Okay, everyone who knows me, stop sniggering now. They all know I haven’t done housework in decades – at least not willingly. Not that I was ever very good at it. It helps to marry the perfect man. And as for cooking – when my children bring their children to my home someday for their favorite childhood meal, little Happy Meal boxes will circle the table. I know it. I have a lovely kitchen because it came with the house.

But it’s because I have no passion for it.

It all just has to be done again tomorrow or next weekend. I get rid of the dust but it just comes back. The clean clothes get dirty again and carpet needs vacuuming. I’ll cook whatever you want (I actually can cook – but don’t ask me to decide what to make), but the meal will be over and the next one is coming. The dishes still have to be washed.

But writing . . . I’m creating something that will last. I can read it over and over again. I can write it and put in some little thing that bring a fictional person or place to life. And others will read it and maybe they’ll remember a line or a character and then it’s real and part of their lives forever too. What I write can put a picture in someone’s head and they can follow me. Maybe their picture isn’t exactly like mine, but that’s okay, they’re still seeing something I created in their own way.

I can still remember reading about Trixie Belden’s little house down the road from Honey’s mansion and the fun they had with Jim and Trixie’s brothers. No one better try to tell me that Hogwarts isn’t real or there are no Ents. Now I can be part of the magic.

Now that makes me passionate.