wellswriting

My First Review On Amazon January 16, 2013

Since offering my short story, Mother, is available for free on Amazon downloads from kindle are high (at least their high for a new author publishing for myself).  There has been over 150 free purchases in the month of December alone.  Mother is a short story written a couple of years ago and after it was completed, I wrote a follow along novel that incorporates Mother as the second chapter. So I am hoping that people who have read my short story will be interested in the full length novel where the story of what happens next is explored in detail. I could have solicited my friends and family to log onto Amazon and review my story, but I have stayed silent and waited to see if I have caught the attention of people who have probably come across my story by chance and read it out of curiosity.

And now someone has, giving the story a five-star rating and making me feel like it was enjoyed.  Hopefully I’ll get more like this.  I am encouraged as I take one last weekend this week to final edit my follow along novel to Mother and submit it for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Entry for this year opened on January 14th and I hope they have not topped out on their maximum 10,000 entries by the time I finish my edits a few days from now. Maybe the first judges will like my pitch enough to send me on to the next level, maybe the next line of judges will send me into the semi-finals, and getting even that far would be amazing.  Yet even if I do not place at all, I still have my first five-star review and that is a winner for me.

What were you doing in high school? September 12, 2012

What were you doing in high school? I was on the swim team, learning to navigate the awkward byways of boy vs girl relationships, and occasionally paying attention to my studies.  What I wasn’t doing was starting a story editing enterprise.  There is however a young man who has started such an endeavour.  His name is Jake Johnson and he has amassed an impressive line up of authors for his year-long project to publish a series of themed anthologies which can be found at Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jakesmonthly). Two of my short stories were in his first anthology compiled around the Science Fiction theme.  He has since collected and published anthologies each month for these other themes:  Horror, Post Apocalyptic, Science Fantasy, Punk, Bizarro, Mystery, Thriller, Alternate History, Magic Realism, and Slipstream.

All in all, it is a very impressive collection this young man has been able to put together.  His last of this year’s anthology collection project will be an anthology featuring novellas.  I was pleasantly surprised recently when he contacted me wanting to know if he could publish my story, Fall of the Faithful. After having been pulled away from my writing for months now, it was good to be remembered and I agreed to be in the anthology if his final edit still has room.  But regardless of whether I do end up in his last anthology, I am still impressed by this young man’s enthusiasm and talent for drawing together all of these works in fiction and producing a high quality collection of stories.  You should go now to check them out.

Jakes Monthly Is Out With Two Stories October 4, 2011

Link to Jake's Monthly on Smashwords

Jake’s Monthly- Science Fiction Anthology has come out including two of my own stories.  It’s a bargain at just 99¢.  Please thank Jake Johnson for accepting my stories by ordering your copy in the electronic format of your choice.