WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES

Hello friends,

Well, I've been sporadic at best with blogging this year. There have been a lot of life changes yes, but MOSTLY I have been absent because I have been writing - working on Return to Canterbury, the sequel to The Christmas Village. And I'm pleased to tell you that it is DONE, it is with the publisher, and it will be a BOOK by early December!

Last year at this time, RVPainter (hubby) and I were still living in our beloved Dreamcatcher motorhome:

Our Beloved Dreamcatcher Home

We had just arrived in Florida at Ft. Picken's State Park - one of our favorites on that journey. Take a look and you'll see why:

Fort Pickens State Park, Gulf Breeze, Florida

But those of you who followed along with us know that already we were debating coming off the road because ONE OF US, who shall remain nameless, needed a home base. Okay, IT WAS ME.

We came in off the road and settled here in Punta Gorda, Florida. Not a bad place to settle, huh?

Ponce de Leon Park, just down the street from us in Punta Gorda

The RV sold easily. I was able to immediately return to teaching yoga and also immediately started writing again. It was like everything fell into place to support our decision.

Honestly, the decision to stop RVing full time was heart wrenching - I kinda broke RVPainter's heart, but I also kinda broke my own. It was SO wonderful in so many ways, but in some really essential ways it didn't work for me as a full-time lifestyle. Despite my struggles, I look back on it as one of the best year's of my life! You remember all those photos from all those great places??? I mean, really, it was the adventure of a lifetime, to be treasured always.

Fast forward to now, and a book that I feared would never get written is DONE. I've seen the first cover sketch and it's so close to perfect - just a few tweaks and it will be. I am SO proud of Return to Canterbury. At first I didn't really want to write a sequel because

a) I didn't have a good story idea
AND
b) I was afraid I couldn't live up to the first book (you know how it can be with sequels!)

BUT THEN I got a good idea, the story started to flow and just took off. The next thing I knew, I was off on another rollicking roller coaster of an adventure with Jamie, Kelly and Christopher - three of my favorite people.

I feel like I did justice to The Christmas Village with an exciting plot, a few more surprises and just as much of an emotional tug. Return to Canterbury takes place at the Fourth of July, so we don't have the backdrop of Christmas this time around. One of the things I'm most proud of is creating a certain mood and evoking those same emotions without having Christmas to help me. I hope you will agree!

And for those of you who read The Christmas Village, you remember that teensy-weensy itsy-bitsy mystery we were left with at the end? Well, I promise you that Return to Canterbury will answer ALL your questions - and a few you didn't even have!

Well, that's enough for now. I'll be around more now that the book is done. Stay tuned for updates and the release date. And, I'll fill you in on our first year here in Punta Gorda and some of the wonderful things - besides this book - that have come about as a result of settling down here.

See you all soon - I've missed you!