January 2006 I sold my first book (two actually). Let me go back a little further, I have been writing since I was eight, I wrote sequels to all my favorite books and movies (as I always hated to see them end). A friend and I put out a newspaper for our block when I was ten and at seventeen and up, I dabbled in poetry. I wrote my first novel-length book at twenty, but didn’t start seriously putting pen to paper, so to speak, until I was pregnant with my fourth son. (The first book I ever wrote while preggers was Deadly Mistakes.)

Fast-forward to January 2006 - I was with a group of writers where I exclaimed to one friend, “I am a published author now,” to which another woman overhearing (or shall I say shamelessly listening in) said, “No. You’re not an author. Not until the book comes out.”

Well, to say I was bent out of shape…. I smiled, bid adieu to my friend and cussed the woman’s name the entire way home.

Once I used every foul name I could think of and a few I made up just for her, I started to wonder about the merits of writer vs. author. I had always called myself a writer. I write, that’s what I do. I aspired to be an author. But according to The New Merriam-Webster Dictionary (fourth edition pb 1989) the definitions are as follows:

author n 1: one that writes or composes a literary work 2: one that originates or creates

writer n one that writes esp. as a business or occupation : AUTHOR

Hmm…. Well, there you have it. Does it change that burning need to create, the overwhelming desire to tell your story? No? Does it lessen or strengthen the voices in your head? No still? I guess I was already an author. But as I always said and will continue to say: I AM A WRITER. I own it!

Of course tomato \tə-`māt- ō \ tomato \tə-`mät- ō \ because if I don’t keep doing it, I am a neither, just a couch-laying, bon-bon eating, Oprah-watching, lazy butt! (okay, so that was just yesterday and they weren’t bon-bons but trail mix – but it’s Oprah – what was I to do?)

I mean really, who else will my mother have to brag about despite the gratuitous sex to pander to the public…..

And don’t forget - the winners of the socks are RobynL & Meg Allison e-mail me your snail mail addys I will get those out to you.