Yeah, it really is that random.

I love Fall. Actually i love all of the season except summer, but Fall is my favorite. And, surprisingly, it has nothing to do with pumpkin! I love the colors. Having grown up in Southern California, we didn't really get fall colors. We had green, and then we had dead. But up here, fall is stunning. There are neighborhoods with massive trees that change into the full fall color palette, and I love to drive through them, listening to the leaves crunch under my tires, feeling the brisk change in the simple feel of the air. That's another thing that I noticed up here; there is an absolute change in the way the atmosphere 'feels' when fall is slipping in. I'd always heard that 'fall was in the air' but never really understood it.I do now!

I'd love to be able to say that when I sat down to write my new book, David, Renewed, I chose to place it in fall because of -- reasons. That would be a bald faced lie. In the same way I knew A Reason to Believe would take place during winter, which is to say, I didn't. I knew it started Christmas Eve because that was just how the story came to me. I hope my stuff is character driven, and those characters wanted it to be snowy. And yes, I know that sounds weird. I've come to the place where I just accept that weirdness is an integral part of my makeup. I hear voices telling me stories. Nothing is ever as calculated as 'this book will be my FALL book'. Nope. David loves fall, therefore, fall it is.

David bought a lovely house in the neighborhood where he grew up because in his mind, it was the perfect place to spend fall. It said 'home' to him. The giant trees above were turning to the burnished shades of fall, he could visualize huge pots of burgundy and burnt red mums on the steps leading up to the porch, he could imagine a porch swing with cushions in earth tones, accented with bronze and orange. The colors of warmth. The colors of home.

If this book is about anything, it's about that feeling; the desire to find our home base, to find something, someONE who gives us that and to find our joy there, our peace there. We might fall in love with the sexy, but we stay for the belief that the person who catches our heart is our home. All of my characters are searching for that, ultimately. I had that, once. It was worth everything it took to get it. When I write my stories, my main characters are all looking for that. And once they find it, they're striving to believe they deserve it. If there's an over-arcing theme to what I write, I guess that's it. Finding that place where we just fit, and doing what we have to in order to hang on to it.