As you may know, I spend last weekend in the hospital.
Most of that time I felt suspended in a morphine haze, but
never really out of reach of the pain.
I was vaguely aware of nurses and doctors; tests I was told
I’d need to rule out heart attack and aortic dilation, which, with my connective
tissue disorder is a danger that they must watch for closely, especially when a
patient presents with acute chest pain like I had.
Pain I still have, actually.
As it turns out my heart is fine, right now it’s my lungs that are
taking a beating (from complications likely due to the same aforementioned
connective tissue disorder) but let me tell you that in the hours I was in and
out in holding rooms the ER and then in a room on the seventh floor of
University of Michigan hospital, where I had to wait for the thirteen hour
steroid prep to kick in so they could do my CT scan (allergies…) I had
fragments of thoughts that really stuck with me.
The hardest, of course, were the memories of that place in
general.
In addition to all the times I’ve been there for tests and
things as a patient (my eye surgeries were at the specialized eye center, not the hospital main) I spent a lot of time in that hospital as my father’s advocate, both
when he had his brain aneurism in 2001 and during his cancer battle in 2008.
I could walk the halls, literally, blindfolded because for
all my sight was worth in 2008 I may as well have been. I was my father’s advocate
while I was legally blind (uncorrectable at all at the time, pre-surgeries.)
I’m getting to something writing related, please hang on
with me a little longer.
As I lay there the other night, wakened by nurses to draw
more blood and start new IVs and watching them run into the room in a panic
when my heart rate would spike for a minute, I thought about a lot of things.
Selling books was
not one of them.
Writing books
really wasn’t even one of them, either.
I was also awakened a couple of times by the Survival Flight
helicopters as they flew so close to my window it seemed I could almost touch
them…the same team of professionals that saved my dad after his aneurism.
I thought of all the lives that came to abrupt, irreversible
changes, or in some cases ends, in that building in the span of time I lay
there waiting for them to wheel me down to CT.
Serious thoughts, of course. Of my daughter, of the other
people I love. Some of you even crossed my mind for various reasons over the days I was there (and yes,
Hart, this means you especially, I wondered where in that vast place you were,
somewhere…)
But amidst the serious thoughts and drug induced meandering,
you may well laugh when I tell you that I did have ONE specific book related
thought (and again, maybe it was the morphine…I was only awake for a second at
the time I remember having this thought…)
I remember being sorry that I hadn’t had a chance to
introduce more people to my medical creation, my Doctor Godspeed.
And I thought about that frakking 2.99 price point.
The one that has irritated the living hell out of me since
the minute I put the book back up from .99 cents at the beginning of the month.
Not because I don’t think my book is worth the higher price.
Honestly, after the two years I gave my heart to that book I
can’t put a price on it that I think signifies to me how much worth it has.
But I know the rest of the world does. And I know this is my
first novel, and I don’t have another immediately planned (or perhaps planned, um,
ever for publication…I may stick with short forms or branch out into focusing more on other art…right
now I am wanting to seek the forms of expression that make me happiest. Right
now the pressure of publishing one novel after another is not that.)
Then I thought, what if one person who would have read the
book if the price had been less than a dollar passed on it- and missed out on
getting to meet my colorful Marielle, and Lilibet, and Penn, and Quinn and
Schuyler and all, for the sake of two
dollars that I will never even see, anyway?
What is the point of
that?
Over the past few days as I’ve had a long time to think
(being in pain and unable to sleep or move leaves you prone to that…) I have
been thinking about how many songs I have downloaded over the years from iTunes
for .99 cents and dearly loved. Listened to thousands of times in some cases (yes,
again, literally,) while blind, while in pain, while recovering from one surgery
or another.
What if just one more
person got to read my book because they could get 99 cents out of their budget
where 2.99 just couldn’t be justified? Yes, things are that tight for
people, I know this. Books are a luxury, period.
I would put it for free forever on Amazon if I could but
since I can’t this is the next best thing I can offer.
I want to come as close as I can to giving Godspeed as the
gift it was meant to be, to as many people as I can. For all I put into the
process beyond the writing— hiring a proper copyeditor, all of that, I don’t
think that it’s too much to ask you to risk the price of a McDonalds ice cream
cone or a single song on iTunes to find out if the novel holds up after you read
the first four plus chapters for free on the Amazon preview.
So…from here on out, the price for GODSPEED will be only .99 cents
for the ebook. The print book stays (unfortunately) where it is because I have
no control of that and still want to make it available to any who would want
it.
Before anyone jumps to judgments or cries foul that I’m
devaluing the work— mine or anyone else’s— I ask you to just think
of why I am making the personal decision to do this— to make the book
affordable to as many people as I possibly can.
If my aorta had been falling apart as I lay in that hospital
bed, things could have turned out very differently, and the chance exists I
would not be typing this to you now. Have a wake-up call like that and then see where your
priorities lie the next morning.
When it comes to my art, my priority lies in sharing it with
as many people as I can, and if making the book as inexpensive as I can makes that possible, then I will count myself much more successful than if I do things
any other way. That is why I am doing this. I am following my heart.
It may take a day or so for the prices to drop, you know how
these publishing sites are (may take longer for BN they seem to take longer in these matters than Amazon). But keep your eyes open.
And please, if you take a chance on it and like the book, tell a friend. Loan it to them over Amazon, even, if you can (I have
enabled lending.) Spread the word, and share the story that is so much a huge
part of my heart.
If you will, then the biggest gift of all will be mine.
xoxo
bru
