The check actually was in the mail!

August 11th, 2005

Most days I'm not too enthused about checking the mail. You know, there's usually just junk mail, bills, account statements, etc. Occassionally things are spiced up by the arrival of one of my writing magazines, but I'm behind on reading those lately. So most days, the arrival of a mailman isn't all that exciting. But today -- today was a great day for getting things in the mail. Not just the ordinary snail mail, either. My wife called me at work, the mail today was so good.

My new monitor and speakers arrived via Fed-Ex, a day before I expected them (the monitor and speakers that saw me through seminary and most of my first three years here gave up the ghost a few days ago). And they are terrific. So far, this Hyundai monitor is everything I could have hoped for. But I was more excited by what came in the email.

The editor of BackHome Magazine replied to my email, and told me that I should have received my complimentary copies of the September/October issue by now; my article is in it, and it's gone to press! My first paying writing gig! I haven't got the contributor copies yet, but I expect them anytime.

But you may have noticed that I said "paying." That's right, the actual check came in the paper mail today. It's not a lot; they're not a huge magazine with a million subscribers or anything, but I'm still excited about it. We're going out to dinner to celebrate (and yes, the check is more than enough to pay for dinner for us.) I'll post the link somewhere around here when the magazine's website is updated to the new issue. But link or no link, I'm celebrating tonight. And I might even look forward to getting the mail for a little while. Well, maybe not. But today was nice.