This is the first post of the new website.  I hope to use this blog to talk about books, baseball, bicycles (so many of the things I love start with the letter “B;” what’s that about?). As I write this, I’m listening to the sound of a no-holds-barred April thunderstorm outside my window, making this a fine day to sit inside and write. This is the first day that I’m officially without a job. I was laid off last week from a job I really loved with a nonprofit organization that moved its headquarters. I’m feeling oddly hopeful about my unemployment. Being without a job definitely provides one with more time to write, but there’s also a self-imposed feeling of urgency, that I need to get many things done around the house in order to justify being home all day.

Like most writers, I’d love to earn my living by selling my fiction. More and more people are making money off their work by selling e-books. I don’t know how many are making a living. For every Amanda Hocking or J.A. Konrath, there are dozens of writers who haven’t had a download in a month. It seems that the most successful e-book authors write genre fiction. Is there a market for literary fiction online? I guess that’s what I hope to find out.