1 Thing I'm Really Grateful For Here and Now

And How the Places We Live Leave Marks on Us as Writers

A winter walk in my neighborhood

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the places we live over the years impact us as storytellers.

Many years ago, as a teen and young adult, I kept diaries where I mostly wrote about things in my life that I was grateful for. I discovered early on that writing about what made me sad, mad, or anxious only intensified those feelings. So I mostly stuck to writing about positive things back then.

I'm not sure where that journal is now, probably tucked away in a box I have yet to unpack since our last move. Along with my little pink grade school friendship autograph book. Back then when we graduated we had all our friends write us little notes and sign their names. My college meal plan book is also stored in a box somewhere. (Don't ask why I saved that.)

This brings me to something I'm grateful for today, something I'd definitely note if I still kept a journal: finally settling into a neighborhood I really love. Here, I can enjoy brisk walks on actual sidewalks along beautiful tree-lined roads, nature trails dotted with ponds, deer grazing outside my window, and chats with friendly neighbors. I've lived in other neighborhoods that I liked and that filled me with wonderful memories. Still, none brought the beauty and sense of serenity I feel here.

Deer grazing outside my home office window

Getting here, though…well, that’s coming next.

I can't count the number of times I've moved. OK, maybe I can. There was the time my folks decided to move from a rental and buy their first house on a busy city street. I was a baby so I don’t remember the actual move; I’m going on what I was told. We were there for a long time so I do remember all the noisy traffic roaring up and down our street. I also remember getting my first private bedroom that I didn’t have to share with my sister. And turning 13 and starting to think of boys as something other than nuisances.

Then came our "moving on up" moment when we left the city for the leafy suburbs. (By the way, people often teased that my dad looked like George Jefferson, and danced like him, too.) This was during the migration of the 1970s, when many urban families bought a second car and fled to greener pastures. Those years were filled with all the highs and lows, the angst and joy, of a normal teenage and young adult life like learning to drive, going through a rebellious streak, and going on my first real date.

After college came my first apartment (or two or three). When I later got married, we moved into the city house I’d lived in as a young girl, which my parents still owned; that’s the same house where I eventually got a divorce after only one year of a turbulent marriage.

My life changed dramatically during this time in that house. I also wrote my first novel there, Sisters and Lovers, signed my first multi-book deal, and quit the nine-to-five. I decided to get out of the noisy city and bought a house, in Northern Virginia near a lake. I married again, and we moved to six acres in Maryland with a stable, a creek, horses next door, and a beautiful white feral cat that came to our back patio each evening for a meal.

It was a nice lifestyle but probably suited my husband more than me. I found that too much isolation stifled the kind of imaginative thinking I needed to write my novels since they’re about people living and loving in metro areas. This is where my 10-year hiatus from writing began. I got into jewelry design and other artsy pursuits.

We eventually left that area, built a house, and then moved to... OK, I'm running out of breath. There were three more address changes before finally ending up here amongst the deer and trees.

I find myself reflecting on these locations often on walks through my current neighborhood. Here's what strikes me about all my moving around: every place we live leaves a mark on us as writers. Many of the places I lived in became settings in my novels. The DC neighborhood where my earlier marriage dissolved inspired my first novel, all about love and marriage gone wrong. My entire second novel Big Girls Don't Cry is set in that same city neighborhood, where I grew into my early teen years. The suburban houses motivated later stories, including one about suburban housewives, titled PG County. A recent suspense novel takes shape in an area similar to where I now live, full of woods, wildlife, and deep lakes, that get the devious side of my imagination going .

Our house in the country taught me that too much solitude dulls my sense of creativity and that I need to be around people and activity to feel inspired. The house where we are now, in a wooded area within a city, is the ideal blend for sparking my fancy.

How about you? As writers, we’re constantly drawing from our experiences, and the places we've called home are rich with material. Think about the places where you’ve lived.

• What memories do the places where you have lived hold? Do any of them stand out?
  

• What did they teach you about yourself or others?
  

• How have they influenced your perspective on life or love?
  

• Have any of them found their way into your stories? If so, how?

If you’re inspired to do so, feel free to share your memories here.

PS. Soon I’ll announce our next workshop, which starts in July. Hint: it’s all about developing meaningful, engaging characters for your stories.