John Muir said, “The mountains are calling and I must go.” Amen, brother. It’s high time I hit the trail. For me, that means returning to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We have a long history together, the mountains and I, as gnarled and magnificent as a Bristlecone Pine. The Sierra’s pull is so strong that sometimes as I sit down to write, memories flood through me and I have to sit down.

Unlike corporate coffee houses with their gleaming stainless and fishbowl walls of glass, my preferred writing place is dark and womb-like, a funky artistic hangout with arteries of extension cords snaking across the wood floors – lifelines for writers. I always bring my headphones when I go there because music makes all the difference.

It’s like so much magic, really, when the perfect article appears just when you need it and saves you from yourself. It was 4 a.m., and I had just clicked on my daily email from Brevity.com, a wonderful source of inspiration for authors. The featured article vibrated like neon on the page. “Why I’m Giving Up on Being Published,” by Woz Flint. I was hooked.

I inherited Mom’s poker face – that calm-in-the-storm mask that has served me well throughout my life. It’s foolproof except for the tiny twitch in the corner of my left cheek, evidence that inside my head, I’m a screaming jungle of emotions, a dark mass of self doubt entwined with the past.

Outside it’s a Portland drizzle, the perfect excuse for staying in my pajamas and working on a scene in my book. Today I’m working on the one in which Dad is gesticulating in the kitchen, informing my sister and me that a thief broke into our home while we were at school, leaving us “something very interesting, indeed.”

Last week I received a rejection slip that spiraled me into the fetal position, stealing my breath away. It had been such a great day with my students, and months since I had sent off that essay in question, the one about the death of my daughter – that I was caught in a gut response by the quick change of my mood. It made me nauseous. And then I remembered: