I’m going away for a week to a space that I absolutely love. My grandparents own a lake house in upstate New York on a small lake not far from Lake George. It’s one of my favorite places in the world. It’s become more and more important to me as I get older.
For one, it’s the place my father died. He passed away in 2012 a few days before Christmas, and he died up there in the place he loved most. It’s a beautiful place. Not big, but cozy and full of family memories of birthdays, 4th of July celebrations, summers spent lying out on the dock or in the boats. And catching frogs to show my grandmother who was far less excited about them than I was.
One of my favorite things about the cottage is that there’s no cell phone service, no internet, and no television. I know for a lot of folks that sounds like a nightmare, but for me? For me it’s freedom.
That’s not to say I don’t love the internet. I do. It’s where I met my husband and many of my dearest friends. But I’m also old enough to remember a time before the internet was a thing we could spend much time on because we paid for AOL usage by the hour, and being online meant nobody could make phone calls. I got my first cell phone in high school, and texting was relatively foreign. Every text cost minutes of talk time. Having a phone is important to me; it’s my calendar, my brain, and a window to other worlds. But even then, there are times when it’s a lot.
The 24hr news cycle is a lot. Constant headlines and notifications is overwhelming, and with my ADHD it’s a constant threat to my focus because any notification can cause me to pause and throw me out of whatever I was doing and straight down the rabbit hole.
So for me? This cottage out in the middle of nowhere on a lake without the constant updates is paradise. There’s a land line if we need to make a call, or we can drive into town if we have to, but usually we don’t.
This space and this time is sacred to me, and it’s where I get the majority of my writing done. And I am very much looking forward to using that time and space to get more work done on book three of the Boston Blight series written. Book two is almost done with its edits, which is exciting. We’re making great progress on it, and the cover looks amazing. I’m looking forward to releasing it this coming winter!
