RICHES TO RAGS

http://astore.amazon.com/wwwnancytrose-20

Regarding the economy, we're all in this together. One of the speeches I used to give was how I skyrocketed to fame and fortune with the publication of MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES. Prior to this happening, I spent 14 years in the criminal justice system. I started out as a police dispatcher, then became an officer and ended my career as a probation officer assigned to court services. I glanced at one of my last paychecks and saw my wage was under $10.00 per hour, so my story was the classic rags to riches. Then, as we all know, everything changed.

I've always been conservative when it comes to money, probably because I never had any. I had most of my money in my retirement fund when the stock market crashed. Since I'm approaching retirement age, seeing my hard earned money fly out the window was devastating. THE CHEATER is my twelfth book, and most of them were New York Times Bestsellers. I was certain I would have enough money to make certain all of my grandchildren would be able to go to college. That dream is no longer a reality.

Although I was conservative with money, I have an overly generous heart. I also believe wholeheartedly that a person who manages to succeed in life must share their success with those less fortunate. Right after MITIGATING CIRUMSTANCES was released, I adopted a young hispanic girl with a terminal illness. There's more about Janelle in my earlier blogs.

A few years later, I wrote a book for Janelle called CALIFORNIA ANGEL, which is also back in print and available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. My publisher paid me only a fraction of what I made on my legal thrillers, but whatever I made went toward Janelle's care and happiness. In reality, since I was making over a million a year for my thrillers and only made $200,.000 on CALIFORNIA ANGEL, just writing the book cost me $800,000.

Then a small miracle occurred. The TV show, Prime Time Live, did a piece on me and my relationship to Janelle. While doing research on Janelle's rare illness, the producer of our segment got in touch with a doctor in France who was curing MMA patients with liver transplants. Janelle got both a liver and a kidney, and is now in her mid thirties. No one with MMA had ever lived past eighteen, and at the time of the TV show, she was dangerously close to that deadline. To know that I played a part in saving a beautiful young girl's life is priceless.

I became involved in many more humanitarian projects and utilized both my finances and my time to help the world become a better place. No matter how much I gave away, I had more than enough to live on.

Then I got divorced and half of everything I had earned, as well as the rights to my books, went to my ex husband. Getting a divorce is the most painful process you can imagine, almost like a death. I wasn't able to get in my next books on time and my publisher fired me. From that point on, I never made the kind of money I did before the divorce.

One good thing I did was to sell my beautiful home in California right before real estate prices started to plunge. I moved back to my hometown, Dallas, and paid cash for a modest home I believed I could live in the rest of my life. My career was really diving now. Why? I don't really know. If you read my recent books, they are all just as good as they were before. Of course, there was a variety of reasons for my downfall. Publishers who didn't promote me was one. Now that I was single, many people took advantage of me and tied me into predatory contracts.

But I accepted this decline in fame and fortune. I had been a poor, self educated woman who had her first child at the age of eighteen. I always wanted to write so merely being able to see my dream come true was enough.

Then things really hit bottom. My savings were lost and I was working for a very small amount of money due to the decline in publishing. One of the statements I used to make in my speeches really hit home. I used to say that before I became a published author, I couldn't even afford to buy a hardback book. Well, here I am, full circle.

Now my health is failing and my fortune is gone, but I would never change anything I've done with my life or money. I've met people who are hugely wealthy who haven't never given back one thing to their community or to those less fortunate. Ironically, it is the people with jobs like I used to have when I worked in law enforcement who don't even realize that anything has happened, while the formerly wealthy are suffering.

This reminds me of something I read in the Bible. "The first will be last." That seems to be what is happening now.

Regardless, we have reached a point where we all must extend ourselves to others. If you don't extra money, maybe you have time. Or perhaps you have the contacts to help a person secure a new job. I think of all this empty real estate and it reminds me of Mother Teresa when she saw the Vatican. All she could think of was how many of her homeless people she could house with all that space. Finally, the Pope gave in and gave her a small space where she could open a soap kitchen.

Watch out for these mega churches who believe in some kind of philosophy of wealth. God doesn't want your money. He wants your good deeds and your prayers. You don't need to give money to your church to be on good terms with your creator. He can see into your heart and knows all you are suffering.

In my speeches, I also pointed out how a serious injury led to me becoming a bestselling author. I was riding a horse and got thrown, shoving the top of my femur through my hip all the way to my ribcage. I later laughed and said, "God told me to write not ride and I wasn't listening."

Wherever hardship exists, so does opportunity. An injury that could have robbed me of my ability to walk led me to reach my goal of becoming a published author. It's not a great story but it might be one worth remembering.

Peace,

Nancy