Read an eBook Week #Tbt

Ah I vaguely recall my start as an independent writer; it almost seems like a lifetime ago.

I can’t even remember how I found [the oddly named] Smashwords, but I am glad we connected. Mark Coker’s publishing platform really simplified my life.

And then Draft2Digital with Books2Read came along with their pretty little layouts and boom I had a new crush. And a new distributor.

But I never left Smashwords.

By the way, it is true Smashwords and Draft2Digital are merging and I think that’s a good thing.

I’m not sure if Smashword’s support of the annual Read an eBook will continue in the years to come, but it is going on right now through March 12th. I, of course, am participating. Several of my books are available free or at a drastically reduced price. Just scroll through and check it out.

I believe The Perpetual Series was the first, or one of the first books I published with Smashwords; that was in 2013. Can you believe that?

I recall making the cover from a photograph I had taken of a flower blooming in the yard. Sadly, that flower never returned.

… that flower and so many other things.

Sigh

Happy Thursday Y’all. XoXo

Getting Me Back ( #NPM )

Getting Me Back

Tissue thin, transparent bits and pieces by the millions I gave to you…

To be received, to be tended

or to be rendered useless as you deemed fit

old inhabitants of terra firma.

Slivers of my soul….

What did you do with these pieces of me?

Where are the misplaced microscopic stars of my spirit, where are they laid?

Did they dissolve beneath a soft autumn rain?

Or burn in the heat of a cruel summer day?

Were they consumed by the dust mites of fate?

Giving me away was easy….

Getting me back seems nearly impossible.

I saw a fleck of glitter this morning,

caught in an abandoned web of time.

I retrieved it ever so carefully, pulling away the tiny choking strands; polishing it in the palm of my hand till it shone bright like a minuscule star… exploding…

and I recognized it as the twinkle I once saw

in a smiling photo of me.

*The poem Getting Me Back lent its name (and guidance) in the memoir styled book of poetry. It also lured me back from the land of “bat shit crazy” 😉

Getting Me Back is available at most bookstores

Dear December (Friday’s Free for All)

The poem that opens A Hard Candy Christmas.

Dear December

I found you – a thin shawl upon nature’s shoulders

resting on the final page of my Gregorian calendar.

Celebrations in red,

Christmas and Kwanza and the tail end of Hanukah.

Reminding me in stark black letters of bombings and declarations of war.

Hitler, Mussolini, and Japan…

Listen to Julia Gayden Nelson's lovely narration 
and/or get the e-book from your favorite retailer.

Welcome to December y’all!

A HARD CANDY XMAS ACX - Copy (1280x1280)