My Guest Appearance on Mike Angley's Blog

Many thanks to Mike Angley, author of The Child Finder Trilogy, for allowing me a guest appearance on his blog.

Mike is a fellow member of MWA's Rocky Mountain Chapter and the proud daddy of a gorgeous beagle.

Check out my appearance at:  http://bit.ly/aGYuEN

Check out my latest interview

Actually, it's my dog, Delaney, who was interviewed. But I'm not an egoist - he talks about my writing, and that's all I care about!

Amigo, proud owner of author Mayra Calvani, hosted the interview and you're gonna love it - along with all the other interviews of pets - who just happen to own authors.

Check it out:  http://petsandauthors.blogspot.com/2010/01/interview-with-delaney-proud-owner-of.html

Writing Like Crazy

I am happy to report that since sharing my story in December about getting insurance writing contract work, that endeavor has continued to grow.  I have spoken with a handful of different people within the insurance industry who are putting together writing projects for me:  either outright contracts or collaborations that pay royalties.  I am doing the happy dance on a daily basis:  I'm writing every day AND getting paid for it!

Yes, I know, writing insurance isn't as exciting as writing about murder and mayhem but, until I hit the best seller list, it's paying the bills.  It also gives me a great deal of satisfaction to know that when I write an insurance education text or seminar, other people will be advancing their careers and broadening their knowledge base because I was not only able to explain a technical subject, I was able to do so in a far less boring manner than your typical insurance author/instructor.  (Thirty-five years in the business has provided me with LOTS of stories and real-life examples--aka fodder.)  If people are benefitting directly from the way I tell my insurance "stories," and it's helping them advance their careers and support their families, then I'm also doing good.

And, as my sister pointed out, all this insurance writing will accomplish two things:

1. The more insurance stuff I write, the better I get at my craft and the more it will improve my fiction writing.
2. The more insurance stuff I write, the more $$ I earn, the more financial security I have, the fewer things I have to worry about, the more relaxed I'll be when I'm writing my fiction, and the better that will be, so it'll sell faster OR earn more $$.

Do you sense a recurring theme here?

All humor and wisecracking aside, the best thing about all this is that I'm now working and paying the bills with my writing but it doesn't feel like I'm working.  I'm having fun and I'm living my dream.  There is not a single ounce of sarcasm in that italicized sentence, either, I really, really mean it.  I am living my dream:  writing and having the words I string together mean something [positive] to the people who read them.

(Oh, and making money doing it.  That validation makes me dizzy!)

Who's Stealing Our Books?

According to Attributor Corporation, a privately held technology company that uses a content monitoring and programming platform to enable publishers to protect their content wherever it appears on the Internet:

• Over 9 million pirated book copies were dowloaded in a recent study of 1,000 books of various genres
• The pirated downloads represent potential losses of nearly $3,000,000 to the book publishing industry
• Online book pirarcy represents approximately 10% of total U.S. book sales

For the entire Attributor U.S. Book Anit-Piracy Research Findings studfy, click here:  http://www.attributor.com/docs/Attributor_Book_Anti-Piracy_Research_Findings.pdf

Publishers Weekly cited the above study earlier today:  http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6714772.html?desc=topstory

PCWorld.com had an article about online book piracy on 12/23/2009:  http://www.pcworld.com/article/185335/ebook_piracy_the_publishing_industrys_next_epic_saga.html

The New York Times posted a scary article about book piracy online on 05/11/2009 - and it was about print book piracy on the Internet:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/technology/internet/12digital.html

Thank you to Nadene Carter of NorlightsPress for spotlighting this issue via a blog post by Doris Booth of Authorlink.com.
We writers need to spread the word; feel free to link to this blog post to share the information.

Song Lyrics

Have you ever had a song lyric prompt a book?  A scene in a book?  A short story?  Or just simply get your mind running along a track it couldn't get off of?

I have.  Here are a few that have gotten me thinking in recent weeks.  Feel free to share yours.

• ...I realize you're easy on the eyes, hard on the heart...
• ...dancing backwards in high heels...
• ...and when he died, all he left us was alone...

Am I Related to the Energizer Bunny?

Yes!

In addition to working at the two businesses I own, and progressing on my current mystery, I have been fortunate enough to secure some businesss writing contracts.

Funny how life works.  I deliberately eliminated virtually all of my business travel in 2010 so I could focus on my writing.  Then along came this wonderful opportunity.  You'd think that spending hours each week writing insurance texts would slow my fiction writing down.

NOT!

I'm on a roll.  And writing better than ever.  One thing about writing business stuff:  you don't have to worry about not having an idea or figuring out what comes next.  That confidence (and the organizational skills) seem to be worming their way into my fiction.  Lucky me.

Yup.  I'm loving 2010.

And so long as it's only my page-output that keeps reproducing, I don't mind being related to that pink bunny.

P.S.  The Energizer Bunny's website is:  http://www.energizer.com/Pages/default.aspx