Lord of the Rings or Lord of the Flies?

Most of my childhood memories of tramping around the neighborhood with other kids, or being forced to "play" in basement rec rooms with my rowdy second and third cousins, have a distinct Lord of the Flies quality to them.

You certainly knew who your allies and enemies and frenemies were. I guess it was good training for the real world?

LW- Dad left the email account opened, presumably where your own mother could have seen it. So, carelessness means the cats out of the bag.

This could be like the situation in Friends when Joey's dad had a GOOMAR on the side and the Mother was happy to be ignorant because it made the Dad happier and nicer to be around when he could have a "hobby."

So maybe your Mom doesn't want to know. On the other hand, if she is still sleeping with your Dad then she is potentially being exposed to whomever else the mistress is sleeping with or has slept with.

Email your dad at the secret address. Attach some literature circa 1980s about STDs and condoms and AIDs and how "you sleep with everybody that everyone you sleep with ever slept with."

Then ask point blank if he is taking precautions to make sure your Mom doesn't get sick from his dalliances.

If he was faithful to your Mom during the 1980s, then he probably has no idea about the safe sex movement, he never had to think about it before.

Then never say another word about it again. Encourage your Mom to get her financial affairs in order as a matter of routine, just in case "something ever happens to Dad." Then let the chips fall where they may.

Congratulations on that stipend! That is awesome. Good for you!

When I tried to write a novel I did it on my parents dime, living at home, taking graudate courses to become a high school teacher and trying to feel like I had some purpose to my days when everyone had some place to go and get dressed for in the morning and I was wearing PJs in front a computer screen. Eventually, I got a job as a teacher and kept writing in my spare time.

I joined a writers group that met at Barnes and Noble once a week. Then those of us trying to write novels splintered off and formed our own sub group and gave ourselves deadlines to produce chapters and pages for the others to read and critique. There was some drama when one of the sixty-something married members of our group (he wrote Tom Clancy-esque stories) started banging the forty-something single mom who hosted the meetings (she wrote slice-of-life dramas-- and is successfully published in literary mags after ten years' effort!!!). Finally, our group busted up and after collecting a nice little portfolio of rejection letters from agents and publishers (I wrote hard-boiled murder stories! Badly!), I left for law school.

If you don't want to become a head case talking a blue streak about the daily lives of your fictional characters the minute your fiance comes home from the office each day then do the following:

Join a writers group that will impose weekly page/chapter deadlines and give you immediate feedback on your writing, people who will get to know your characters and enjoy analyzing them with you as if they were real people.

Exercise, eat properly and get fresh air.

Invest your stipend wisely-- put it in a high interest bearing CD and get a part time job that doesn't sap your creativity and intellect to help pay the expenses. When you punch your card out at the end of your shift, you will be EAGER to write, trust me.

Work among real people so you can have real conversations that will inform your characters' dialogue and make it more realistic.

Once you have established a more permanent means to pay your expenses, use the stipend to seed a Roth IRA and keep saving. You won't be sorry!

Don't squander it. Put $500K each into 401Ks for both of you. Or can you pay $1 mil each for a decent annuity that gives you a nice annual income? Will insurance companies let you purchase $1mil annuities if you are in your twenties?

Oh, to have such problems.

With the leftover million, buy a nice modest four bedroom home on the West Coast, then get some jobs doing something you love for whatever salary it happens to pay. Something you would pay someone else to let you do.

Why not work? Bill Gates works, doesn't he? Surely he doesn't have to.