My 85-year old mother asked for my old Kindle. I was surprised but thought she wanted to be able to read the same books that I’ve read, a compliment to my reading taste, though I wasn’t certain how she would react to the “Fifty Shades” trilogy. This was my original Kindle and the battery empty screen had been visible for a long time so it took a lot of charging and restarting to get it to fire up.

We were sitting on the couch and I showed her the Kindle, explained that it would take a while for me to teach her how to use it. I showed her the nine pages of books that had been downloaded onto it. She wasn’t interested in those, however. Said she had plenty of her own books stacked on her nightstand.

She wanted to read my book. I laughed. And laughed.

Somehow she had gotten the impression that the novel I have been working on since 1986 was on the Kindle. I’ve been struggling with which of my many writing projects I am going to tackle. Suddenly it is clear. She wants to read my novel before she dies. I want to finish my novel before I die. So Anne it is.

I’d love for her to be able to read it on my Kindle. That would mean it was a published novel! The reality is that is years away, if ever. Even if I can complete it by the end of this year (impossible!!), I’d need to find an agent and whatever else happens after that I don’t know except I am certain it would involve a lot of time. Something I may not have. So maybe I will have to consider self-publishing IF I ever finish the novel. I’m not opposed to that. If the alternative is never to see it in print before I die I will do it.

But first I have to finish it……

Tagged: Kindle, self-publishing, writing