The brave new world of publishing: what to do and not do…

I wrote my first novel during the summer I turned thirteen.  It was terrible but not unlike the movie City of Angels (the angel was a woman in my story—yeah, I know, they're supposed to be sexless creatures, but the movie got it wrong too).  I'm a born story-teller and should have bitten the bullet and become a writer, journalist, or something similar, but I decided to take advantage of the Sputnik panic (read:  $$$$ for studying) and become a scientist.  No regrets there.  It put a lot more ...