Yikes! I hate keeping up with my taxes. I don’t mind paying them, but keeping up is just the pits. And makes my heart rate jump all around and my blog pressure rise. Now I’m talking about my sales taxes and not the big income taxes. Those seems to be easier to manage. Strange, I know.

I confess, I don’t make money on my writing. I know lots of you do. I’m happy for you. Do I wish I did? Of course, but I’m lucky I have retirement and a great husband who keeps me in a style to which I’d become accustomed. 🙂 As I said, I’m one of the lucky ones.

Still the great state of Texas collects taxes on the books I sell. These are the print books and the e-books. So I have a Jan. 31 deadline to go online and file. I can figure out the print books. I do have a system for those, but I’m woefully ignorant about the on-line ones.

I’ll get a print out this month of total money I’ve earned from the various places, but that won’t break down to the individual books. (At least I don’t remember that it did last year!)

Anyway, this all started because when I opened my email on Saturday morning, there was the nice little reminder that I needed to go on-line and file.

Ultimately, I’ll get it figured out, but it will take me longer than most people, because it’s numbers. I don’t do numbers well. I write words or speak words well. But not so much with the numbers.

I’ve never served as a treasurer in any organization, and I’ve been in lots of them and been all kinds of officer including president of many. But never treasurer. And I like that just fine!

And besides, I’ve really gotten back into my WIP, Book 3 in the series. The words are just flying off the keys. It’s very satisfying. I sometimes think I may be morphing into something of a pantser, something I highly admire. So I resent this tax business which will cut into my writing.  Map is of Dallas where Book 3 of Series takes place.

You may be surprised at this post from me. I can usually find lots of positive stuff to say. I try to be uplifting. We have enough negative in our world already. I’m a good encourager.

Okay, here’s me putting the positive spin on all of this.

I’m very lucky to be able to write.

I’m lucky that people seem to enjoy my books with their older characters and not tons of high powered action, but with a dash of good sex.

I’m lucky my husband has been so supportive, even to the point of lending his good editing eye to my works.

I have a beautiful new area in which to work. 

The view in front of me is superlative—in fact how dare I complain about anything when I’ve got views like this every day! 

Okay, thanks for listening to my rant. I figure things out by writing or speaking things out loud. I can start at one place and by the time I stop, I’ve reached a completely different conclusion. Which is what I’ve done here. (My husband finds this all confusing. Even after all these years, he sometimes forgets to wait to the end before taking an action.)

(On Sunday, I opened an email from Amazon and it had every month for every book! Yea! I’ve almost got it all figured out. Sometimes, all it takes is a bit of patience. Not something I’m loaded with.)

So do you have state sales taxes? Are you lucky enough to have someone do your taxes for you? Do you pay your taxes in January or April? Suggestions for how you keep up with this business side of our business? Love to hear from you.

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