Sensible Suggestions from a Senseless Mind

Writers, I have but one word for you. And that word is Word.
Do NOT do what a certain idiot I know who shall remain nameless did and initially write your work in Publisher so you could see what it would look like as a book. It is a horrible pain in the ass to convert the old Publisher files. You have to buy Publisher as well as MS Office. Unless you also create flyers and newsletters, Publisher is extraneous. But certain idiots have had to download it so as to be able to read their old files which contain information that they may now want to use.
Besides, no publisher accepts files created in Publisher. Word is universally accepted. So when writing remember, the word that is gospel is Word.

Teachers

The question was asked: What would you like to say today to the teacher that gave you a hard time in school?

Well, here is what I'd like to say:

Up yours! I'm 43 years old and I don't have to be here any more! You're obviously part of my nightmare!
One teacher that I can think of that gave me a hard time was my gym teacher when I was nine years old. I hadn't understood something he said so he made me run back and forth across the gym as a punishment and encouraged the other kids to laugh at me when my face turned beet red.
The other teacher that gave me a hard time was my sixth grade teacher who I really don't think liked kids at all. It's amazing that I still enjoy writing, but I think it's because I could see he was a jerk, in spite of the fact that I was always crying in his class. He was always giving me F's on my writing because I "followed too closely" the outlines I created. In other words, he knew that I wrote the story first and then the outline. But if you didn't follow the outline you created initially you would also get downgraded. It was a no-win situation. However, I remembered from when I was in fifth grade submitting a writing sample for those yearly tests and the results came back telling me that I was writing at an eighth grade level. I was proud of that and it stayed with me. Luckily, because sixth grade was horrible. Not only did I have this teacher trying to make me feel stupid, but I was given one of those IQ tests that is based on pattern recognition. Having a degree of dyslexia (which was not something they'd heard of back in the day) when it comes to numbers and patterns, I did horribly at it and until I was in my twenties and took a Mensa test (and did well on the whole, believe it or not) I believed that I was borderline retarded and was fooling everyone whenever I got a decent grade.
On the whole, I'd like to give almost every educational professional from my sixth grade year a whoopin' that they wouldn't forget.

Outskirts Press Plug

As the first draft of the second book nears completion (well, sort of) I have again signed on with Outskirts Press for the publication of the second book, which will probably be released in 2010.
Many different packages are available and they publish almost everything, except for porn and hate literature. If you have something in the works, you might want to check them out for yourself.
There are companies out there who allow you to publish your book "free," but you will still have to pay for printing, storage and promotion. In the long run, I find that I'd pay about as much anyway and having a reliable publisher is worthwhile to me.