Yes and no. Yes, in that it's always a chore to start a new book ... you look at the screen as if it were a blank sheet of paper, and you feel this yawning sensation in the pit of the belly. You know exactly how much work will go into this project. It represents 100 - 200 hours of your life, and these are lonely hours: no one can share them with you, and they make your back, hands and eyes ache. I guess there's a certain element of masochism in there! Then your fingertips start to itch, those characters start to knock at your skull again, trying to get out, and you just start somewhere. For me, the first step is the story, in copious notes. Without a plot tied down, I never write; and if I can't nail down the plot, I put the work on the side- or back burner till I manage to make it resolve. With stories as complex as NARC and HELLGATE, it's easy to slither back into those worlds, because they're drawn in great detail and they're etched into my mind in technicolor. I can tell you more about Venice, on Darwin's World, and the Outdistricts of Rethan, than I can tell you about parts of this country, for instance (which is to say, there's a lot of places I've only seen in magazines or on TV. I know they exist, can find them on a map, but they're snapshots among my gray cells, not movies). Picking up the threads of NARC and HELLGATE, I usually re-read whatever was the last book, and then just start again. Mind you, I have to check back to earlier sources, to keep the details right. What color are Curt Gable's eyes? What's the name of that kid Jarrat was making out with, before he enlisted to get out of Sheckley? And so on.