I’m writing this from the second floor of a mansion. There are wooden balustrades all around me, dark wood beams across the ceiling, and stained glass behind me. This is Aberthau House, a manor-turned-community-center. It’s five minutes from my house, where I’ve lived for eight years, but I came for the first time last week.

Because — glory, halleluiah — I have both kids signed up for activities AT THE SAME TIME! You would think this sort of thing would happen naturally, but no. It basically takes a miracle to find two classes for two age groups that begin in the same place at the same time. That miracle has occurred, though, and I now have an entire hour to sit on this plush couch in a bay window and write.

There’s only one problem… I’m supposed to be writing contemporary YA, and in this place, I feel as if I should be writing a Victorian romance.

If you one day see words like “perchance” and “visage” in a novel of mine, you’ll know why.