#FatChick Helps Turn November Orange #CRPSORANGEDAY #MyWANA

Welcome to my Memoirs of a Forty Something Fat Chick here at Not Enough Time in the Day. For those of you stopping in for the first time, I'm Tammy Dennings Maggy aka "The Fat Chick". For those of you returning, thank you for keeping track of us. We've been all over the place in the last few months haven't we?

Tara and me 2011

Today I'd like to change course and talk about something that's near and dear to my heart. My fae and Moon Sister Tara aka TSweets suffers from a debilitating disease called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). It's also known as Reflex Sympathic Dystrophy (RSD). It's a complex disorder characterized by excruciating pain, changes of skin color, and temperature of the affected limb. The medical professionals think it's caused by some sort of trauma to the nerves on the areas affected. It can affect both men and women, but women make up the largest number of cases. It can even affect kids before five years of age. Check out this article from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders to get more details.  The following video sums it all up in a nutshell...

I can't imagine being in this kind of pain every moment of every day and being able to raise a daughter. I don't think I would be able to function at all. My fae does it and manages to keep a smile on her face to make those around her feel at ease. Many others with CRPS and RSD aren't as lucky to be able to continue to find the strength to keep fighting. 

I can't say I blame them. What would you do when told by doctors the pain is all in your head? What would you do when nothing, no amount of pain medication takes it away completely? What would you do if you spent most of your life in and out of hospitals and missed out on life around you? For those who've reached the end of their ropes, my heart breaks. I wish for the day you don't have to fight this fight alone anymore.

What can we do to help? Get the word out. Help educate people...doctors in particular about this syndrome. Get them to LISTEN and work with their patients to give them the tools to take away some of the pain. November has been claimed as Color the World Orange month and Monday, November 3rd has been declared CRPS/RSD Awareness Day. 

Use the #CRPSORANGEDAY hashtag and wear some orange to show your support for my fae and all those like her still fighting to have their voices heard and be able to lead normal lives with less pain.

I've you would like to grab a hoodie or t-shirt to show your support, check out the following link. You have until November 3rd to order. http://teespring.com/iwearorange

To my Moon Sister and fae, 

You are the bright star in a world of madness. Whenever I think of giving up, I see your smiling face in my mind and I know I can push on. Your strength inspires everyone around you to never give up and keep fighting for what they believe in and want out of life.

Because of you, I'm a stronger person and able to pull myself out of the deepest, darkest time in my life and embrace the love I have today with my soul mate. Because of you, I didn't give up when my heart shattered to the point I thought I would never be able to repair. 

You tell me I inspire you, but I say without you in my life, I wouldn't have been able to be where I am today. LYESD and Beyond! (Love you every single day and beyond)

~Tammy

#FatChick Has Relocated to Washington and is Back in Business! #amwriting #MyWANA

Welcome back to Memoirs of a Forty Something Fat Chick here at Not Enough Time in the Day. I'm "The Fat Chick" and this week is my first post after our big move to Washington state. 

To get everyone up to speed, my husband officially retired from the Coast Guard on September 1st. He is a Washington native and wanted to move back home, so...here we are! Being a Michigan girl, I'm happy to see all the green compared to the burned up, dried up landscape of California. It's not secret I hated living in that state. Here, I feel more at home. It's like Michigan with mountains. LOL!

Okay that's an exaggeration, but I do feel better here even when driving through some of the worst traffic in the country. Even when cutting you off, Washington drivers use their blinkers!!! Novel concept I know, but it does make a long commute tolerable.

The last two months have been exhausting to say the least. Not only did I have to work at the veterinary hospital two days before we drove to Washington with our first carload, we packed and purged and stored more crap than I thought humanly possible. With the help of one great friend and his son, we managed to get a good deal of it moved around and put into a POD. The rest we had to haul ourselves in our cars.

Now the military was supposed to move us...on their dime but they conveniently lost hubby's orders. So instead of having us on stand by after the active duty members, they had to put us further down the list. The added expense of the POD, an additional storage unit in California, hiring Two Men and a Truck to unload the POD, and renting an SUV to bring the last of our things all fell on us and depleted the nest egg we saved up as a cushion to help while we settled into our new apartment.

With all of that raining down on us, the sister in law flaked out repeatedly when asked to get her crap out of our house. She got ten years of free storage at our place and yet couldn't find the time to collect her crap or haul it to the dump. Thankfully, our old landlord agreed to take care of it. Her loss and his gain because there were a few things I thought she'd want to keep.

My license to practice veterinary medicine took FOREVER to become active in this state but it came through at the last minute and I'm bringing in the paycheck again. Whew! I'm still with the same company/group of hospitals and really enjoying the Seattle group I'm in now. They've welcomed me with open arms and made me feel right at home. As a salaried relief veterinarian for our region, I get to work with many different hospital staffs and so far it's been a hell of a lot of fun.

My writing cave isn't set up all the way yet, but after having to put the writing, editing and publishing of three books on hold for this move, I'm ready to jump back in again. My hope is to have all three out by Thanksgiving...Christmas at the latest. I'm trying not to burn the candle at both ends while we're still settling into this place.

