Business Trip — For a Novel

Okay, rented the car. Packing tonight, off tomorrow for a book research road trip at the crack of dark. I’ll be hitting various places in West Texas over the next few days.

This will be the first time I’ll be tracking all expenses for tax purposes. It’s a grown-up feeling—kind of like the first time a kid does their taxes. Feels impressive yet doesn’t amount to much.

Seriously, though, it is something that I think of as a milestone from “someone who writes” to “writer.”

And then I read up on how that works for a guy who’s also a computer guy with a job. In short, there’s plenty of things I can do that are tax deductible, but so long as I’ve got a “regular” job (and I’m guessing that’s at the IRS’ discretion), I can’t deduct writing expenses from anything other than writing revenue. I mean, it’s obvious in retrospect.

And that means I’ve got a goal for 2017: make more money than anything I can deduct! Which will be a bunch, since I’m in the process of converting a bedroom into a tax-compliant writer’s office.