Green Money, Red Blood, and Black Ink

By and large, I work with a good group of people, I'm talking about my day job here. Most of them know I write and several have graciously volunteered to be early readers for me. They offer comments, suggestions, and tons of encouragement.

I probably have a habit of talking about writing and the publishing too much, and I'm sure at times they get sick of it, but hardly a day goes by that someone doesn't stop me and ask, "Sign a book deal yet. Hear anything from that editor in New York, or that agent that requested your stuff?" I work at the Post Office so they see me carry in large envelope after large envelope. When faced with this standard question I said nope no deal but I did get an email yesterday. Not exactly what I wanted to hear (such as, we are going to pay you an obscene amount of money for the rights to this great work) but encouraging just the same.

So this coworker responded with when are you going to say enough is enough and give up on becoming an author so you can become a professional poker player. He then pointed out that I've cashed a lot more checks from playing cards than I have from my writing. And he's right but there are still some major differences between the two.

Never have I been busy doing something when suddenly a pair of Aces popped into my mind, the way story or character ideas do. Never have I met someone and wondered straight away if they could bluff with a straight face, but I have, and do meet people all the time that I think wow that feature or that dialect would be great on a character. Never do I watch the World Poker Tour and television and stare at an empty seat between Phil Hellmuth and Chris Ferguson and dream what it would be like to sit there. But I have went to the bookstore, located the E's and said right there, that is where my book will sit.

Writing is in my blood. I can't turn my back on that. No matter how long it takes. Last year the winner of the World Series of Poker took home twelve million dollars. His name is Jamie Gold and he beat out nearly 900 other players for the title. even if I had the ten grand to enter, and even if I got extremely lucky and won you know what I'd say. All right now I can quit my day job and stay home to write.