My creative mind has been overactive lately, and I’ve started a novel. An involuntary reaction to the political dis-ease and the natural disasters around the globe? I’m going with it, and Leap is going with me:

I started Leap Little Frog back in January 2008. Obama had just been elected. It was a hopeful time for me.

On a personal level, I was looking for work/life balance as a traveling musician. I started the blog to chronicle successes and frustrations at home and on the road. When our own little frog hit the scene, I started writing about parenting.

Throughout it all, I was gradually settling into my adopted home.

Since moving to Boston in 2001, I’ve experienced an attachment to place I’d never known as a kid.

For my first 17 years, I moved around a LOT. It wasn’t until college that I stayed put for a while. That’s why I sometimes say I’m “from Chicago,” since that was the longest I’d lived anywhere before now. The truth is, I’m from:

After I met and married Matt, we settled in Chicago for a while, spent a month in Siena, Italy, moved to Boulder, Colorado, and then moved to Somerville in 2001.. and up the hill to Medford in 2003.

Since the move to Medford, I’ve become part of a community. There are kitchen tables, playgrounds, hiking trails, and airport gates all around Boston neighborhoods that remind me of people, of weddings and funnels, of kids I’ve seen grow up.

If fire were headed our way and I had time, I’d pry the piece of floor that Vincent painted; or the tunes that Maeve and Flynn wrote when our son was born; or the detailed marker drawings of Gandalf, Bilbo, Sauramon, Harry and Hedwig, Ninja fighting koalas…

Home is where Hallowe’en–and the novel–is…

I still travel. Matt and Nigel and I have been on four continents together. But now I travel from Boston. From Medford, really.

And from my safe little lily pad in Medford, I’m writing a story that’s bigger than this blog. It’s a novel.

I did not ask to write a novel. I do not have time to write a novel. But these characters are distracting me. And I think I’ll be more productive if I give Agnes, Lucas, Malee, Elliot, and Mrs. Molly Murphy some attention.

Of course, these guys are loosely based on where I’ve been, what I’ve seen. But they’ve already taken me new places. Maybe I’ll (gasp) learn more about myself as I examine and develop their stories.

So the marathon begins, dear readers. And I hope you’ll leap with me, and stay tuned for news of the new project. I’ll share updates with you here, and with the Leap mailing list.

Thank you for your support and friendship,
Shannon, November 2017