Yesterday, I found myself with nothing I wanted to do, nothing I was especially interested in reading, nothing I wanted to watch on TV. Notice that I used the words "wanted to do": I have quite a collection of books to read, plenty of mind-numbing tasks awaiting me, and stores within walking distance--and the sidewalks even appear to be reasonably clear after the recent snows. I am not exactly housebound.Anyway, I wanted something new and different. So what did I do? I downloaded five Amazon Shorts, and read and wrote customer reviews of two of them. Never heard of Amazon Shorts? I admit that (to my surprise) I've written two myself and had them accepted recently ("Volunteer" and "Marie's Story"), but this wasn't about my stories. It was about shorrt, quick, and easy immediate gratification. At 49 cents each, that's only $2.45 on my credit card. Each story is about 2,000 to 10,000 words in length, easily read on screen or printed out.
I selected stories from the "Literature and Fiction" group, "Women's Fiction" division. That's where my stories reside, so I cllicked on and read about other stories that appeared to deal with older women, their lives and their problems.
So far, I've read and written very short customer reviews of "Am I Wife or Daughter?" by Brenda Hill and "Merry Christmas, Miss Budge!" by Daphne C. Simkins. I enjoyed both stories. Do they rank with the masterpieces we're all familiar with? Not really, but for enjoyable reading on a cold Saturday afternoon, they were great. I look forward to reading the others today; they now reside on my computer as PDF files.
There are thousands of Amazon Shorts available, in many different genres and categories, fiction and non-fiction, from Business and Investing to Cooking, Food, and Wine to Religion, from Mystery to Romance to Science Fiction. You're sure to find something interesting. Give it a try, and tell me what you think. And how about reading and reviewing my stories?
Copyright 2008 by Marlys Marshall Styne
No comments:
Post a Comment