Welcome to My Fantasy

While it's nice to toy around with the notion of tons of money, my ambition is to write something that matters to people. If there's financial reward in that, great. If not, hearing someone say they love a story or a character is mighty fine compensation. However. For this brief post, we flew in on the Fantasy Island plane. So here's my fantasy:

You already know that 10% of my gross (from any source - whether from writing or from doing tarot readings for people - what? You didn't know about that?) goes to charity. Because why wait? I might not get to donate a lot, but it's something I can do right now.

My first fantasy is for the amount of money sent to charity to go up. Way up. Right now, I circle between supporting Best Friends Animal Society, Big Cat Rescue and the Nature Conservancy. But there are so many more I'd love to support. USAID because of their work in offering voluntary family planning, contraception and reproductive health services to women who would otherwise have no access. My local community builds tiny houses for the homeless. I'd love to get behind that, too. So many causes, only so much of me. But big money could make more of a difference than my limited resources can at the moment.

Second fantasy: I'd buy out my parents' mortgage so they'd have more financial leeway. I'd probably buy a house for my sister and her daughter so they could give up renting. College funds for nieces and the nephew, absolutely. Once that's done, a scholarship for women in science/engineering.

Finally, for us, it's hard to say what we'd do. No house. Not into houses, much. But a condo? Maybe. We wouldn't get rid of the boat. It would get some upgrades. Solar panels. Possibly a watermaker. Or we might decide to go up to a blue water boat (the one we're in is a coastal cruiser) like the Voyage 450. But certainly, travel would be ultra high on the list. In fact, we might have some marital discord over it. I'm an adventure traveler. No one else in the family is. With enough cash incoming, I'd be off to Antarctica in a shot. There's also an almost year-long trip down the spine of the Americas - from Alaska down to Tierra del Fuego.  Not to mention a whole slew of physically challenging trips through questionable places that interest me. Sure, sure. I'd go to museums and sit in cafes. So long as I got to do some wilderness, too. My fondest wish, though, is to be sailing in warm water. I very much want to be out on the bow watching the flying fish leaping out of our bow wake. And I want to be luxuriously warm while I do so. Because the great thing about writing? I can do that from anywhere. Might as well not be freezing my digits, right?

Not deep fantasies, maybe, but they keep me going when the writing gets hard - the more writing I sell, the more lives I can improve via charity. The more I write, the closer I come to annoying my husband with an eleven day hike across Tsavo National Park.