Awake in the living room at 3:29 a.m. I'd hit the sack early last night (9:30), exhausted, then woke up 90 minutes ago and couldn't go back to sleep. I'm here in our rocker with a laptop. One leg rests on our wicker coffee table. The house feels cold, despite the fact we have the temp set at 21C (70F). It's September, it's Calgary.

So why the adrenalin surge? Oh, just change, I suppose. Yesterday I opened an e-mail from an editor with a 600-word assignment. It pays well and is something I'll enjoy. Surreal.

If I got such an assignment every day, well, I could write full-time. But that's not gonna happen anytime soon. Probably never. Still, it's interesting to contemplate.

I've had the sense with this new phase that in a way it's sort of just been happening to me. I answered an ad back in Toronto, idly, expecting no response, and behold, I got a response. I continued to communicate with that editor, always thinking, "Oh this will go nowhere in the end, surely," but it did go somewhere. My part in the process has simply been "putting one foot in front of the other," doing the next thing, praying hard and long at times because it all seemed so impossible.

Anyhow, to my surprise (could I even say, astonishment) things have continued to develop, and here I am, on the road to another uncertain destination, continuing to put a foot in front of the other.

But with a twinkling of hope that wasn't there before...