Laura and I were working yesterday afternoon at a table in my family room. (We are almost finished with the first draft of the Santa Diaries movie script.) At one point Laura looked up from her computer and said, “I’m really into this Christmas stuff. I just got a whiff of pine and some cinnamon, like Christmas cookies.”

I told her she was delusional and having an MSG reaction, enjoying the puzzled look on her face before I suggested she look behind her. There was the pine candle I’d lit in the kitchen after cooking shrimp for dinner. The cinnamon? I’d also baked cookies that morning for a Community Garden get together on Sunday.

The notion that we could be so into writing that we could smell the setting was kind of inspirational. It also made me glad we don’t write stories with lots of blood and decomposing bodies.