Taxes

I have begun to compile the information needed to file my income (or lack there of) taxes. The opposite of income is outgo, and that is what I have to report to the IRS. Between the publishing of The Last Voyage of the Cosmic Muffin, and the promotional book tour down the east coast (Someone asked if there will be a west coast tour and I responded not until Santa Cruz slides into the Pacific Ocean.) being a published author has left me without a shirt. In other words, I lost my shirt.

I am not glum about this. It was totally anticipated and expected. One now might say that was a self-fulfilling prophesy. My response to this is that I had a very realistic picture of the book business and knew what to expect—writing and publishing is easy; selling is hard. I tell any who asks what I do for a living that I am an unknown author.

I have managed to put all the receipts on the table but can’t muster the enthusiasm for sorting and adding all the expenses or even tallying the actual number of books sold and given away.

Instead, I tackled the business of Kenai Properties, my apartment building where I house four tenants who faithfully pay rent for the privilege of residing in one of my units. After a kitchen remodel, new porch roof and repairs, and other miscellaneous upkeep including grass seed for a lawn that died in June when for five weeks I couldn’t get it to rain after I fixed the roof this enterprise too shows a loss. I usually don’t tell people I am a landlord. It is not as cool as being an author, but is more lucrative.

So just how do I afford my life-style—the vagabond lifestyle where I live out of a box and carry my toiletries in a bucket, don’t own a home, or a twelve-place setting of fine china, but instead own free and clear a seventeen year old Jeep with 308,000 miles, keep a 20 by 20 storage unit containing a sixteen foot sea kayak, ice-climbing boots, all the camping gear needed for an expedition to just about any place in the world (warm or cold) and an antique pharmacy ice-box? Thank God for the stock market, plant closings and debt-free living. If I could figure out a way to get my health, auto and property insurance paid for…