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I’m not a meteorologist or a climatologist, but I have a pretty good sense of what makes sense to me, and I paid attention in the science classes I took. If I had the credentials, I’d love to write a book on why global warming is faux science driven by the desire of science researchers to stay funded.

But I can’t prove it the way someone who has those credentials can, and fortunately, there are two new books that do the job better than I ever could, from a scientific standpoint. Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years, by physicist Fred Singer and economist Dennis Avery was released just before Christmas and exposes how much of a lie it is that human activity has anything to do with the Earth’s natural cycle of warming and cooling, warming and cooling.

The other is The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change, by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark and former BBC science writer Nigel Calder (Icon Books), is due out in March. The Drudge Report deserves credit for alerting Script Surgeon to this forthcoming title.

While Unstoppable Global Warming is a great book for laying out the case against man-made global warming, The Chilling Stars is the book that details the hard science of how and why our climate works this way, regardless of man’s intervention.

This is why it’s best if I stick to writing scripts. While a talented communicator can succeed in, say, Raleigh real estate, science has much higher technical demands, and requires the work of hard scientific research to be credible. The folks behind these two books certainly fit the bill.

Another frequent mistake young writers make is in the area of what I like to call SASE etiquette. Many new writers scrawl their names and addresses on submission and return envelopes, frequently in thick black or red Sharpie marker, making the submission envelope look like something sent by a stalker or a terrorist group. Not a good impression.

Take my advice: invest in some return address labels and maybe even get some blank labels you can print off on a laser or inkjet printer. And as for the return address labels, if you have them professionally done, don’t get Dumbo or Marvel Comics or anything cutesy like that.

You wouldn’t show up to a job interview at Trump International wearing a clown suit, would you? How you present your submission to an editor it your equivalent of a business suit.

Most places don’t charge much for return address label printing, and the cost of blank labels you can print out yourself is even more economical. Use such tools for both the TO and FROM addresses, on both the outgoing and return envelopes. It’ll give you a much more professional appearance, and that is what you want.

One of the wiser investments a writer can make is in professional business cards. While many aspiring writers neglect this detail, it can add a level of professionalism to any situation.

Imagine you’re sending in a query letter to the editor of a magazine in which you want a story published. Chances are, he doesn’t know you from Adam. Yet if you include a nice, professional business card paper clipped to your cover letter, you increase the chances of catching his eye, or even having your business card added to his Rolodex; even if that article isn’t accepted, if he adds your card to his Rolodex, it could lead to an assignment down the line.

Sure, you’re still a nobody until you get published. But you don’t have to act like one.

Anyone wanting to learn scriptwriting - whether it’s for stage, screen or comic book page - needs to read only one book, really, to learn the craft. Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee is to screenwriters what a Catholic Bible is the the Pope: the first and most definitive source of information for their career.

McKee’s focus may be screenwriting, but his book is really about the fundamentals of good storytelling. Folks in Hollywood pay thousands of dollars for his classes, and if you can get the same wisdom from a $25 book, that’s a great trade-off!

I valued my college education but McKee’s book taught me as much about being an effective writer as six-plus years of training and two college degrees. Highest recommendation.

One of the keys to being a successful writer - short of becoming the next James Patterson, that is - is to find things you can do, services you can perform that help you support yourself financially that don’t take you away from writing so much that you get no writing done.

One way to do that is to get writing-related side-jobs, such as being a freelance writer/editor putting together newsletters and such for clients. Or heck, with a decent color laser printer and the right paper supplies, you can even use your PC and copy of MS Word to perform business card printing services on the side; there’s a decent demand for that, too.

And these aren’t the only ideas out there, just examples of how to make use of what you have to keep yourself afloat during the lean times. Writing may be your dream, but use some creativity and drawing a steady supplemental income to support your writing is entirely possible, with a bit of creative thinking. And isn’t creative thinking a necessary component of being a working writer?

Martin Luther King Jr. Day always gets me thinking about dreams, and it occurs to me that that’s essentially what the process of writing fiction is about: having dreams, then committing them to paper. The better the writer, the more vivid the dream.

Of course, in the world of script writing, in which the visual medium takes care of all the narrative tasks except for dialog and character action, it’s sometimes pain-inducing, to the point of needing a dose of generic Ultram, to maintain much control over mood and tone.

In the entertainment biz, if a film or TV show or even a comic book flops, the knee-jerk response is to blame the writer. But is it always the writer’s fault? This reminds me of a story to illustrate the point.

About 15 years ago, when DC Comics was rebooting its entire universe, new writers were getting fresh shots to create new takes on characters that had been established for 60-some years. One of the most successful makeovers was performed by writer Frank Miller on Batman. With his Dark Knight Returns miniseries paving the way, Miller grabbed talented hotshot artist David Mazzuchelli to draw his Batman reboot run, Batman: Year One.

Miller being the writer he was and Mazzuchelli being the artist he was, the story arc was a huge hit. One of the writers to follow up on BATMAN was Max Allen Collins, whose re-treatment of the second Robin, Jason Todd, played a big part of his first story arc, which at the time was billed as kind of a follow-up to BATMAN: YEAR ONE.

The storyline wasn’t considered as compelling, by most fans, and Collins’ run on the title was short-lived, despite his being one of the best mid-list detective novelists working today. However, unlike Miller, Collin’s work on Batman was not blessed with the artwork of David Mazzuchelli. Instead, his issues were illustrated by a solid, but far less stylistic, far less eye-popping artist.