Now I have to find a new doctor and dentist since I had to change medical plans. I'm sad to leave my last doc in California because she was great, but in order to get my health back on track, I need medical supervision. All the stress of this relocation has caused me to lose 14 pounds. I'm happy about that, but not happy that I had gained that and a little more in the first place. Having a doctor help with my routine blood work and wellness plan will help keep me on the right path.

I wanted to thank all of you for sticking by me through all these changes. You've encouraged me to keep working on my health and have been so patient with the delay in these books. Several of you have signed up for my newsletters and continue to visit this site and my others. At my lowest, I've been able to keep going because of YOUR support. Thank you!

I'm off to update a few more blogs and the Sassy Vixen website. Then I'm burying myself in edits. Until next time...

"The Fat Chick"

#NoAuthorsNoBooks: Illegal Downloads Harm More than Just the Pocketbook

Hello all. I'm sure you've all heard about the latest illegal file sharing groups on Yahoo loops, Facebook, Youtube and many others by now. Some of them have been taken down while others continue to thrive and openly continue to post requests for free books. They've created Drop Box accounts for the purpose of sharing thousands of eBooks with other readers. Some of the books were actually purchased by the people sharing them, while others were given to them by authors through blog hops and other contests. Still others were given as Advanced Reading Copies or ARCs with the sole purpose of it being read and then reviewed for the author. Not at any time were these copies meant to be shared, copied or distributed to anyone other than the recipient.

Trust has been broken that may never, ever be repaired. If we can't ensure our work won't be spread all over before it's even released to the public, how can we send ARCs to review sites and bloggers? How do we continue to be involved in blog hops and give our books away as prizes to readers if we can't be sure the winner won't then turn right around and upload the books to Drop Box or a pirate site for thousands of people to download? 

How can struggling authors get their name out there if they don't participate in the hops and Yahoo groups and other reader/author groups on Facebook and Google? They want to find new readers and are willing to give some of their work away for free in order to get the word of mouth going, but to expect them to be okay with someone taking their copyrighted material and spreading all over the web for everyone to read without permission is a bit much.

A very small percentage of authors actually make a living at it. Most of us work full time in other professions. Even so, we still want to make enough money to help offset the costs of putting out the work for readers. As it is now, I spent more on publishing, marketing etc than I've made by threefold. Then to find one of my books has been illegally downloaded over 1200 times on one site and over 4000 times on another makes my stomach churn. The one that had over 4000 downloads is one of my 99 cent books. That would have meant $2000 royalty to me if these readers had chosen the LEGAL route from Amazon. That would have helped pay for the editing on three of my books and allowed me to purchase more cover art photos or even hire another cover artist.

I also noticed when I have a return on Amazon, within 24 hours there is a huge surge in illegal downloads of that same book. Coincidence? I don't think so. 

Those same pirates who actually purchased the books and have receipts to prove it, are also the very same people who copy the book on their computers and then send the original back to Amazon for a refund. Then they take this copy and make other formats to upload to groups where they share their eBook files.

These same people don't think they're doing anything wrong. They don't think they're breaking the law. In fact, most of them don't have a flipping clue what they're doing is illegal. Instead of owning up to it once they are confronted, they turn the tables on the authors who they claim to love and bash them for "witch hunting". 

Well, STOP STEALING and you won't be hunted down for the thieves you are. The FBI won't take your excuse that you didn't know that file sharing is illegal. It's NOT the same as borrowing a book from the library unless you take that same print book and copy it to distribute...then you have the same thing.

There are some authors who have decided it's not worth the blood, sweat and tears to put out another book just to have it stolen from them. They're tired of being told they should feel grateful for the exposure and free publicity. They're told to quit bitching and stop acting like their world's coming to an end.

For many of them it has. Their dreams of being a published author have forever been tainted and even shattered. They're willing to weather through being ripped apart by critics to the point of tears if it means someone is actually buying their books and giving them honest opinions. They're willing to hand over an ARC to reviewers for feedback before release dates so they can learn and make any corrections before it's published. Unfortunately, those days are over. There are too many unscrupulous people infiltrating trusted review sites. They're giving up and I don't blame them one bit.

For every pirate and thief, there are even more honest readers and book lovers out there. For that reason alone I'm probably going to continue to publish my books under all four of my pen names, but to see the number of books downloaded on those sites turns my stomach. Not a single one has turned into a review or any further sales for any author including me. Why should these people buy books when they can get them by other means? 

When the Feds show up on their doorstep with warrants for their computers, smartphones and any other electronic device in their homes, maybe they'll get the clue. Until then, all the rest of us can do is continue to educate readers about piracy. 

In that light, we designed a simple shirt on TeeSpring to show solidarity. "Pirates kill authors. No Authors, no books. Get the picture?" We've made the price of each shirt as low as the site would allow in order to make it as affordable as possible. Want to show your support for your fave authors? Grab your shirt today and spread the word with #NoAuthorsNoBooks and #PiratesKillAuthors hashtags. Here's the link to the shirt on Teespring.com http://teespring.com/pirateskillauthors