If you’re not familiar with Read an eBook Week, it was founded by Smashwords author Rita Toews in 2004 and is the longest-running international celebration of eBooks and the readers who love them. It’s also longest-running Smashwords sale, going all the way back to 2009.
I’ve been part of the annual celebration since 2010 and it has always been great fun to participate.
Back when Ms. Toews started the party, it was in an effort to bring more attention to eBooks, which were still struggling to be recognized as “real” books, worthy of being read. Many people back then, and sadly a few still do, consider an eBook “lesser than,” missing out on some great stories.
The eBook market was a lot less crowded in 2010, so when I made One Small Victory free, it garnered about 40,000 downloads. After that sales spiked for a few months, until slowly settling back to pre-sale numbers. Today, the eBook version of One Small Victory is free, thanks to Next Chapter Publishing who released an updated version of the book in December 2019.
Four of my other titles are currently at Smashwords at a 50% discount and the short story collection, The Wisdom of Ages, is only 99 cents through March 9.
It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned that collection here on the blog so this is a good opportunity to remedy that. The three stories have older men as the lead characters, and the stories were inspired by real people.
Three stories and four men who look honestly at growing older and what lies beyond this life.
Meet Samson who wonders what is down that country road that draws people so. Should he get in that old truck and go see?
Mel and Rube have been having dinner at the Leavenworth Grill every Wednesday for years. One day the menu changes and so does life for Mel.
Tom would give anything for his life to change. Can he beat back the effects of a crippling stroke by sheer force of determination?
Growing old is not for the faint of heart.
HOW THE STORIES CAME TO BE
Maybe Someday won the Page Edwards Short story award a number of years ago, and the story was inspired by a brief glimpse of a black man sitting on a lawn chair under a Mimosa tree. My husband and I were driving west on Texas highway 79, headed toward a place where we were going to celebrate our wedding anniversary. A friend was watching our kids. We were childless for the weekend!! And we’d agreed that it would be a wonderful time of togetherness. And, well…you know.
Anyway, after passing by that old man, I couldn’t help but wonder what he might think about all the cars going down that highway past his little farm. Did he sit out there every day watching the traffic? What was his life like? Family? Did he wish he could go down the highway?
That wondering led to more wondering and a story started to spin through my head. This was back when writers always carried a notebook with them because there weren’t cell phones for dictating story ideas or making notes, so I asked my husband if he minded if I grabbed my notebook and jotted a few notes. He said that would be okay.
Cognizant of the fact that this was our time together, I did my best to keep the distraction down to a minimum, then closed the notebook and put it back in my purse.
Still, there was something about this character, already named Samson, that kept pulling at my attention. Not wanting to lose details of a story, details that might not appear again, I asked my husband if he minded if I wrote just a little bit more.
He was fine with that, so I started writing, thinking it would only be a few sentences to get story ideas down on paper before they sailed off into the netherworld.
Pretty soon the car slowed, and I looked up and said, “Oh. Are we stopping already? I thought we were going to go straight to the resort.”
He laughed. “We are at the resort.”
When I apologized for spending the last hour and a half of our drive together absorbed in a story, he laughed again and said, “That’s okay as long as you weren’t thinking about another man.”
Oops!
The Last Supper, was prompted when I saw two older men sharing a table at a diner in Omaha, Nebraska, where I’d met my husband for lunch. In between bites of the best meatloaf ever, I’d glance over to the table with the two men, noting their body language and how they interacted with each other. It was clear they were probably long-time friends and were having a rather serious conversation.
Halfway through our lunch, I couldn’t stand it anymore. Story ideas were coming and they screamed to be written down.
I pulled out my notebook.
My husband chuckled and said, “This is beginning to be a habit of yours. Should I be worried?”
He never had reason to.
The man in the third story, The One O’clock Nap, was a friend of ours from church. After he had a stroke that prompted his doctor to recommend he take a nap every day.
Tom hated the naps. When I visited him as a hospital minister and a friend, he told me repeatedly how much he resented those naps that took time away from him when maybe he didn’t have much time left on this earth.
His story didn’t come with the same urgency as the other two did and took longer to write as I mused over the impact of having that time taken away by a stroke, then the naps that his wife insisted he take. Tom often said he’d go lie down so mad that he thought he’d never fall asleep, then wake up a few hours later, mad again at losing those hours.
Thankfully, writing Tom’s story didn’t pull my attention away from my husband like the other two had. Visits that prompted the story, and the writing, took place while my husband was at work, so he didn’t know I was spending time with yet another older man.
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It would be wonderful if you’d consider buying this collection, especially at a super price right now. The link will take you to a page where you can see the other three books that are also discounted. Open Season is free!
Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope your week has started off well. Whatever your plans are, my wish is that you have fun while being productive. Be safe. Be happy.