July 11, 2005
I'm back! Yes, I spent a week at Disney World, where it was extremely hot, high 90s with 90%+ humidity, heat index about 110 degree or more, the weather station saying the UV index every day was "extreme." Had fun anyway, dspite a 2-hour flight delay Saturday due to a bit of spin-off from Hurricane Dennis.

And I'm back to work. Or trying to get back to work. I've managed to snag a couple magazine article assignments, dug my way out of about 200 (no joke) e-mails, and started working on the re-write of The Serpent's Kiss that's due September 1.

But I'm definitely not in a groove. It all seems uphill. Or is it all downhill from a vacation? I can't decide. I love writing, being a fulltime freelancer, and have looked forward to working every day since I started fulltiming it 9 months ago. Still, we had a great vacation and I wasn't eager to get back to work. Writing's still a job, and I wonder from time to time what--or if--I would continue to write if some long-lost billionaire relative died and left me a tidy fortune. Probably fiction. Or maybe not. Maybe I'd just take up residence somewhere with a water view and a laptop to monitor my investments, spending my time learning to play the guitar, studying karate, working out and enjoying the so-called life of leisure.

It reminds me of something from the late Ross Thomas's "Voodoo, Ltd" about a guy who inherited a billion or so from a family newspaper business, moved to Las Angeles and said, "I'm a movie producer," and everybody said, "With a couple billion dollars, you're right, you're a movie producer."

Ah well. Back to work.

Best,
Mark Terry