Headlights glimmer through approaching darkness. Another long day spent excavating editorial salt mines has finally ended. No more searching for the perfect word. No more restructuring of sentences. No more standing on my head to see if increased blood flow will improve my opening paragraph or clarify my ending.

Home.

Heavy sigh.

The door opens easily. Two massive black faces, complete with golden eyes and cold noses, appear from the shadows. Mouths open wide to reveal long canine teeth—wicked enough to terrify the uninitiated. Precious enough to melt my heart. Nothing quite like a smiling dog.

For a few moments I stand in the hallway, surrounded by a river of black fur: dogs and cats, cats and dogs. Everyone on four legs wants to know that their universe is safe. That somehow I am still in control.

It is a special time. A few seconds of heaven on earth.

Light pools from the bedroom and I hear a noise. My husband is home, probably working on his computer. It’s time to shrug off my editorial robes and don the persona of novelist. All thoughts of photo shoots and budgets and deadlines slip away as darkness shrouds the landscape and normal people sit hypnotized by the television.

Diet Coke in hand, I take my assigned seat and poise before my computer. Blank sheets of paper transform into scenes, then into chapters. If I hold still long enough, if I forget to eat and sleep, eventually it all turns into a book. A scary book.

Eventually . . .

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"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope."—Jeremiah 29:11.

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