Taking Paris hits stores four weeks from today. I write this because it suddenly feels close and I want to remind myself that it's not tomorrow. Be patient. Twenty-eight days is a long time to wait for anything, including a Christmas-like event landing the first week in September. So I must remain calm, knowing that four Tuesdays from now will come when it comes. . . .
I am twelve days into what I am euphemistically calling a "vacation." This is not a research trip or a short getaway, but a planned and prolonged two months of getting my mojo back. In the thirty-plus years of my writing career I've never taken downtime, always motivated by this debt or that mortgage payment. . . .
Every couple weeks, Boston Marathon champion Des Linden sends me my training plan for this year's marathon. She is a generous coach, quick to respond to texts and extremely encouraging. There are wrinkles in the training I did not foresee, but those secrets are hers and not for me to share. Suffice to say there's variety in the work.
I turn 60 in a few weeks. Fifty leveled me, making me realize that I was definitely near or past the halfway mark of this life. I spent that day in my office, a little stunned. Couldn't write. Went to get a haircut. The barber asked if I wanted a beer, which is always a great thing for any barber to suggest….
It's been awhile since I wrote in this space, so I thought I'd pass along a little update over what I've been doing this past year. Last spring, just as Covid was beginning to look like a long term issue, I began working on the first book of my own in ten years. The title is TAKING PARIS. It's about World War II. I love it.
