This only ever happens once in a writer’s career. The first fanmail arrives and your world changes forever.
Maybe I’m making too big a deal of it. I don’t know. It feels like a big deal to me. There’s someone out there, whom I’ve never met, that likes the story I wrote. Likes it enough to go to the trouble of emailing me to tell me so.
Huge.
The email in question came in on Jan 5 2012. It was short and to the point:

I just finished reading ‘Heuristic Algorithm and Reasoning Response Engine’ in E-arc of Armored and wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed it. Thank you and keep up the good writing. I can’t wait to find more of your work.

He bought the e-arc of Armored from Baen, here:  http://www.baenebooks.com Notice that there are many other e-books from other excellent Baen authors also available.

So, a huge shout out to my first fan, JM.  Thanks dude, I will literally never forget you, creepy as that sounds.

If it makes you feel better I will probably never forget my first hatemail either. There’s no way to tell when it will happen but, given the nature of the internet, it surely will.

I’m kind of excited about that too.