Question: What kinds of things do you when you are not writing?

I guess I spend my non-writing time the way many other writers do…doing those fascinating things that come with being a part of such an exciting and fascinating lifestyle that comes with the role of being an “author”. For example, this afternoon I spent a couple of hours up on the roof replacing a dozen or so shingles that got blown across the county in the windstorm last week. It was HOT, and even with my gloves and jeans I came back down covered in that icky, sticky, stinky black tar-stuff you use to try and keep the new shingles from flying away like the last ones did. The entire time, along with sweating a lot, I just kept hoping that the storms they are predicting for Thursday don’t take even more off. I really don’t like heights.

Really, when I’m not writing I spend my time doing pretty much what everyone else does who owns a home and has a family. When something like a roof isn’t demanding my time, I like to spend time with my family, get outside a bit, play my guitar, garden, read, and try to avoid consciously thinking about what I am writing. Some people have kind of a myth about people who write books like mine, and seem to think that since I have books published, it must have real impact on my life. If so, someone keeps forgetting to send me the invitations to the “cool” stuff.

This goes right there with the question I occasionally hear from someone who gives me that look that says, “C’mon, be honest, you can tell me.”

Their question is, “What was the first thing you did with all the money from your first book?”

You see, this is an idea that comes from all the movies and from those very rare times we hear about someone getting one of those six-figure deals with a big publisher. Sure, it happens, but most of the time, nope. There are different numbers, but one piece I read recently said that the average author earns something like $10K – 20K a year from their writing. And, in reality, these are the lucky ones. Most may earn something like $10K from a book over something like 10 years of it being on the market. I answer the question by saying that I’ve never gotten a big check for a book, but I’ll be happy to change my answer if it ever happens. They just smile at me with that look that says, “Okay, if you’re not going to tell me, fine.”

So, if there are any big publishers out there reading this, and you want to help me come up with a better answer to what I did with that big check I got for my book, I would be open to have a conversation…

Until then, I’ll go on fixing the roof…