Many years ago I was listening to a radio interview. The interviewer asked the question, "How do you know when you've become a writer?" The interviewee replied, "When you wake up in the morning and the first thing you think about is writing." Hmm, I thought. That would put me in that category even though I've only written dozens of short stories at the time and never been published. So, here I sit today with a few short story publications and knee deep into writing novels. The first thing I do when I wake up is open the news paper and scan the obituaries. Once I feel no sense of grief, I head to my computer and start writing.