It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas over here, by which I mean absolutely everything in this house has relocated itself, and Word Raccoon has commentary on every last twinkling light. The more color the better, she insists. If she could wrap the Dutch oven in garland, she absolutely would.

Speaking of Dutch ovens: I now understand why she made a giant pot of chili this afternoon. She clearly knew something I didn’t: I’ve decided to create a home-grown library writing retreat for myself over the next few days.

Nothing formal, just a handful of mornings tucked away at our local library with my laptop, my notes, and a couple of well-loved research books before the holidays swallow everything whole.

My hope is simply to reacquaint myself with the novel I’ve been missing, and to arrive at my upcoming winter writing retreat already warmed up and humming instead of trying to jump-start a cold engine. Been there, done that. No fun.

(Fingers crossed that the weather cooperates for that longer retreat. I haven’t begun planning for it just in case. But I did find last year’s checklists tucked away in an old notebook, so I’m not really behind.)

Okay, love, here’s the news: I received a piece of fabulous news I’m still absorbing.
My poetry manuscript, Intellectual Domme Energy, was named a semi-finalist in the Nine Syllables Press chapbook contest, which is connected to the Poetry Center at Smith College, I was informed in the kindest, most encouraging email. They told me to celebrate, and I am! 

So yes, I sat there blinking at my screen while Word Raccoon fanned me with a dishtowel. Out of hundreds of entries, mine rose that far. And because I once wrote a poem in conversation with Plath, the Smith connection felt like the universe slipping me a tiny, playful full-circle wink.

I’m stunned. Truly. And I wish I could hug all my people instantly.

We are grateful. We are in disbelief, Word Raccoon and I. 

We are…still writing.

Last night I was physically exhausted from a day of sorting, organizing, rearranging, decorating, no poetry in sight, and by the time I crawled into bed I was too tired to read, too tired to sleep, too tired even to watch another video of someone baking Christmas cut-outs. (Don’t judge me!) I just lay there staring at the ceiling, hovering in that limbo between rest and restlessness. 

And then Word Raccoon cleared her throat. “You could open the Notes app,” she said, “I smell poem crumbs. I’m hungry.”

Before I fell asleep, we had composed a small handful of poems together. It was infinitely better to drift into sleep buoyed by new words than by sugar-dusted videos of other people’s cookies.

Word Raccoon, for her part, is now beside herself with delight. She claims her writing shawl should be released from moth quarantine immediately so she can wear it “pinholes and all,” because it makes her feel literary and extremely cozy. 

She’s also threatening to rearrange the holiday décor while I’m distracted if I don’t take her along to the library tomorrow morning. I may return to a tree wearing earrings or a candy-cane wreath hung at a jaunty angle, but I’m afraid to take her with me. She’s perfect for poetry, but for a novel??

Anyhow, that’s the plan: a quiet little pre-retreat retreat at the library, away from the café’s tempting baked goods and the chatter that is sometimes comforting, but not just now. (Obviously there are those whose mere presence ushers in inspiration, but those are few and far between. I wish I could have a two-sided sign: Welcome, and Go Away.) 

Gee, that’s some Grade-A Herbertness right there. Shame on me. 

I hope this will let the novel find me again.

And maybe it already has.
Actually, I don’t think it ever left me. It has just been folded in the closet like a spare comforter, ready when I am.

I’m ready.

I think.