Writing novels is surely the most portable career there is. The office cube farm is handily located right between my ears. Tools of the trade fit in the pocket of my oversize Rails hoodie–a Clairefontaine notebook, a fountain pen filled with peacock-blue ink, a phone and an iPod.

The commute? My usual route is from the couch to the computer, and the only traffic I encounter is a sleeping dog or a husband heading out for the day.

When you’re this portable, you have the ability to live anywhere you want. So why not pick the place that feels most like home in the world? The photo shows the view from my house.

Our "anywhere," as it turns out, is an island in Puget Sound, Washington–a chunky green dot on the map, located a ferry commute away from downtown Seattle. The population is eclectic. At the farmer’s market in high summer, you might run into a poet, a painter, a lawyer, a Hollywood actor, a gardener, or someone living off the grid in a boat. The main street is filled with seductive shops purveying homemade ice cream, designer clothing, original art, bestselling books, gorgeous yarns and fabrics, outdoor gear, hand-made pasta...and on every street corner is a coffee shop, the perfect place to gather with friends. Pegasus Coffee is roasted on the island and is served in a historic, ivy-covered waterfront building, where you’re likely to encounter one of our many local authors, hunched over a notebook, lost in a story.

Less than half a mile down the beach from my home is a favorite spot–the historic Lynwood movie theater, which has been in continuous operation since 1936. It’s the perfect spot to catch an indie film, and then head next door for a glass of wine at the Treehouse Café.

The landscape here is dreamlike, with the mountains seeming to float up from the water and towering trees dipping their graceful branches to the ever-damp forest floor. The sky is a changing panorama of shifting fog, brilliant blue, brooding clouds and rain squalls occasionally split by the unexpected arch of a rainbow.

When I’m working, I spend at least half my time staring off into the distance. Although hard-pressed to explain the process to my family, this is when the real "heavy lifting" of fiction writing takes place. Living here gives me no end of things to stare at while my imagination takes flight. From any window of my house, I can see a blue, busy waterway filled with sailboats, ferries and Navy vessels. In the distance is the island’s piece de resistance–a dead-on view of Mount Rainier, painted pink by the dawn, or sky blue in the afternoon sun, or deepest amber at sunset. It’s probably no accident that some of my novels have titles like Just Breathe or The Ocean Between Us, expressing themes of love, family, connection and peace.

Readers often ask where ideas come from. My answer is that I find them on the beach or in the forest, picking up storylines and plot twists like colorful bits of seaglass on the beach, or pinecones in the woods. Because when I’m not staring into space, I’m putting on my Bogs boots and heading out, either afoot or on my bicycle, kicking my brain in gear with a brisk walk or ride. The key to a character might be found while poking around in the wrack line along the beach. I might figure out a book’s resolution while tromping with Barkis past 200-foot Douglas firs and majestic cedars.

People will warn you about the dreary winters here. They’ll tell you it rains all the time and gets dark at four in the afternoon. They’ll regale you with stories about slugs the size of Volkswagens and bathtub mould with the half life of uranium.

For me, the dark, damp season is essential. Our summers are an intoxicating riot of sunshine, when the temptation to play hooky is impossible to resist. Ah, but the winters–that’s the time for books to be born.

When the rain comes and the sun refuses to show its face, I make a fire and a cup of lavender-scented Earl Grey tea, put up my feet and get busy writing. Again–no accident that my first #1 bestseller was called Fireside. I haven’t yet found a use for the slugs and bathtub mould, but the rest of it is working well for me.