"So, Miss McDonald, your book has been released. What do you do now?"

If I say my life's work has been completed and I can sit back and watch the word go by, I think I would hear ten or so chairs hitting the ground as the Rosebuds ran for their doors with their beating sticks and a dictionary. (and Chocolate)

I never thought I would accomplish this first goal - not that I don't have faith in my writing - but because it is a darn hard business to break into.

Anybody with money and a halfway decent will can buy into a franchise or any sorted businesses. But where the ability to get into those buy-your-way-in business differs from the grind, toil, sweat, slog (yes I do own a Thesaurus) craft/artistry/entertainment industry the next step is exactly the same. You have to keep at it, persevere if you want it to thrive and move to that next level.

Now I was lucky enough to have sold two books at the same time, so at least I won't be a one-book-wonder. But I will still have to kick my self in the arse to make sure I am not a two-book-wonder. It is a never ending process - if you want to continue to be published. One I will happily participate in until someone takes away my keyboard (pen, pencil, paper, sand - you can write in just about anything if you put your mind to it) and my ability to think coherently.

I have always said - and my friends can back me up on this - if you are a "writer" you can't not write. You may not always sit at a desk and chip away at the great American novel. You may not always send away your submissions and enter contests. But a true writer - I my humble, but still my own, opinion - cannot not write. When you vacuum, the characters will speak to you. When you are sitting in traffic and you glance over at the driver next to you, your brain will weave and bend a quick and fantastic tale as to what brought that person to that spot in the road. When you sit through another PTA meeting, you can imagine what would happen if the former president, that decided the cute shoes at Nordstroms were a better idea than the t-shirts for the field trip, came screaming into the cafeteria with nothing on but said shoes and proceeds to do the chicken dance on the table in front of the hunky Vice Principle.

But I digress (some). A writer will always write in one form or another. It's when you choose to park your behind in the leather office chair with a slight rip and set your fingers to your wireless keyboard with the "N" worn almost completely off. And - most importantly - you open word (or whatever program you write in) click on an actual book/story/outline and crank that sucker out!