By Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith | LA Daily News

Emmy-winning "Everybody Loves Raymond" actress Patricia Heaton says she's in the midst of planning her return to episodic television - but it won't be anytime soon.

"I have a development deal with ABC, so I've been kind of tossing around ideas with some writers to think about what I want to do next," she says. "I'd love to do another sitcom, but it's tricky when it's multiple cameras, and that's the only type of regular work that I can have in my life and still be a mother to my (four) boys. Maybe in a year or so I'll be ready to go back. I'm actually kind of enjoying taking a break."

The actress, who has the Four Boys Films production company with her British husband David Hunt, says, "Of course I haven't stopped since we finished 'Raymond,' but my focus isn't so split all the time."

She says there are two projects upcoming from Four Boys Films. "My husband directed a documentary called 'The Bituminous Cool Queens of Pennsylvania.' Bituminous is soft coal, and we followed a friend of mine back for the 50th anniversary of the Bituminous Coal Pageant. My friend was the Coal Queen back in 1972. It's Dave's homage to small-town America."

As for the second project, she says, "We're producing a movie with Walden Media called 'Amazing Grace' about William Wilberforce. He was the Abraham Lincoln of England, and it's about his life involved with the slave trade there. Michael Apted is directing it, and it's got Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon, Ioan Gruffudd and Albert Finney, so it's a wonderful cast."