story does this seed want to become? Can I honor that throughout the writing process, without getting caught up in what's selling and what everyone's reading and what if it's the dumbest thing ever and all that buzz in my ears. This little idea feels special. I want to find out its truth, and that's going to take a little time.

So right now, I'm reading about art and history, love and loss, across all genres, filling my spirit with the beauty that is words and story.

And when I'm ready to write again? I know that feeling, that rush. It'll feel like coming home. That space where I'm supposed to be, and where I'll always come back to, even if I wander away for awhile.