April 1st, a day to remember.
I woke up today to find that my latest mystery, “Tell Me No Lies,” has hit the top spot in the New York Times bestseller list. Wow, who’d have thought?
Author: Bob Walton
Morning Routine
Daily writing prompt
What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?
My mornings depend on whether I am meeting my friends for coffee or staying home. This ritual started at my bagel shop when I was in business. A small group of guys started meeting at Bob’s Bagels every morning. When I closed my doors, we kept the routine going, looking for another coffee shop to meet (usually at 7:30). Finding the right place to meet is not an easy task. But we found that local grocery stores had eating areas, and this worked out just fine. We drink coffee, eat a light breakfast, and discuss politics and other topical subjects.
If it is a weekend, well, then I rise at 7 a.m., brush my teeth and let the dog out, make coffee, take my pills (yes, I’m finally there), dress for the day, and drink said coffee. I also play a game called June’s Journey. My wife loved that one, and I kept playing after she passed. After that, I walk the dog and sit down to write.
Goodbye To The Big V
Goodbye To Kindle Vella
Going along with the publishing motif, I’ve been given an advanced warning by Kindle Publishing that Kindle Vella will no longer be available. It is kaput as of February 26, which is in three days. I don’t know why they can’t wait until the 28th of the month. I mean, well, I wasn’t getting anything out of it anyway. So, I guess it’s farewell old friend. It seemed like a great venue to serialize a story, and they tried really hard to make it as successful as one could hope for.
They said we might want to download the stories we have on the site, but I already have them in Word format on my computer. I tried to make a go of it on Vella – I really did. I enjoyed putting the stories there, even though we were only supposed to put serials there and not short stories, which is what I did.
I stopped my serialization of The Gods Among Us on Vella, a story that is still unfolding as we speak in July, because the stories were then locked from public view unless the public wanted to purchase keys to be able to read their favorite author on Vella. I told everyone I knew about this “great site” where they would be able to peek at my wonderful talent, but I got nothing. I don’t blame anyone. It seemed like you had to hurdle mountains just to sign up to read your favorite author.
One of my favorite authors, a local man, Dennis Royer, turned me on to another similar site called Wattpad, where an author, such as myself, could write whatever the hell he wanted to and hope people would want to follow said author, me. Wattpad, it turns out, is very well known and has millions of readers and almost as many authors/contributors. Wattpad is also a publishing house, and some of its stories have even gone on to become movies on streaming services. So all those stories I put out on Kindle Vella can be found on Wattpad here: Login – Wattpad.
This is all to ask you to read my ongoing science-fiction story, “The Gods Among Us.” It is about a savvy Texas woman who is taken back into our past so that she might start a new line of human beings.
If you liked William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, you may like The Gods Among Us. I recently read another Golding novel, The Inheritors, which has a similar subject matter to mine.
Robert Walton Books 