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Let me preface this post by saying, thanks to a clause in the ACA and a significant amount of luck, we’re all right.

The default in the United States is that you’re supposed to get insurance through your employer. The employer picks up some/most/all of the cost, and that coverage is considered one of the benefits of employment.

As you may recall, back in December, my wife was diagnosed with an aggressive stage 4 lymphoma. She spent about six weeks in the hospital, and if everything goes well and the chemo and bone marrow transplant both work, she might be able to go back to work at the end of the summer.

Fortunately, we have relatively good health insurance coverage. According to the benefit statements, her treatment has cost somewhere between half a million and a million dollars so far. We’ve only been responsible for a very tiny fraction of that cost.

Jump to last week, when we got a letter from a benefits management company. Because my wife hadn’t been working since late November, her benefits were being cancelled. The official reason was “reduced work hours.” Our options were to either pay for COBRA coverage to continue on the plan we had, or we could go to the Health Exchange to find a new plan. Either way, we were now responsible for the full cost of our health insurance. In addition, if we chose a new plan, we’d be responsible for any new deductibles.

Here’s where the luck kicks in. Back when I tried to quit my day job a few years back, they created a part-time position for me, one I could do mostly from home. And as a result, I could continue to receive health insurance (but not vision or dental) through that job.

The benefits management letter was telling us our family’s dental and vision insurance were no longer covered by my wife’s company. But we still have health insurance.

COBRA costs to continue dental and vision are about $150 a month for our family. We can handle that. What would have been a lot harder would be paying probably $1000-$2000 per month so we could continue getting health insurance through COBRA.

Think about it.

1. You get health insurance through your employer, just like you’re supposed to.
2. You get really sick. Fortunately, you have health insurance! Well done, you!
3. Because you’re sick, you can’t go to work. A few months later, you lose your health insurance.
4. Surprise! Not only are you on reduced income from not working, you’ve got to cover a couple thousand dollars of new expenses every month!

We’ve designed a system that abandons people when they need it the most. Is it any wonder we see hundreds of thousands of families declaring bankruptcy every year because of medical expenses?

If my employer hadn’t really wanted to keep me on – so much that they created a new position for me,  and if the ACA hadn’t allowed me to continue receiving health insurance through them, I would currently be A) panicking like a cat in a cucumber field, and B) looking into GoFundMe and other ways of making sure we can continue to afford to keep my wife alive.

That we put people in this position when they’ve done everything “right” in terms of finding a job and working for years for their benefits – hell, the fact that we put anyone in this kind of position, period – is obscene. The whole for-profit approach to health care in this country is literally killing people.

My family is very fortunate in many ways, and we’re all right for now. But as a country, we have got to do better.

Over on Goodreads, someone asked me for advice for people who want to be authors. That’s a pretty broad question, and comes up in one form or another pretty routinely. So I’m gonna break it down into bite-sized chunks and post stuff as I have time and inspiration.

1. Why are you asking me?

I’m not saying you shouldn’t ask me for advice, but why are you? Do you know anything about my career or what I write, or are you taking a shotgun approach and asking anyone and everyone you can find? My advice will be based on my experiences and my goals, which won’t be the same as yours. Recognizing those differences can help you know when to follow — or not follow — my advice.

2. Ask around, but avoid the “Preachers.”

Every author’s career path is different, so it’s good to ask around. Follow other authors online, read their blogs and learn about their experiences. Lots of us are very open about this stuff. But be very careful about anyone who insists they know the One True Path to publishing success. There isn’t one. If someone sounds like they’re on a Crusade, just smile and nod and back away.

3. It’s okay to write crap.

In the early part of my career, perfectionism was killing my productivity. Very few authors can produce publishable first drafts. I had to shut off the editor brain and just write. Once I had something on the page, I could go back and make it better, but you can’t revise a blank page. And if you spend all your time trying to make the first page perfect, you’ll never write page two.

4. Stock up on patience.

One way or another, writing and publishing tend to be slow. DAW published Goblin Quest more than five years after I’d finished writing it. Finding an agent was a multi-year endeavor. And the writing itself…some of these books take me more than a year to write. Being a writer is a long-term thing, not an overnight transformation.

5. What are your goals?

Do you want to see your book in bookstores? Do you want to write one book or many? Do you want to make a living at this? Do you want to write fanfiction or tie-in fiction or original stuff or all of the above? What’s driving you to write in the first place? Figuring out exactly what you want will help you figure out how to get there.

6. Read in your genre.

Read older stuff so you know what’s been done and how the genre has changed. Equally or more important: read new stuff so you know what’s being done today. Hint: publishers aren’t buying the same stuff they were buying fifty years ago, or even ten years ago.

7. Read outside of your genre.

I’ve found this to be a great way of learning new techniques and tricks for compelling storytelling. Read poetry to learn about word choice and imagery and rhythm. Read romance to learn about writing engaging relationship conflicts and resolution. Read comedy to learn humor. Read scripts to study dialogue.

8. Write.

This is the big one. If you want to be a writer, write. Get some words on the page, good or bad, and then write some more. Write what excites you. Write what makes you laugh or cry. Write what knots your guts up with fear. Write gorgeously. Write crap. Write your stories.