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Okay, so where was I? Oh, right. I went from my writing career being stone cold dead to suddenly bursting with health and happiness. My career, that is, although I was feeling pretty perky too. My books were available again, both in print and electronic format – and people were buying them.

Now granted they weren’t buying them in droves, but the numbers were respectable for an unknown (totally unknown in the M/M market) author. Even the print books were doing a slow but steady business – and, while they were all revamped and reedited, they were none of them new books. That told me that I was on the right track with my stories and characters – that Laura Baumbach had been right. My work would be welcome with M/M readers – assuming they could find me.

One thing I noticed right away was that there did not seem to be a lot of crossover in my reading audience. My original readers – mostly male – still strongly preferred print format. My new readers – mostly female – largely preferred e-books, although a number of them bought the books in print after they sampled them as e-books. So it became clear to me that I needed to continue offering all my work in both print and electronic format.

And it occurred to me that “all my work” needed to be more than the Adrien English mystery series. At least, it did if I wanted to make a living at writing, and I was beginning to think that I did. That it was actually possible. My publishers, both Loose Id and MLR Press, were eager for more stories, and it occurred to me that I had many more stories to tell – more ideas, in fact, than I probably had time to write.

So I proposed a number of story ideas, they were accepted, and I found myself with two years worth of projects – and no time to write them. Not if I was still going to work fulltime at the day job.

Ah, the day job.

All the while I was struggling to preserve my writing career, I was busily climbing that corporate ladder, and I had proven so successful at playing the corporate game that my life was now a living hell. A lucrative living hell, but hell nonetheless. Sometimes I thought if I had to sit through one more conference call/meeting/emergency flight to HQ the top of my head was going to blow off. And in fact, I wasn’t particularly healthy either physically or emotionally. I began to think that maybe I needed to figure out my Plan B before the decision was made for me.

The writing projects were lined up, my readership was steadily growing, and financially, I was in a pretty good place. Debt-free, cars paid off, and a little bit of a nest egg put aside. It seemed, all things considered – and very carefully considered at that – that if I was going to take a gamble, now was the time.

And so in August of last year, I said goodbye to the corner office, to the prime parking space right beside the front door – and all the rest of it – and moved into writing full-time.

Originally I thought I’d give it six months and see how things went, but the six months is up, and we’re still okay – it’s a little leaner than I’m used to it, and I’m working hours that make the horrendous day job schedule seem like part-time, but I wake energized and excited every morning. I can’t wait to start writing again, to share my stories with readers.

With each new book, I add to my audience base. And when I’m not writing, I promote and market all I can. I hear that there’s a “buzz” about my writing, so I know something is working. And I hope to share some of what I’ve learned with the release of Man, Oh Man: Writing M/M Fiction for Kinks and Ca$h.

So how did I do it? By keeping my eyes open – staying alert to new opportunities within a changing marketplace; by thinking outside the box; by working my tail off; and by being willing to take a chance. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? I should probably add that I work very hard at the writing itself, that I strive to make each book unique memorable – and that I constantly strive to improve my writing.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite writing quotes, though oddly enough it isn’t by a writer:

He is able who thinks he is able.
Buddha