By the Sea

I'm spending my last morning on Bailey Island drinking my coffee to the sound of the lobster boats heading off to work.

It's been a great writing week. In my editorial letter, my editor had suggested I might remove a whole thread of my new novel. I'm always willing to try something, so I thought I would give that a few chapters and see what I thought. My plan was to reconnect with the novel and redraft the first five chapters. But I've done eleven chapters this week, so I'm really pleased with that amount and how it's gone.

Between work, I've just enjoyed being here. Bailey Island isn't more than half an hour from where I live, but it feels like a world away.

When I was arranging this week, I thought about renting a place in New Hampshire, since that's the setting for this book. But having a son with autism, a week is a long time and it's easier to have a place near home so I can go home a few times and keep life a little more normal for him and the rest of my family.

You can see Mt. Washington in New Hampshire from the Coast of Maine on a clear day, but usually it's a ghostly outline. Friday night was crystal clear, though, and with the sun setting behind it, it was as sharp as could be..