The puppies and I have a new bike! I have been missing my red bicycle since migrating to New York City last September and the puppies have been longing for a good run.

You can imagine how overjoyed I was to come home from work Friday to the sight of a proud husband and two dancing puppies standing around the yellow bicycle that would heal the heartbreak of having to leave good old Red behind.

The past two days have been spent being pulled around Sunnyside by two appreciative puppies. We also had our own private Oktoberfest yesterday and spent a lot of time sleeping during the first coziest fall evenings when you start to remember what you love about blankets and the feeling of warm feet next to you at night. Reading books in bed… sipping warm drinks.

There has also been book happening. Words pool in piles of 500 and I’m being less critical and more practical. A pile of 70,000 is bound to turn into something. Every page that I create at this moment is adding an interesting link to chapters already penned. Sections are sticking to each other in new ways, characters are being killed and created.

At the moment all of this happening to the sound of jazz with two sleeping puppies by my side and a husband making goodies in the kitchen.

Sunnyside really was what I needed for a minute. Moving four miles out of midtown has been enough of a change to build a refreshed writing fortress and still close enough to see skyscrapers of publishers I’ll be pitching to in the not so distant future. I feel focussed… it’s nearly odd.

I was distracted for a bit…