Last Christmas, my publisher, Jim Baen, was having a very rough time of it. He's just broken up with a lovely Russian girl that I'd introduced him to, for reasons unknown.

Then he lost both of his parents. His mother, whom he loved inordinately, died of cancer. His step father, whom Jim had always hated, decided that he couldn't live without his wife and committed suicide.

Jim then rejected book 7 of the Conrad series (Conrad’s Crusade) as being bad writing, and canceled all of our other contracts. I seriously doubt if he ever read it.

That is to say, he fired me, which put me in considerable financial stress, but loans, gifts and help from friends carried me through.

Soon, my daughter, Katia, broke her pelvis snowboarding, and my wife, Marina, totaled out the car, putting herself and her father in the hospital for over a month. Marina has had four serious illnesses since then.

And I've had some heart problems.

But we're all well on the mend.

It's been a rough year, but things have started to look up. It started when my wife bought a house plant that she called a ‘Money Tree’.

We sold a building lot that we'd paid $600 for two years ago, and got $25,000 for it. Inflation works both ways. Now we can start building again.

And, with Rodger Olsen’s help, I finally got my Social Security payments, which aren't much, but are enough to pay for the rent and food in Russia.

Setting up my own publishing house, mostly Rodger Olsen’s doing, I've been selling a respectable number of book 7 on my own, and I've recently taken 'Copernick's Rebellion' back from Baen to publish it myself. The volume of sales isn't what it would be working with the big kids, but the profit per book is in the $4. to $10. range, depending. It helps.

And I've been contacted by this bunch in Hollywood about doing a movie or TV series with my Conrad books. It is still very iffy. I should know more in a few months, but if it works out, it's heavy bucks.

Again, there is at least hope, and we have been taking very good care of the ‘Money Tree’.

--Leo