Mail was a long awaited sign of relief from incarceration of what seemed like house arrest. The seed catalog was like a Bible for spiritually famished pagan. It brought assurance that Spring was not far hence on calendar and under frozen ground buried by days and nights of blizzards and an inch of ice.

When sun shines during these winters it gives more light than on a smoggy July day. It’s a good time to start some seeds. Seeing seedlings poke out from under warmed soft earth sterilized in oven between Mom’s baking buns and bread sparks more than hope. Pride in our strength and courage to call it another winter sprouts thoughts of a good crop of grain and new spring calves.

While these memories flooded into a greying head, stove cooled off so I will need to leave you start a stew as I reload wood box and stoke up stove.

But don't make mistake of thinking that, because level of "quality" varies, you can be more lax in presentation and attitude when submitting to sex markets. Most of these editors appreciate rofessionalism just as much as their mainstream counterparts. Writers wanting to break into this market need to make sure that manuscripts are presented professionally and that phone calls (or emails) are returned promptly.

There are, however, some markets that operate in a more "casual" fashion. While this can occasionally work in your favor - a query for an article, for example, can be as simple as a one-sentence email - it can also be frustrating. You'll have to get used to idea that not all of your submissions, queries and requests for guidelines will be acknowledged. Perseverance, so useful when writing in any genre, is even more of a requirement when writing for sex markets.

Another requirement is an exhaustive knowledge of your market and your audience. Sex markets tend to be even more specialized than mainstream markets; each magazine often targets a very specific personality as well as predilection. What this means is that in order to sell you have to do your research; you'll need to study magazine cover to cover and yes, that means pictures, too. (Of course, some sex writers look at that as a perk of their profession rather than a hardship, but that's another story.) It's also imperative to request guidelines when possible because sex markets often are very specific as to style, point of view and word count; it's important that you know exactly what they're looking for before you submit.

Of course, most important requirement when it comes to sex writing is that you enjoy doing it. It's an excellent choice for those writers who relish a challenge as well as those who enjoy stretching their imagination. Yes, it's a job, as is writing for mainstream markets, and it requires utmost in professionalism and commitment.

But writing about sex is also a whole lot of fun. Getting paid to do it, well, that's even better.