Things nobody wants to talk about

I follow KKR's business blog posts, because I'm serious about trying to make a living at this writing thing. This week, her post talked about the impact of personal disasters, health insurance, and how unpredictable a writer's income is. During this, she mentioned the terrible accident that befell David Farland's son and how people are trying to help with the enormous medical bills.

It just so happened that I had been semi-scheduled to appear on one of David Farland's conference-call writing chats when this disaster hit. Needless to say, that's on hold indefinitely. 

Nobody likes to think about disaster striking and how it can ruin you physically and financially. But these things happen. Having medical insurance, in America, doesn't mean you'll be able to walk out of a hospital financially intact. Personally, I pay too much for insurance that won't pay for anything useful -- I'm in debt because of it, don't get me started -- and I have no illusions about what would happen if I got hit by a bus. 

And speaking of getting hit by a bus, KKR's posts about estate planning for writers are something else that provoked a great deal of thought in me. I haven't drawn up a will yet, but I wanted to talk about part of it here for what it's worth. 

1. There isn't anybody I could bequeath my copyrights to who would be able to take care of them. At least, not as of July, 2013 -- who knows, that could change. 
2. A self-publisher's worst enemy isn't piracy, it's obscurity. Assuming I'm still obscure when I die, my copyrights may not be worth much.
3. I have a great deal of respect for the open-source movement, and I'm thankful for all the free software out there. 

Love this photo, let's use it again: Parisian catacombs.
Photo by Atif Gulzar, available at sxc.hu

So. Until further notice, if I am hit by a bus and they pull the plug on me -- they will have to, I'm poor -- then the contents of my "Scribblings" folder (currently over 2 gig, wow, didn't know it had gotten that big) will be made available in a public Dropbox folder under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. Links will be posted here when I die. Not yet! 

If you want to write something in the Saints of War universe (or the Jovian Frontier, for that matter) before I die, hey, email me. We can talk. 

Have you made plans for your writing estate? You should.