OK, so I’m a sucker for a good pun. Nevertheless, these three words sum it all up pretty well.

Here I am, and the ripe old age of … ok I’m not going to tell you but let’s just say it’s divisible by nine … and suddenly my life has taken a new turn. I am writing again.

It’s been a while. A long while. Twelve years? Thirteen? It was something I “put away” because I knew I wanted to focus on being a mom first. An admirable intention, sure.

But I think writing is either in your DNA or it’s not, and if it is, trying to be anything else is a little bit like attaching an empty balloon to the faucet and letting it drip. For a while, you’re fine. But pretty soon the balloon fills and fills and fills and then WHAM – off it goes and water sprays everywhere. It’s been like that lately… short stories spraying all over the room. I am even working on a novel, thanks to my incredibly wonderful and gifted oldest daughter dragging me to a NaNoWriMo meeting last fall. You can’t possibly sit in a room full of writerly people wriggling with anticipation to hit the keyboard and not catch the fever. Did I write a 50,000-word novel last November? Hell, no – are you crazy? (My daughter did!) But I started one. Wham, there went the balloon.

So, first and foremost still, I am a mom to five amazing kids. Since we homeschool, you could say we hang out a lot. Which is great, because truth is WAY stranger than fiction, and you can’t possibly be around five kids all day and not be a little nuts. Life around here is never boring, which in writer-speak means “this is ending up in my next story.”

And that novel? Maybe you’ll read it someday. Because I have no intention of putting that balloon back.