Pennermag.com

Like any of my other ‘careers’ in my serial careerist world, I like to jump in with both feet. This LONG weekend, I’m attending my first Romance Writer’s of America conference in San Francisco. Some wise person urged me to go, saying writing books and keeping them on a bedside table is a little weird, maybe I should try to sell them.

So, I signed up to pitch one of my books to an editor, and the conference was really just an aside to my single minded focus on a GOAL.

Well, it’s been interesting. I’ve never been in a room with so many readers and writers at one time. Meeting writers is a little weird. While I like reading books - enough that DH has nicknamed me ‘nose in a book’ - I don’t know if I need to see the people who write them. It’s like meeting actors in person. It’s interesting, but they’re creative process is all in their head.

After the luncheon today (how I despise hotel food), I’m off to sessions on craft, and publishing, etc.

We’ll see how it goes . . . .

Are you together?” 

It’s the one question I am asked more than any other, especially in retail settings. Even more than, “Do you want paper or plastic?” 

There’s more . . . .

Every year it gets harder and harder to get a screening mammogram at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. The first year, it was a four month wait, the second year, a five month wait, this year I called today for an exam in January 2009. Yes, 2009. Somehow, I don’t think the yearly mammogram is meant to be the thirteen month mammogram. I’m going to see this year, if I can get an appointment one year out when I’m there, rather than going through this one week process (getting postcard, getting authorization, getting appointment) just to find out that it’s not for six months.

And this is the great American health care system?

I don’t support gay marriage. 

Please, put the daggers away. 

This is not an essay in support of Prop. 8. Nor is it anti-gay. 

I think every couple (or for that matter, group) of consenting adults who choose to form a family should have the same rights regardless of its composition. 

There’s more . . . .

For many years, I’ve flirted with the idea of writing full time. The first was in 1996, when I had just graduated from law school. My then boyfriend, now husband thought I should give it a go. I considered it a full five months until I got that first loan bill. I just couldn’t envision how we would pay off $180,000 in debt on his $36,000 a year government salary. So I went to work, temping for Kelly Services, then lawyering for free or very little money, as it turned out.

The second time I tried it was in 2001. We’d just moved to California and I’d quit my $32,000 a year job at LexisNexis. The debt still loomed, however, and after finishing about half of my first novel, I temped at several law firms.

After more employer mistreatment, this time to the tune of $60,000 a year and a computerized punch clock system that recorded my every phone call, lunch, and bathroom break, I’m trying it again. This time the loans are paid off and we only have to support our fairly modest (by California standards) lifestyle.

I’m not going back to the law unless I’m dragged kicking and screaming - and I don’t exactly see that happening. But writing all day is hard. It’s just you and that blank screen and that blinking cursor having to come up with new! and original! ideas told in an intriguing! manner what will grab a reader.

In retrospect the little money I made over the course of my career did not amount to much. I don’t know if I believe the adage, ‘do what you love and the money will follow,’ but I’m at least going to try the ‘do what you love’ part.