I NEED TO WRITE TO BE HAPPY. —NORA ROBERTS

I’m at an odd crossroads. I have a whole lot going on, while a lot of nothing is happening. We have moved into our new home and have been busy scouring, repairing and painting. In between that hard core, get down on your knees or up on a ladder kinda work, we run to and fro between the various communities in our area, filling in the “holes” we see in the house. We have ordered closet systems and interior shutters, have purchased a new central vacuum system and bought a new King bed. We have dealt with the mundane but necessary: septic pumping, new hot water heater, repair on dishwasher.

We are settling down in paradise. I kid you not. I exaggerate not one bit. I step out onto the balcony—doves coo and hawks circle the back farmer’s field while horses frolic in the distance. The mountain sits quietly, majestic and beneficent, warming me with its presence. The pastoral land between my backyard and the ocean that endlessly beckons is calming, balm to my ravaged soul. For, at the moment that is what it is, ravaged. (Keep in mind, I do have a flare for drama.J)

I love my life. I hate my life. Well, perhaps hate is too strong a word. I am disgruntled, unhappy that it is all work and no play. We have moved to this spectacular province and the only thing I know, about the area I live, is the location of the nearest Home Depot or Costco. While I am not anxious to play tourist, it would be nice to see something beyond the hardware stores.

More defeating than that is the fact that we still have no furniture. I have nowhere to sit comfortably and write. And I crave writing. I am positively antsy and, if you speak with DH he will verify, downright cranky about the whole not-conducive-to-writing environment. Writing is who I am, it is what I need. It is right up there with eat well and exercise. It makes me healthy and whole. So, I can hardly wait until everything arrives and I can unpack and get back to the business of being me…which is writing.

Having said that, a ray shone over my frustrations this week. An agent read the first thirty pages of Raven’s Path and requested the full manuscript. I am not naïve enough to think that this leads to a happy-ever-after agent/writer contract, but I cannot tell you how heartening it was to get her email in the midst of my present turmoil.

It helped to remind me of part of the reason I moved out here: to shake up my life, to try something new, to sit on the couch and drink in the vista as I write…and write…and write.