This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of one of my forgotten works: Inline Skating Made Easy. When people ask me to name my first book, I usually talk about Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth, my memoir about covering and competing in the legendary Raid Gauloises adventure race. But Surviving wasn't the first. Actually, Inline wasn't either. . . .
I'm riding the Eurostar as I write this, halfway between Paris and London. It has been a wild two weeks for Callie and myself, our first time back in Europe since Covid. It was also my first time in Paris since Taking Paris was released. . . .
A little secret here: I have forever harbored the quiet notion that my body of work would one day be important enough to require a scholarly archive. So ever since 1993 and the Sports Illustrated for Kids book Over the Edge, I have saved every hard copy revision of every manuscript I've ever written (with the exception of In-line Skating Made Easy, which I knew would one day require a great deal of explanation).
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….
