I was supposed to be working on 'The Weekenders,' but I was blocked. I got this crazy idea that I would make Christmas stockings out of blankets.
The best way to heal a broken heart, it turns out, is to find a way to move past the hurt.
My perfect beach town isn't a fancy resort or glitzy planned community. It's a place with a hometown grocery that has decent meat, seafood, and a deli; a couple of ice cream shops; and a handful of good restaurants - where the island-wide dress code is 'no shoes, no shirt, no problem.'
Modern love - in the movies and music - especially country music - is full of tales of women exacting sweet revenge on the men who done them wrong.
As a hopeless romantic, I'm drawn to stories of improbable beginnings.
My ideal beach house has bookshelves full of paperbacks that can tolerate a little sand, a DVD library that includes some Disney classics for the little ones, board games, and jigsaw puzzles. At least one big flatscreen television is a must.
On my first trip to New York in the 1980s, the first place I wanted to visit was the Plaza Hotel, home to Kay Thompson's Eloise.
The story of my holiday decorating is if Ralph Lauren was trapped in a 1950s Woolworth, this is what it would look like.
For years, I swore I couldn't work out because my own sweat gave me a rash.
Slipcovers are great because they can be laundered after those all-too-frequent sippy cup and red wine incidents.
Between planning family vacations and running away for novel-writing retreats, I've spent much of my adult life questing for the perfect beach escape, renting cottages all along the Florida Gulf and up and down the Atlantic Coast - as far north as Nags Head, as far south as Key West.
I'm house obsessed, a house voyeur. Always have been.
