Personal #fridayflash news

Hello everyone. This coming Friday will be my 50th story in #fridayflash. I've been sitting on a story called "Flash--A Love Story" for a couple of months because I thought it'd be perfect for this milestone, which, as it so happens, will also be my one year anniversary in posting #fridayflash stories. My first one, last year, was on the final Friday of August. I did miss three weeks throughout the year, so that's why the first story of my second year isn't #53. That's fine, though; I like how it all worked out.

I also plan on recording the audio version of my stories starting this coming weekend and posting them for #SpokenSunday (like #fridayflash, but the authors put out an audio version of a story or some other spoken work instead of written work). I posted last week's story late last Sunday night, and I had fun doing it, so I figured I'd continue. My plan, as of now, is to start from the beginning and keep going. So Sunday you should get me reading the story "Jamie's Home," which was my very first #fridayflash last August.

The big news that I'm most excited about, however, is that I plan on putting out my first 50 stories on Smashwords as a free download. I've just started putting it together, so it'll likely be a few weeks before it's available, but I'm excited that my first year of #fridayflash will be available all in one book for ereaders--all for free! As soon as it goes live on the Smashwords site, I'll post it here, on Twitter, and on Facebook, so you won't miss it if you're interested.

Until next time, keep reading and/or writing.

Published Book on Smashwords

I published a book of short stories today over at Smashwords.com. The book is called The Breath of Life and Other Stories (click here to see). They are 20 shorts that have been published in that last few years, mostly on various Internet magazines. If you look at which stories are included, you'll find that you can read most of the stories for free by following the links right here on this blog Click here to go to that page--16 of the 20 stories, actually.

So why am I charging 99 cents for stuff you can get largely for free?

For a few reasons. One, there are four stories that are no longer available. Think of it as paying a smidgen less than a U.S. quarter per new story. Two, instead of having to click on numerous links, you can get all 20 stories in one handy spot. Three, for those of you with e-readers, Smashwords supports many different types of files that make it compatible with most devices.

For those of you who download the sample, I only made the first 10% available. This shows the table of contents and much of the first story. Why didn't I make more available for free? Because since so much of it is available for free here at my blog, I really only think the table of contents is necessary. For those people who don't visit my blog, however, the 10% does give a good chunk of the first story, too, to give a bit of my writing style.

I hope you will go check it out. If you don't want to buy the book, I hope you will at least download the sample and check out the stories here on my blog. Again, click here to view my book's page at Smashwords. Let me know what you think!