Thanks so much for responding Mark. Yeah, I mean, I guessed that it would be income - but how on earth do you calculate the time period? I wrote it during January but there seems to be a few factors involved - some I would not expect them to take into consideration, others I would. For instance:

1. When a friend asked how long it took and I replied twenty-nine days, she countered with, more like 49 years of experience. She's not wrong, although I wouldn't expect SSDI to care about that.

2. Now that I have a publisher, there are endless edits - and I am STILL doing that - though I should be done this week. But then there's cover art to arrange, back cover blurbs to ponder endlessly, e-mails back and forth to other authors for recommendations, etc.

3. Though the advance will be nice, typically royalties are paid annually. While a (random guess) $7000 check seems big, that's $583/month or $134/week.

I'm not looking to take from the system if I don't need it, but I haven't got dollar one at this point and I've been cutting up clothes for toilet paper as I try to live on nothing for the last eighteen months. Even if I did get hit with the lucky stick and make it big - I'd still take the back pay as pain and suffering for them telling me I didn't need it for the last eighteen months - on moral principle.

Which brings up another point... Can they make me continue writing once I've shown success? I mean, obviously, if hit with the inspiration, I will continue writing. But the reason the book got written so fast is simply because I had the book inside me. I don't know if I've got another one in me.