It’s funny how the smallest things signal a shift. Lartia burrowing beneath blankets. A breeze creeping through the windows before sunrise because we haven’t taken the air conditioner out yet. The way we’ve both started talking about “the apartment” like it’s something we’re building, not just living in.

I didn’t expect London to feel familiar. But I suppose love has a way of softening even the sharpest new corners.

Do I really need all this junk? Could I learn to live more simply? Can I let things go? If you let yourself sit with those questions long enough, you start to uncover something else entirely.

A few months ago I quietly began working on a manuscript for a true crime fiction novel. An idea struck, like a bolt of lightning, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger the longer I thought about it. As David Lynch might say, “an EXPLOSION went off in my mind!!” I had to pay attention to it—I had to give it life. But I have never written anything more than 10-15 pages, double-spaced—how the hell am I going to write a novel?