LA in November is warm and sunny, though everyone here insists is it freezing cold.  As I write this in Pasadena, it is 75 degrees, which, let me emphasize, is NOT COLD, though it was chilly enough this morning to have to cover up with a blanket during the daily writing session on the porch.

LA in November is green and brown, much like LA in August.  When I left Portland last week, everything was yellow and orange and red, leaves covering streets and lawns and sidewalks, everything glistening in the rain.  There were still quite a few leaves left on the trees when I departed, and I'm hoping the trees are not completely bare when I return home mid-week.

LA in November features soft light and incredible Saturday night traffic jams that require the navigational skills of several people using the GPS on my Iphone.  You know traffic is bad when every major freeway reads red on the Google map.  I provided the phone only, no navigation, since the geography of LA is still such a vast mystery to moi.  Although, this trip the plane flew in to Burbank at a different angle, from the west, in such a way that I could see the whole of the city laid out before me–downtown, the west side, the ocean beyond.  Expansive views like that help to set my navigational map down here.  But not enough to dodge around major traffic jams.

LA in November is seeing friends and hearing about their screenwriting projects or television deals and making me thankful I'm a novelist.  Dealing with the publishing industry is difficult enough, but Hollywood is a whole other level of stress and angst.  (Now, if only I would hear back from the wonderful agent who is reading my manuscript and then I could truly crow about how great the publishing world is in comparison…..)

LA in November is attending a great weekend workshop on an energy clearing modality (more on that in a future post), hanging out with friends, eating Mexican food, and even better, amazing home cooking from a gourmet organic chef.  It is sleeping with ear plugs in so that the five cats who live here don't wake me up…and taking walks in Eaton Canyon...and spending lots and lots of time reading manuscripts.

But mostly LA in November is being grateful for friends, old and new, and the time to hang out with them. It is being grateful for the fact that I am a writer, and my work is transportable so that I can leave Portland in the dreary days of November and come down here for a break.   The writing life, I'm telling you, it is the best thing ever and damn am I glad that it is mine.