Family

 

James McMorris with granddaughter and great granddaughter

 

In March of 2002, after a long and interesting career, I was laid off and given early retirement. The company I was working for at the time built communication and weather satellites, after what happened on September 11, 2001 the market for satellites world wide dried up. No one wanted to buy a satellite.

Fortunately, due to my friends, contacts and my unique abilities, I obtained another job in just a few weeks. Unfortunately, three weeks after going back to work the test results from some tests made in February were returned to my doctor. He called and told me the news. I had cancer.

Six months later, after apparently going through the cancer treatment successfully, I was sitting in my living room wondering what to do with the rest of my life.

My first thought was how many companies would be willing to hire a 65 year old cancer survivor. The answer, at least in my opinion, was not very many. I also knew I did not have the ability to be a painter like Grandma Moses, but I knew I could write. How well I could write was another question. The next question was what to write about? The answer was right in front of me; I should write about my cancer experience.

The first book I wrote was an e-book, “So I Have Cancer”, available from www.ebookstand.com.

My second book “Cottage Cheese and Cancer; and Other Things Your Doctor Does Not Tell You”, (ISBN 1-4137-7736-8), was published approximately two years after my e-book, contains much of the information that is in my first book but is about 50 percent larger and includes the additional information I learned over the years. This book is available at www.PublishAmerica.com and all fine book stores.

My third book, due to be published summer of 2008 is titled “The Uninformed Liberal; but Then I Repeat Myself”, will be available on www.Amazon.com. This book was written after a conversation with some of my liberal friends who were trying to get me to change my position but were trying to do it with their heart and not their head. I hope it will be a good read for both liberal and conservative.

But if one wants to really keep their mind working, write a historical novel. The amount of research required is amazing. I am 50,000 words into the historical novel, which will be my fourth book, (unless I decide to take some time to write a political satire, or an update on my health) and feel I have barely scratched the surface. The book should be near 500,000 words when complete.

 

I plan on listing updates on my health, and lessons learned from others, on this web page. If there are too many updates and if demanded, I may put the updates into another health book.