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By Gary, March 18, 2010

On a personal note, I’ve mentioned several times that I am not able to afford health insurance. The good news is, we have a very well-equipped, HUGE “sliding fee” clinic here that I qualify for — and yesterday was sort of Reckoning Day for my generally inactive, slovenly lifestyle: I had a checkup at said clinic, with special concerns about my blood pressure.

Seems when you’re sitting behind a computer most of the day, growing old, and slamming down various amounts of cheese and other dairy products, well, gosh, your health deteriorates and especially your blood pressure may rocket upwards. (I have a couple of persistent skin rashes, too, but never sought eczema treatments.)

Turns out that I’m surprisingly healthy for an aging guy who’s inactive and overweight. At least I’ve never added alcohol or cigarettes to my bad habits, which seems to count for a lot.

The blood pressure was elevated indeed, but the doc prescribed the mildest possible blood pressure medication. She said if I were to drop about 30 pounds and walk vigorously three or four days a week, I probably wouldn’t need the medication.

Little goals, I guess. But something I should be able to achieve. If I can just learn to shove myself away from the computer once in awhile and lace up the old walking shoes.

Oh, yeah. And the sliding fee clinic? Costs me $30 per visit and that includes a nice range of lab tests. And — the young lady who draws the blood for testing is pretty skilled with that old needle, too.

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By Gary, March 5, 2010

How do you support your writing habit? Are you fortunate enough to be able to make a living writing full-time? Or do you rely on some sort of “day job” to pay the bills and write when you are able to fit it into a busy life?

I’ve done both of the above. Right now I’m fortunate enough to have the time to write full-time — and squeeze out a living while I’m waiting for the writing to pay off better.

At times, as have most writers, I’ve done a variety of full-time and part-time jobs. Once I applied (three times all together, actually) for a job working for a health insurance data company. Although I went through the application process, and even got an interview two of the three times, I wasn’t told until the third time I applied that they really were looking for people ALREADY trained or experienced in medical coding.

That was a decent job with good pay and benefits. I wish I’d had some sort of medical coding training courses to get the job. I also wish they’d made it clear that I needed that sort of training the two times I did get interviewed.

Ah, well. Life goes on.

So what are you doing for a “day job”? Or are you able to write full-time and make it work? Leave a comment and tell us about your adventures in supporting your writing habit.

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By Gary, February 13, 2010

I have to confess that I’ve spent most of my writing life in a sort of tension between “wannabe” and “gottabe.” I’ve always told myself I want to be successful as a novelist. But most of my writing life has been taken up with writing I’ve had to do in order to pay the bills.

I urge you, if it is at all possible, establish your writing priorities and focus as much as possible on those types of writing. Sacrifice whatever you can whenever you can to stick to the writing you love, and if you stray from that, reestablish those priorities just as soon as you are able.

I say all that because my wife and I have just gone through a bit of reevaluation concerning priorities — and we’ve decided now is the best time to put aside a lot of the “stuff” I’ve been struggling to do online and get back to the novel writing priorities I’ve let fall by the road of this life’s journey.

Mustering the meager resources we have and what little faith/courage I have rattling around in my heart, I am going to dust off an idea I’ve had for a few years and write a series of adventure/fantasy novels. In fact, I spent yesterday rummaging around old notebooks to locate the stuff I’ve already started and polished up a shiny new spiral notebook to start a plotting/planning/journal for the task.

I’ve spent too many decades, yes decades, of my life telling myself I really didn’t have time or energy to work on those novels I sort of just assumed would write themselves. But, working on the premise that some hard thinking and hard writing on novels and ideas dear to my heart might just be the best anti aging product for an Old Guy’s brain — I’m getting down to business, setting aside a lot of the online time wasters, and doing what I’ve wanted to do all along.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.