Each year the SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) has its Winter Conference. It’s in New York. How wonderful to go, to be there. New York is my home. Although I don’t live there anymore. I haven’t since 4yrs old.
Today I pine over a wish to be at the conference. But it’s okay. Really. The sunlight streams through the window blinds in my dining room. It’s comforting to see the strips of light fall across the wood floor. The family is home and we have plans to have pizza at Flatbread. Children can build their own pizza at the table and watch it bake in the big woodfire brick oven. It’s a neat, fun thing to do on a Saturday afternoon.
So if I were really the writer I aspire to be, I’d probably be at that conference today. One day I’ll go. But today I’ll finish reading Rebecca Steads Newbery book, “When You Reach Me,” and eat pizza. Not New York pizza, but that’s okay. It’s all good.
Just living life and gathering the tools needed to write the stories that will someday come from all these simple little experiences in everyday living.
Venessa Bellido Schwarz 
If you were at that conference though, you would be pining for flatbread pizza with your family, and the pretty warm light of your home. And I’m going to prove it to you in a couple of years when you are at that conference (you’ll probably be speaking, too).