How often have you heard the old adage: “Do what you love and the money will follow” and how often do you believe it? To me, it usually boils down to one or the other:

1. Do what you love. I am enjoying the writing, but alas it takes a long time to make money on it. So instead, I am striving to get better at my craft. With the help of my friend Mark McGinnis, who is the author of the Scrapyard Ship series, I am learning so much about the eBook and Amazon world. Who knew how much stuff I’d have to learn about uploads, and programs such as Jutoh, Calibre, and Mobi. Gaaaaaa! But it keeps my brain young—goooooo brain!

Hugh Howey, author of Wool, Shift, Dust and now working on Sand as well as many other projects is a wonderful source of information. He is the guru on direct publishing, he’s done well in sales and is still a nice guy! He is such a kind person and actually emails newbies like me. His message is clear: Keep writing, keep writing and keep writing. And, that’s what I’m doing. Thanks Hugh! This author builds on so much of her past, that it’s hard not to bug people to read it.

2. The money will follow…. Sometimes…. If you build it, the money will come… and all that. I know… I’m new to this. But, no matter how many times you send out the word, it is up to the readers to take a chance on your book and up to Amazon to post the reviews. (I still haven’t seen a single review…. Heavy sigh). So, come on readers! Take a chance! You won’t be sorry, I promise! Someday it will all come together. In the meantime, I will continue to write the story. It’s a good one, I promise.

 Now, having said all that…. the reason for the title:

I recently saw a Facebook site that really disturbed me. Actually, it really freaked me out. There were so many guns and crazy talk about intelligent design, creationism and other really bad things said about our president. I guess I don’t hang out with these kinds of people, so it was weird. This old geeky freak writes about peace and love and getting along. How come others do this stuff? Why do they believe in it? I hope this isn’t a growing concern. I live in Boulder and even though sometimes I trash talk it, I feel we are the sane ones. I am so far removed from rednecks that I forgot there are people like this out there. Sad, but true. So good luck with your bunkers and your survival tactics. Me? I’ll keep on believing in the system for now. However, I do have a little doomsday prepper in me because I do cook, bake my own bread, grow my stuff, store stuff in plastic buckets, and learn new things every day. So maybe I’m not as far removed as I’d hoped–well other than the automatic weapons and trash talk, trust me not even that!

So, Happy Solstice everyone! Don’t be sad, don’t be depressed. Go watch a bunch of Rankin and Bass cartoons, sappy Christmas movies, bake, put up decorations and be happy, dam….t!