I tweet into the void on most days. Even my pithiest tweets receive little fanfare. And my blog posts? Twitter barely notices them.
But this morning. Oh my goodness this morning, the incomparable James S. A. Corey, author of the Expanse science fiction series (also adapted for television), retweeted one of my tweets. I’m positively giddy.
I might’ve gushed. So sue me.
The planets really are doing some fantastic alignment stuff right now. Venus, Saturn, and Jupiter are all visible to the naked eye. Quite entertaining. And apparently influencing one of my favorite authors to retweet me.
What are you reading this weekend? Hopefully something other than the directions for putting up the artificial Christmas tree you bought last year on sale and then forgot all about until you opened up the attic to get the Yuletide decorations down.
“Mabel, did you buy this 16’ pre-lit fake balsam?”
“No, Arnie, you bought that on account of little Barry’s allergies. Remember?”
Arnie doesn’t really remember, but he’s learned, after 50 years of marriage, that Mabel is always right about such things.
But that’s because Mabel keeps her mind sharp by reading. And what might she read this weekend?
One of the best moves I’ve made since publishing my novels was to enroll them in Kindle Unlimited. For those who aren’t familiar with KU, it’s a program in which members pay a monthly fee and in exchange can read any book published on Kindle that’s been enrolled in the program at no additional charge.
So, for $9.99 per month (U.S.), a reader has access to more than a million books. For avid readers this is a great deal. For their part, the authors are paid by the page. For every 1,200 pages read, the author makes about $5.00.
Now, back to the title of this blog. I enjoy looking at my daily stats to see how many pages have been read. And then I begin to imagine the readers:
I see a woman my age with a cup of tea. She’s curled up on the sofa with a cat in her lap while snow falls outside her window. She knows she should go to bed, but darn it, Paula is in a pickle and maybe the next chapter will provide some resolution.
There’s another woman in California. She’s on the beach stretched out on a striped towel and when she comes to the part about nude jugglers, she gets a case of the giggles. A handsome lifeguard comes over to make sure she’s okay and ends up asking her out for drinks. That’s good for her, but hey! Come back and read some more, lady!
And how about the man in Indiana who reads in bed? He can’t believe his lady friend talked him into this, but he’s kind of into it now. He thinks Paula should take things slowly, and he likes the dialogue. He’ll finish the book before he turns off the light.
Okay, so maybe my imagination’s working over time. But that’s what I do.
I felt good enough this morning to take my laptop to a favorite coffee shop and work on book three in my Happy Valley series. The place was busy, but not crowded when I arrived, so I ordered my tea and found a place to plug in as it was prepared.
No sooner had I typed in my password than my name was called and I scurried over (I’m a great scurrier) to pick up my order. As I snagged my cup of Sunrise Roobios, a young man caught my eye. Actually, his sweatshirt caught my eye. It was a warm gold hoodie with the word Sneaux. emblazoned on it in black lettering. I complimented him on it and asked where he’d gotten it.
“I made this,” he said. “I own SneauxBalls.”
I must’ve looked puzzled (what’s new about that?) and he elaborated. His company makes snowball treats: Finely crushed ice in a paper cone doused with a specially crafted syrup. Very tasty stuff.
We exchanged names—his is Jarrett Maloy, and I told him I’d like to buy one of his sweatshirts. He gave me the address for his business, and voila!
Jarrett and moi. He opened his shop early just for me!
Jarrett Maloy is my new marketing hero, and he certainly gave me some ideas about ways to get my book titles out there. And get this, Jarrett is a family name in my world and holds a special place in my heart. We were meant to meet today.
We talked books and I learned he and his twin daughters have published a coloring book on Amazon featuring the flavors of his company’s Sneauxballs. Clever, right?
I love it when the world works like this. Check Jarrett out on Facebook at JMo’s SneauxBall. And if you happen to live in the Tallahassee area, pay him a visit at 2033 S. Adams, St.
Even though I have a perfectly good laptop, I do all of my blogging and social media entries on my iPhone. Using one finger. You see, I never learned to do all that fancy schmancy two-flying-thumbs stuff. So as one might expect I’m something of a predictive text fan. Not because it’s of any real use to me, but because of the often humorous ways it would seek to twist my sentences. Sometimes great adventures await if I just follow the suggested path.
For example every time I type one of the rather lengthy titles to one of my books, predictive text is helpful up to a point. Now, I’ve typed “Mayhem at the Happy Valley Motor Inn and Resort” hundreds, perhaps thousands of times since publishing it a year ago. One would think that predictive text could just reel it off by now. But no.
Right off the bat, the next word offered is ‘said’.
Mayhem said? No. That makes no sense. Let’s keep going. Mayhem said it was okay but I didn’t want to know what if I was wrong.
Then Happy Valley pops up. And logically, because I’ve typed the next phrase so often the words Motor Inn should be predicted next. But no…
Sometimes it offers church. Sometimes lunch. Once it suggested stream. But not once has Motor Inn magically appeared.
The final word pops up as a last option. All I can say is it’s a good thing I don’t write my books on an iPhone. Otherwise, “Nude juggling a book with a friend of mine” might’ve been a thing.
If I tell you I saw Rembrandt this morning, his face staring up at me from my bathroom rug, of all places, would you think me insane or would you direct me to the proper authorities?
Had it been the Virgin Mary I’d seen, I’d know exactly who to contact. Alas, it’s a long-dead Dutch painter.
On second thought, it might not be Rembrandt at all, but instead the steely-eyed conquistador whose likeness graced the walls of my childhood home during one of Mom’s theme periods of decorating.
Although, the image bears a striking resemblance to a hat-wearing woman from a famous painting, the title of which escapes my mind, except the visage on my bath mat clearly has a mustache, and the lady in the painting does not.
But, wait. It’s none of the above.
The closer I get the more I realize it’s likely Sigmund Freud come to call. Oh, the irony.
When I checked Amazon today to see how my books were faring, I felt a little tingle of motherly pride as my darlings were gathered together in a neat little line.
Wedding at the Happy Valley Motor Inn and Resort has quite a challenge ahead of her if she’s going to catch up with her siblings, but she’s only been in the world for a few days now. Barely even has her little eyes open.
I’ve been sick with a nasty cold for almost a week now and finally I feel like I’m almost human again. Studly Doright was sick, as well, only his illness was due to a change in medications. We made a fine pair for the Thanksgiving holiday.
While everyone else was chowing down on turkey and dressing, pumpkin pie, and that wonderful canned cranberry sauce, Studly and I were heating up canned soup and having Mucinex for dessert. Yum, yum.
Of course he felt well enough to play golf on this Saturday morning. As he left, I brandished my raised fist at him, saying, “Okay, if you get sick again I am NOT taking care of you.”
He just patted me on the head and laughed before leaving.
I can’t imagine why he wasn’t intimidated.
Okay, the photo is motivation to get myself back into the world of the living. It’s going to take a lot of work.
Praying for Eyebrowz 