There is an incredibly robust telecommunications infrastructure that was initiated due to the Strategic Air Command being positioned here, just south of Omaha. There are a number of national companies with their headquarters here, which would surprise many folks.

If you can spell information systems, I think you can start out at about $27,000 to $30,000. And if you are a very skilled, technically competent individual, it's not ... all that difficult to get a job in the $60,000 to $70,000 range, which is a pretty fair living in this town.

A lot of people think of Omaha as being out in the middle of nowhere and being a flat desert. That's not the case. It's hilly. It's generally lush and green [with] lots of trees in town.

I really don't have much clue as to what goes on. But I do know that they look out for our well-being. They have meetings throughout the season just to educate us on finance and ways to protect ourselves from predators ? people out to get our money.

There's more high technology here than many people realize.

What is good for you creatively is usually bad commercially. You thrive financially by sticking to a series and not fiddling about too much. You do yourself harm by moving away from the series and the genre. By trying things not based in that particular mode of writing, you will just lose readers.