I went to a birthday party for a friend last night. Shortly after arriving, I walked up to a group of women, and one of them said, "Oh, aren't you the one who writes?"

I gave the all-purpose shrug. "Not anymore. I gave it up a while ago."

"Oh? So what are you doing now?"

"I'm in web design."

A short polite silence.

"Really." More silence. "So, tell us about your books. Where'd you get your ideas?"

Sigh. I need to learn I'm never going to convince other people that designing web sites is at least as fascinating as writing ever was. They already think I'm crazy to have given up a writing career. Going on and on about how cool Dreamweaver templates are is just reinforcing their suspicion that, yes, I truly am certifiable.