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Let’s talk about writer’s block.

First of all, I don’t get it. I can always write. What I can’t always do is plot, in fact I’m somewhat hopeless at plot, and am always amazed that my books emerge with any story at all.

But having arrived in Suffolk this week (with series 1-4 of The Wire in case walking on the beach or staring out the window didn’t offer sufficient diversion) I’m toodling along quite nicely, plot and all. The weather helps – not nearly sunny and warm enough to lie on the beach and pretend the vitamin D is therapeutic.  

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The full moon is on the wane, which means we've got an overabundance of stars here in Suffolk.  The constellations all look kind of wrong in England, due to something scientific like us being on a different longitude than you guys, which means that the moon wanes in a slightly different direction.  Not obvious that I had to beg to get out of astronomy in college, is it?

Anyway, this is what we see through the telescope up here on a clear night:

Yup, that's Jupiter and it's four moons.  I was pretty proud of knowing what they're called (Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa) until my husband mentioned casually that there are 59 more.  

This all fits into books in a kind of lateral way.  Having spent all of my life as the world's worst dilletante, the sort of person who knows a teensy bit about most things but nothing much about anything important, I was thrilled to discover that I could write fiction - possibly the only place my scraps of useless knowledge come in handy. 

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I'm here on the beach in Suffolk instead of in London because it's half-term in England -- an extra week's holiday three times a year that makes up for the fact that kids don't get off school until halfway through July.  My daughter (11) is here on sufferance, because if you go and buy an idyllic shack on a beach where your kid can play outside surrounded by nature all day, she'll only hate you for dragging her away from London where she can get on a bus and go to Starbucks with her friends.

Parenting is hell.

Never mind.  In my continual pursuit of my own private second childhood, I had a riding lesson yesterday.

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I'm staring out the window at the sea from my little blue house on the coast of East Anglia, which, for the uninitiated, is that big chunk of England located a couple of hours north of London consisting of Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Essex.

East Anglia is a moody, mysterious place with a long history of Anglo Saxon and Viking kings, Roman treasure trove (which occasionally turns up in someone's turnip field), and rare birds blown in from Scandinavia. Doctors used to have one of those politically incorrect chart notations that read NFN...or Normal For Norfolk, indicating that the patient had both eyes on the same side of the head, or was possibly related by birth to his/her spouse.

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Meg Rosoff is our guest blogger during the week of February 16th. If you have any questions for Meg Rosoff, add a comment to any of her posts.

Here is some more information about What I Was:

(Listen to a podcast with Meg Rosoff and check out the reading group guide for What I Was)

Finn was a beautiful orphan. H was a prep school misfit. On a September afternoon many years ago they met on a beach on the coast of England, near the ancient fisherman's hut Finn was squatting in with his woodstove, a case of books, a striped blanket and a cat. H insinuates his way into Finn's life-his blazing wood fires and fishing expeditions. Their friendship deepens, offering H the freedom and human connection that has always eluded him. But all too soon the idyll of their relationship is shaken by a heart-wrenching scandal.