First, why I will write:

I’ve always wanted to write an urban noir novel. Maybe is my Paul Auster obsession, maybe is the fact I insist on seeing cities and places as living things. Whatever the reason, I have always been drawn to writing not about a city, or something that happens in a city, but writing for a city.

There’s been a sequence stuck in my head for years. It’s a dream of what life could be. A small apartment on top of a bookstore. Full of plants and bookshelves. The smell of old wood. The window that looks to an irrelevant downtown street. The nearby market. The daily walks (weather permitting) to get flowers, groceries, to the park. It’s something that belongs maybe in the cover of a New Yorker magazine, and it is certainly not my life, but it is a life.

In that life, I write. Sitting at my tiny desk, by the window looking to the irrelevant street, with the fresh market flowers sitting in a vase… I write.

The Shape of Absent Things will be a serial story. Is that a term? Anyways. It will be posted here once a week (mental health permitting). There will be no possible re-writing, as once the chapter is posted, it belongs to you.

My hope is that you can fall in love with the characters. Or the plot. Or the city. At the very least, that you take mercy on my soul and share your thoughts with gentleness.

I don’t have it all figured out. This is brand new to me. The story will likely take shape as I go. It will be inevitably guided by your comments, my daily life, the price of coffee…

A friend recently said that believing in yourself is more than just standing in front of a mirror and saying “I believe in myself.” It is also choosing to be you, to do what feels right.

I am entirely unsure of how this will go. Of whether there will be a single reader. But, I have been writing fiction since I learned how to write. So, for the little girl that wrote her first once upon a time sitting on the living room floor, on a notebook she stole from her grandmother, here is:

The Shape of Absent Things.

(First part coming soon)