Hello Readers and Friends,

Something strange and lovely has happened in northern New Jersey this spring: we’re having spring-like weather! Instead of jumping straight from winter chill to days that feel like infernos, it’s actually spring: balmy, breezy, mild. Temps in the 60s. Cool evenings, sleeping with windows open. Days when I don’t dump a gallon of anti-frizz humidity control goop on my hair.

Hubby and I—novice empty-nesters—are eating on the patio, taking early evening walks without dripping (too much) sweat, leisurely shopping at farmer’s markets instead of grabbing quickly and bolting back to the air-conditioned car. Anyone who has lived in the Garden State knows it won’t last, and so it’s especially sweet.

These past precious weeks of true spring time have also lured me to stretch into a big new writing project. Which means I have an answer to the question that’s been following me since my first book, Starting With Goodbye, was published last year: “Are you writing another book?”

Now, finally, I can say I know what that book will be about—well, as much as any memoir author truly knows at the start of a manuscript. But more important, I’m excited to be getting back on the horse, so to speak (pun perhaps intended…).

That’s all I’ll say for now. That new book manuscript—now just a couple of dozen crappy-first-draft-brain-dump pages and a whole lot of hope—will take at least a year or so to write. That’s okay. Being underway matters. Perhaps what I needed was a rare moment—a true, extended, come-hither New Jersey spring—to give me a leg up into the writing saddle once again.

I hope you too have something to look forward to, that you’re in action on a project you love, that a true spring—in whatever form you need—is happening for you too.

Cheers,

Lisa Romeo