Hurricanes

I think the hardest writing thing I’ve tried to do so far is to write the Amazon book description for Somewhat Alive. It shouldn’t be that hard, seeing as how I wrote the entire book, yet it is.

They only give me 4000 characters to convince people my book is worth reading. Not that I really need more room, because I already don’t quite have enough stuff to fill it with.

Writing the description for Somewhat Alive on Kindle Vella didn’t seem nearly so challenging. It was shorter, for one thing. And maybe it didn’t seem as crucial, since there are tons of articles about how your Amazon book description makes or breaks careers, but almost no articles at all on how to write a Kindle Vella description.

It feels important to get it right, which makes it harder to write anything. I’ve been staring at the blank description box and typing and deleting first sentences for days now.

In other news, everyone is talking about Hurricane Ian. Personally, I don’t think it’s likely to do much to my part of Florida, other than probably be too rainy to play tennis one day this week. Walmart is completely out of bottled water, though, just in case. Good thinking, everyone. (Obviously, they still had Zephyr Hills, but I’d just go ahead and die.)

I remember when I was a teenager, and we first moved to Florida, and we had the first hurricane forecasted to come our way. School was canceled, and I felt so excited going to sleep that night, because it was my first hurricane and I’d never been in one before. It felt like an adventure, something new and exotic, especially for my mid-western teenage self.

I woke up the morning after the hurricane was supposed to come through, expecting heavy rain and wind or something new.

It was bright and sunny. Another perfect Florida day. I don’t remember where that hurricane went, but it didn’t come to us.

Of course, a few years later, Hurricane Ivan hit us for real and living without power and having storm damage took all the fun and allure out of hurricanes for me. It’s just not that fun to not have Internet or air conditioning and spend weeks eating MREs that the emergency people give you.

Anyway, if you’re in the path of the hurricane, stay safe. And if you’re not, maybe stop panic-buying all the water. And if anyone has any suggestions on how to write a good Amazon book description, please let me know!