Seasoning salt.

I promise I'll stop with the salt after this one. Pinky promise, just like Steven Seagal. Oh, wait. I should be wearing a kimono. Hold, please.

Dammit! Turns out, I don't own a kimono. I blame myself.

But about the salt and the season.... I've always thought that I love winter. I'm certainly always ready for the temperature to drop, after the Texas summer. But I'm starting to think, now, that winter may do something to me. Something icky. Something dismal and depressing, even. I've never been able to pinpoint it before, but this year, thanks to my handy journal, I have a historical record.

At some point in the last three months, I had convinced myself that I should follow the rules of publishing. That I had made a huge mistake by publishing WHOSS on my own and that I'd better get a contract or I might as well hang it up.

I don't think that anymore. I love to write, and (if you'll indulge a little conceit) I love my writing. I really do.

So...the hell with convention. I'm pressing ahead with my other books. If nobody wants to publish them for me, their loss.* And maybe I'm ahead of the curve. Maybe this is how it will work for everyone in the future.

Gosh, I feel so much better. Don't you?

* In case anyone is curious, though, a publisher would likely pick me up if I sold 10,000 or more copies of WHOSS on my own. That's a lot of books. I say we go for it. I'm all for hedging my bets.