One of my most common sayings lately has been, “Do you know what the difference is between an author and a large pizza?” The answer is, “A large pizza can feed a family of four!”

Sad, but oh so true. I once ran into a kid down at Havelock Park who said, “Geesh, with all the books you’ve sold over the years, why do you still live in Havelock?”

He had mistakenly read something on Amazon which indicated they had sold over 2.9 million books, and he thought it applied to my books! I wish! But the fact of the matter is, although I’ve been writing, editing, typesetting and publishing my own books for the past 15 years, I am still no closer to my goal of being a full-time writer. I still work for a local printer as a courier/delivery driver, and every month I struggle to make ends meet.

I once joked that if someone kidnapped me and demanded a large ransom, I was going to be out of luck. Yes, let me know how that one worked out, okay?

My friend once bought me a T-shirt which said, “When my ship finally comes in, I’ll probably be at the airport!”

So, this writing and publishing books is not a get-rich-quick-plan. It is a lot of hard work and once in a while, I get a letter or a word of encouragement that keeps me going just one more mile down this long roadway.

Two months ago while answering a Facebook request, I came across a 14-year-old kid. He claimed he loved my two books, 8-Ball and it’s sequel The Kid, so I delivered Bloody Mary to him, and thought that I would never hear from him again.

The kid now claims I inspired him to write his own book, and surprisingly, he is up to Chapter Five!  The book is called Wild Hearts, and it is about something this kid is passionate about: Pitbulls and dog-fighting.

The kid has done his research, too! It is really a unique story, taken from the view of a Pitbull named King, and a delinquent boy named Charlie.  The kid-writer calls me his “Grammatizer,” but little does he know, that I knew nothing of grammar or punctuation when I first wrote my first book, 8-Ball back in 1982. 

I am currently seeking an artist to ink or paint me an emblem for the cover of this particular book, so if you know of any, please send them my way!

Two years ago, I received an email from a boy who was just 15 and still living in a group home in Pennsylvania. At the time, he could not know that I was really thinking about putting away my writing pen and never picking it up again.

He wrote, “I just read Scratchin’ on the Eight Ball, and I cried. I haven’t cried since I lost my baby a year ago. If you haven’t touched a million kids like me by now, don’t worry, you will one day!”

The kid, now 17, wrote to me again on Saturday evening just to check in with me. His timing couldn’t have been better. While most of my books have been self-published and marketed on a dental floss budget, I did have one book published by a New York publisher in 2003. It sold 10,000 copies, and then the company folded. So the book came back to me.  So, now I venture once more to put my books in the hands of kids like this one. Who knows? Maybe some day I will touch a million kids with the words that I write. I can only hope so.