Got Jock Support?

I'm very very lucky... since I was just a kid, pretty much my entire family has known I was going to be a writer. Imagine their surprise when I went into computers.... but I digress, (or was it that I digressed??) well, whatever... no one was really buying me as the Tech geek--Network Administrator that is my daytime cover... never mind that it scored me a sweet job schussing down the ski hills of Colorado (I worked at the Vail conglomerate that owns Keystone, Breckenridge, and Vail for five years or so) or that my address was *worldwide* there for six years as I worked for a cruise line. I mean, hey! I have a great career, I make good money! But...nooooo.... they won't be satisfied until I become an author. Because in their minds, when people ask what does Cin do? The answer in all of our minds first and foremost is: Cin writes.

And to tell you the truth, I get a big kick out of it.

We aren't a family of readers. In fact my biggest advocates are not readers--my father, my father's best friend, my male cousin who is like a total jock, my brother...

Men! I'll say it again... Men. Okay, so that was just for fun... but this is surprising, no?

So, I have some funny support stories, but I'll share just last night's. My brother comes in with the movie Butterfly Effect and hands it to me to watch. He heard the brief summary of my YA and thought it sounded just like the Butterfly Effect. It's not, at all, btw... he just heard changing fate and ran with it... but he (who is very quiet and never asks direct questions or seems interested about my writing per se, has been secretly thinking about it for months and was concerned that perhaps I had inadvertently--because I assured him that I had not seen the movie-- set myself up for the heartbreak of having written a story that has been done. (He, of course, does not realize that all the stories have in some way or another been done)

I tell you, that is support. It may not be the "Gee, Cin you sure do write real good" kind, but it is the I want you do well; I don't want you to be hurt kind. And when my cousin asks me at Thanksgiving dinner: "So when will you get published?" I don't hear: "God, what is taking you so long" -- I hear, "I can't wait for you to be published, because this is what is right for you." And for big, ol' guys who never read more than the newspaper in the crapper, I think that is pretty damn cool.