Digger Cartwright Interview 2013 Part 2: Question 4
You’ve done so much, what’s left for you to do?
I’ve got a lot left to do. I’m going to continue writing for as long as I can because I truly do enjoy it. I enjoy the storytelling, and for me it’s a challenge to put together a book—the characters, the plot, and all the subtleties that accompany writing a book. I’ve got to finish the Gems & Jewels series, and I certainly want to add more books with Lt. Wickland from The Versailles Conspiracy, Feltus Boone LaMont from Murder at the Ocean Forest, and the Maynwarings. I have a whole list of books that I want to write. If I just wrote books full time, it would take me years to get through the entire list of storylines that I’ve come up with, and it seems like I’m coming up with more and more every month, so that list just keeps getting longer and longer.
I’m the type of person that likes to get projects done. I don’t like having open projects sitting on my desk, so it’s pretty daunting to look at the list of books I want to write and realize that it’s going to take a while to finish this. Needless to say, I’m committed to this for the long haul, so readers can rest assured that I’m going to keep turning out books as fast as I can. I’ll be lucky to get one or two done each year. I don’t want to sacrifice quality for quantity or just to get the books written. I want to maintain my style and work quality.
There’s a whole list of business projects that I’d like to get off the ground, but like a good book, this doesn’t happen overnight. There’s a lot of planning and strategizing involved. Business always keeps me busy. You just never know what’s going to happen from one day to the next. Time is at a premium, so current operations come first and as time and resources permit we can move onto the new projects.
We’re working on setting up my own foundation to raise money for charitable work. I’m a big supporter of no kill animal shelters. If I could accomplish only one thing in the rest of my life I would love to stop the senseless killing of animals simply because they don’t have a forever home and to stop animal cruelty. Each year hundreds of thousands of animals are put down just because they haven’t been adopted. It really breaks my heart. Cats and dogs are such wonderful creatures and great companions. They have so much unconditional love to offer humans that it is a shame that it goes to waste. I understand that it is a matter of economics. Spending money to care for homeless animals isn’t a big priority here in America. I want to build my foundation so that we can provide support and assistance to shelters throughout America to stop the killing of shelter pets. It is a tall task, and I know that. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done in educating pet owners about the importance of having pets spayed or neutered to control the pet population. We need programs throughout the country to capture stray pets and spay or neuter them. I’d love it if the foundation could someday develop a network of animal rescue farms where stray and abandoned animals can live until they’re adopted. This is a cause that I’m very passionate about, so you’ll be seeing me continue to work towards this in the future.