Shawn Inmon

What are the important elements that make a good or successful writer? (Those two things don't always go hand in hand, of course.)

I'm in a lot of FB writer groups and I see this question come up a lot. Early-stage writers who see old guys like me with a ton of books out.

Because they are often struggling to finish a single book, they will ask, "How?"

I can remind them that I once took more than five years to write my first book, so I was once them.

It takes a bit of either confidence or willingness to endure the slings and arrows of strangers to publish your books.

I get bad reviews, just like all writers. I read them, consider them, then let them go. That amnesia is helpful.

The other thing is, when someone gives a One Star review on one of my books, I can take comfort in knowing that I don't write One Star books.

They may not have liked that particular book, and that's okay, but I can always look at the tens of thousands of people who gave my books four or five stars.

Publishing a new book is a little like having a baby.

Can you imagine if a couple had a new baby, took it out in public and at least a few people said, "Whoo! What an ugly baby! One Star!"

I think people might have fewer babies!

But if you're a writer, and you've got a story to tell, you've gotta tell it. Get it out there.

You never know what will happen.

One of these days, you can be the old hand trying to answer these unanswerable questions.

On this day fifteen years ago, Dawn Adele and I were just starting to reconnect. We hadn't seen each other in person in many years, but were chatting back and forth via email.

That was the day that both Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died.

It felt odd to us that our time when we were together was the seventies and then, as soon as we started talking again, it felt like the seventies were dying around us.

By the way, unlike many teen boys, I never had a Farrah poster in my room. Instead, I had a woman's torso with a beer bottle cap over her navel, with the heading "Not all beer bellies are created equal."

I thought it was funny, but I was sixteen at the time.

It wasn't as earth-shaking as when the Shuttle exploded, or John Lennon was shot, but do you remember where you were when they died?

On this day fifteen years ago, my friends and I went to a concert to see an obscure little band out of New York called KISS.

For some reason, people kept asking us to pose for pictures with them. (My daughter the photographer said we had our picture taken with more than 500 people that day.)

That's me on the far left, in case you don't recognize your boy.

Our picture ended up in the local newspaper and was even on KISS's website that day.

Can't a person go to see a concert in peace? (I kid, I kid. Strap on the platforms and kabuki makeup and you're gonna attract attention.)