Welcome to the tribe, Karen!  I am looking forward to hearing moe from you.

Congratulations on the Novel - that is awesome!

  Welcome! 

(And my dream is to be able to retire someday - lol!)

Welcome, Karen! Wow, retirement and book publishing-two goals of mine, and you have both! That's heady stuff! I write stories for my son, and hope to someday get around to pursuing publication. When I do, I'm sure I'll have lots of questions  Maybe this summer-I am a teacher, and am actually going to take the summer off this year! Kind of like a mini-retirement. Enjoy your retirement, I'm sure you've earned it!

OK, I got my first check and need to figure out how to live for the next 6 months on $22.  With trembbling fingers I held the envelope and just stared at it before opening.  My mouth fell and I looked at my husband who had just mentally spent his share which needed a few extra zeros!  How can this possibly be, I said.  As it turns out, the novel was only on the market for a few weeks before the royalty closing date and the vendors have 90 days to pay the publisher.  Oh well, I am not really starving and I know the book is good.  It sure beats my life as a social worker where I had to turn upside down in a garbage can looking for beer cans in the garbage of one of my parents who had been court ordered to lay off the booze.  Last night I sat by the fire and had a few little drinkies myself.  In fact, the wine I drank cost more than the royalty check! 

   The publisher pays twice a year which means I'll have to wait until August to really see how I've done.  The contract is for five years so, as long as the novel continues to sell, I'll be paid.  My real goal was just to see my name and picture on the back of a book because I love to read so much.  Mission accomplished on that one!  I threatened to write this book about 30 years ago when I was married to a very successful corporate man and noticed how all my friends, who were in the same situation, had the same story to tell.  The book is fiction but skirts the truth in many situations.  I don't know one woman who didn't get traded in for a younger model!  I was not permitted to write the book by my husband who said, "You are not going to be an embarassment to the family."  The story starts out with two women sharing a glass of wine.  One goes home and gets hit over the head by her husband who has arranged for her to be placed in a psychiatric hospital because she has threatened divorce action.  This actually happened to my neighbor! When you have money and power, you can buy just about anything you want including a "bed forever" in a private hospital! 

   Yes, you can turn real life situations into fiction by changing the location and of course never using real names or situations exactly like they happened.  This is great because you can make it even more interesting but have direction from reality.  I never wrote an outline or had any idea about how the novel would end until I got there.  Real life events let the ideas pour from your very soul!  It is funny that you say you are a nurse.  My sister in law from the corporate marriage was a nurse and she witnessed a man die because his heart monitor was not working properly.  She was with him when the crash team came while he was reading the paper and shocked him into never never land.  They pushed him down and gave him what they thought was what he needed.  She was required to remain silent about the situation.  Now, that was 30 years ago so they probably have better guidelines now but she could write many stories about what she has seen.  I always say that everyone has a novel in them.  I hope you will give it a try and see what happens.  I will tell you about how I went wrong in getting it published when you get to that point.  Happy writing.  It is places like this that we can help each other.

LOL!
Enjoy your trip.