"Living the dream, Kim George."

That’s what my friend Nick Vu says. He has been saying it for some time, and it has seeped into my imagination.

There are lovely moments when I feel like I really am "living the dream," like today when I was kicking leaves and meandering around Harvard Square. I then managed to navigate the 1.5 hour walk back to my home-away-from-home adorable Boston apartment, where I will be living and writing for the next several weeks. I could have taken the subway, but it was a perfect 70 degrees and there were too many things I wanted to notice along the way, like ivy-covered brick buildings and old bridges and, alas, cute men in sweater vests reading along the side of the river.

But tonight, my adrenaline for life has ceased and I just feel those lingering doubts and fears about what it will mean to attempt to get so much written these next few weeks. I have been given an amazing gift—several weeks of space to just plunge into the story of my book. I plan to write in the mornings until early afternoon, and then explore Boston into the late afternoon, looking for the types of beautiful places that make me come alive. But, whenever I go on these writing retreats (and up to this point, they have only been 4 days long), I must transition through all the frustration of self-doubt and loneliness that seem to enter whenever I try to find my voice and really risk on something.

(I will try to do frequent and short updates on my blog, not because anyone needs to care what I am thinking about on a daily basis, but because it feels like I am reaching out to home, and I like that feeling.)