Portland Head Light, taken yesterday by my husband, John

I love November. The pale light, the bare branches, the frost edging the leaves on the ground, It's a slow turn, a transition between the showy leaves of October and the busy-ness of December. I feel like I'm in my own November as a writer, too.  My own slow turn from one book to another.

This morning I'm drinking my coffee with Milo asleep on my lap, like he always does.  Eventually my foot will start falling asleep from his little 7 pounds of weight, and I'll put him down.  But there's something peaceful and trusting about how he wants to start his day with his face tucked into the crook of my arm. 

In a couple hours, I'll pack up the car and head to the airport for a One Book/One School Read for Rules tomorrow in Owensboro, Kentucky. I've never been to Kentucky, and Rules won the Bluegrass Award in 2008. So it'll be a nice chance to acknowledge that and say thank you.  

This has been a busy year. I went from one book to three books.  I told John last night that I felt like a real author now.  It's a relief and a joy to have Touch Blue simply be another of my books, and not my brand-new book anymore.  The transition of a new release is exciting, but I love when it's done. That's when the book really feels mine. 

Every book I've done has stretched me in new directions, and the events I've done have changed me.  It's one of the reasons I love writing.

    

Rachel Field was absolutely right--I'm not the same from writing Touch Blue, the events I've done for it, and the islands I've slept on.  I added my little Nantucket mermaid next to the sign yesterday.  Somehow the contrast of the November bareness and waning sun out the window feels right with all those beach things for letting this book go. I love the winter ocean.  It's just as beautiful, and there are no distractions like there are in summer--it's just you and the water.    

A friend on Facebook told me Touch Blue was in Adoptive Families magazine this month and it made the New England Children's Booksellers Advisory Council Top Ten for Fall.  So it's finding its own quiet little way without me now--skipping along in the wake of its popular older sister.  One thing it's shown me is that books don't have to be equal to matter, and I'm ready to enjoy all three books now.

And I'm excited to return to my new novel next month and looking ahead to the release of  Happy Birthday, Hamster next August.  I'm anxious to see what changes each of those books bring me.  

I'm sure they will.