A Long Story

 My first published book was Optimus: Praetorian Guard. I started it in 1995 and published it in 2006. I used Publish America and in four years spent 500 dollars buying copies and selling very few. I mostly gave them away as gifts to family and friends. You have no idea how many friends you find wanting a free book!

In 2010 I retired. My wife had a friend where she worked whose husband was an attorney, but also the pastor of a home church, we joined the church. He was in the hospital, and we went to visit him. I gave him a copy of Optimus and he wrote a review on Amazon; at that time, they didn't verify purchase. While he was recovering, I gave him a printed copy of Vander's Magic Carpet. I have a trial in the story. I was teaching Street Law, an elective. 

The first day I was retired, he called me and offered me a job. It was a complicated tort. He told me he's good at presenting the evidence but is weak on communicating the story to a jury. He asked me to help in on this. I was retired for exactly one day.

He gave me an office and boxes and boxes of pleadings, depositions, other stuff. I spent a month organizing and reading all the materials. He asked me how I liked working in a law office.

I told him, "I'm doing all the paperwork, where are the students? This was the part of teaching I hated. I need students to balance it."

The case settled the day before going to court. I worked on a couple of other cases, but when he didn't need me, I was back to being retired.

He is a one-man shop, and I needed some place to write. My house was full with son, girlfriend and two kids.

He agreed to let me use an office if I did a few errands for him. Notarizing documents, taking pleadings to the courthouse, covering the office when he went on vacation, keeping the place clean.

He even paid me for time and mileage. Most of the time I was on my own to write. All of my other books I've written to date were done in his office.

He was having health problems. He had two shoulder surgeries, and two hip replacements. I covered the office while he was recovering and acted as an aide, helping him in and out of the car, getting the walker dropping him off at the courthouse, parking the car and helping him with the boxes of documents, that kind of stuff. 

I broke my hand in 2016 and my daughter took over the legal assistant and notarizing duties. Pleadings are done electronically now so running down to the courthouse isn't as often as it was at first.

Covid hit and he started working out of his home as he had to have meetings by zoom. Daughter was out of a job.

I found out that he was back in his office and called him up in December of 2021. He was glad to have me back, but not to work for him. He cut down to only being in the office Tuesdays and Thursdays. Doing mostly wills and small cases. 

That let me have MW&F. I checked the mail letting him know what was in or not, kept the place clean and had quiet time to write. I wrote I Maury: Life and Times of a Rebel during this time.

Since that time, I've been struggling to come up with something else to write about. It's a twenty-mile drive to the office and the same back and was getting difficult to justify the expense while twiddling my thumbs. Monday, I cleaned out the office and am now working at home. I also have a library not far that I can go to if it gets too noisy around the house. It's now wife and daughter as son is on his own. 

Twelve years since I went to work for the attorney, with eight novels, an anthology of short stories and a novella. It was good while it lasted, and if I come up with something else, I might go back. If he's still lawyering. We've had a great working relationship and he's a fantastic friend, even if he did vote for Trump.