Collins maintains to this day that if the artwork was set aside and his script was read side-by-side with Miller’s, his work on Batman would stand the test of comparison. Perhaps it’s a moot point since his run came back in 1987-88 and the dispute is now nearly 20 years old, but it is an interesting interpretation. And an example of how being paired with good talent - be it a solid cast, a great director or a good artist - matters as much to the final product as does the quality of writing.

Writing jobs are rare enough as it is, but even those jobs that are out there are becoming less and less about the skill of crafting compelling dialog, storylines, characters and scenes, and, increasingly, more about specialist knowledge. The term “writer” is losing its meaning.

For example, I recently interviewed with an employer where the job title listed was “Web writer.” Once the details emerged in the interview, it became apparent what they were really looking for was a Web page designer, more than a writer. The interviewer focused more on whether I was familiar with database-Web page integration, rather than whether I had solid interviewing skills and could craft a compelling report on later school starting times.

Or take some of the scriptwriting jobs in Hollywood. Can it honestly be said that the average writer could jump into the writing pool at CSI or House and write a competent episode without a degree in forensics or medicine? Shows are way more about tech-talk than they are character, these days. And really, what does the average writer know about DNA testing services, other than what they can find out on the Web or remember from the O.J. trial? Not much, in most cases.

I miss the days when being a writer meant understanding the human heart, more than understanding the operational procedures of open-heart surgery.

The right furniture can make the task of writing much less of a task. In fact, next to a PC and word processor, I’d say that a comfortable chair is probably one of the most essential tools an aspiring writer can invest in.

In my own experience, my best writing came when I owned a plush leather office chair in my home office. I was comfortable and able to think without distraction. When that broke down and I had to make due with a metal folding chair for a while, I was less productive.

So figure out what type of chair suits you best and allows for the greatest amount of productivity. Then go to several furniture stores, or department stores, and look at everything from office furniture to living room furniture to kids furniture, and find the best place for you to sit while creating.

You might be surprised just how much it helps!

The recent announcement that The O.C. was canceled got me thinking. It was never a show I watched, but I was aware of it. It debuted right around the time Dawson’s Creek was ending and seemed to fill that gap for a teen- to young adult-oriented prime time soap. I just never jumped on board.

However, the show was the hottest thing going for at least two years out of its four-year run. The show probably jumped the shark earlier than most - in its third season. So at least it’s not grossly outlasting its appeal, like Happy Days, ER, and notable others.

But what must it be like for the show’s creator and main writer? The O.C. was touted as a “fresh, new show” by a “hot, new creator.” So what’s it like to see the show that launched your career go away so soon? I mean, in these days of DVD collections, four seasons is such a middle ground. Longer than those one- or two-season wonders, but not substantial enough to merit a solid collection, like seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or eight seasons of Charmed.

What’s that like? I can’t say that I have any idea. But it must be strange. Of course, other creators have prospered despite early exits for their freshmen shows. Most notably, J.J. Abrams, who started his pre-LOST career with four seasons of Felicity on The WB.

Now, ultimately, I’m not overly concerned for The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz. I’m sure he’s sitting in his LA mansion, working hard on his next pitch in the comfort of posh furniture like Coaster Furniture makes, enjoying the run he had.

But still…

Writing for pay is the dream of nearly every writer. But actually doing it is a completely different reality than dreaming about it. Rarely does the reality measure up to aspirations - unless, perhaps, you’re Stephen King or James Patterson.

For most of us, though, real-world writing jobs feel more like jobs than they do dreams-come-true. While real-world writing jobs don’t exactly require First Aid kits, you sometimes may feel like they do.

I’ve been blessed to have many jobs that involve writing. Not all of them have been creatively satisfying, though. Case in point? Need an example? Okay.

I once worked a writing job for a fellow in the industrial weights and measures biz. I created both a product catalog in print, and a Web site for him. Plenty of “writing” involved. Zero creativity. Put it paid the bills for a while. I appreciated the experience. But not exactly the same as writing a screenplay or a novel, eh?

I’ve done a lot of time in journalism, as well. There’s a bit of room for creativity in feature writing and sports, but news is fairly straightforward if you do it right. There is some great satisfaction to be had in working 35 of out 48 hours to compose 15-20 stories and put a weekly issue to bed, but it’s not so much a creative rush as it is the sort of high a game-coder gets from finally debugging his last bit of code and creating a final build. It’s a post-adrenaline rush high, with a huge crash after.

I’m not putting down any of these writing jobs, but I am saying they’re not exactly what one envisions when they’re in high school dreaming of being a writer. Fair warning, kids: being a writer IS work.

I was recently asked by a younger writer friend whether it was OK for a writer who is a believer to feature characters in their stories who do not reflect their own belief system. It was an interesting question, even though at first blush it seems so simple that with all the time left after providing a response, I could go visit an Orlando vacation rental place.

But it’s not that simple when you consider the context of her question. She said that for her fiction to be accepted in a religious market, she feels compelled to include faith-based content and faith-based characters. And yet, when she has read such fiction, she feels the writing is awkward and subpar, at best.

So really, it becomes a question of audience. She wants to write to people of faith, so the question becomes, what will they read? Must main characters always be blatantly people of faith and must the story always include lengthy passages of preaching that takes a person out of the narrative flow in order to succeed in the religious fiction market?

I don’t believe so. The Left Behind series of books has done quite well and was less blatant in its religious content than most of what came before it, though the first three books were better at this trick than the final nine.

Also, Ted Dekker has pulled off some wonderfully subtle novels within the religious market that almost never sermonize but operate on an allegorical level instead, to get the religious message across while still delivering pulse-pounding suspense stories.

Besides, as my wife observed, “If everyone in a story acted consistently with Torah principles, who would the villains be?”