Time for an assessment

I’m actually cheating on this a bit. I made the mistake of baking these garlic Parmesan rolls for my family about 25 Thanksgivings ago. They are everyone’s favorite, and an expected part of our Thanksgiving dinner. Rather than type this out through garlic and dough fingers, I’m typing it up Tuesday night. I’ll set it up to post sometime Wednesday. I’ll be baking tomorrow night.

It dawned on me that I haven’t posted an assessment about Macabre Macaroni. I like to try new things, and these were my Halloween themed micro fiction tales.

These were very popular posts. The least popular was about a robber who gets tricked into breaking into a vampire’s house. It was still 10% more popular than all other October posts. This is a great result.

The most popular Macaroni was six times more popular than that one.

I wound up with 300 more views during October than any other month. Numbers always grow a bit from month to month, but this is beyond expectations.

You guys surprised me. My two favorites fell somewhere in the middle of the Macaronis. For some reason, Mrs. Pumpkin and her son were the number one story. I liked it too, but expected the order to come out differently. The collaborative piece with Mari Wells was the second most popular.

The response to these absolutely blew me away. You guys are awesome, and I appreciate all the action.

I’m not a poet, and don’t usually get whatever they post about. Many writers post a bit of original poetry for their followers, but it just isn’t me. I wanted to post something different, and micro fiction turned out to be a good idea.

I’m not one to post excerpts, or to serialize a story. Readers miss some of the concept on an excerpt, and might miss a post on a serialized story. It looks like I need to post more short fiction every once in a while.

To tell you the truth, I’m thinking about saving up a bunch and making a short, cheap, Amazon book. It’s definitely getting some thought as I form my 2015 business plan.

For the rest of you authors, micro fiction worked well for me. If I had been smart, I would have included characters from my novels in these stories. That way it’s more than just a story, it has a bit of promotional value too. It could still happen. Ethan and Coop, from Panama, would fit right into a Halloween theme.

I’ll have to throw some more micro fiction on the blog. The challenge will be getting away from the Halloween idea. I don’t know if I can write Valentines Day fiction.

If anyone new is reading this, they have a special category called short stories and vignettes. You can find them filed away there.

Mrs. pumpkin, Jack, and I thank you all for the positive reception. It may take me a month or so to come up with more, but there will be more micro fiction on this blog.

For my American followers, Happy Thanksgiving. For my international followers, I’ll save a turkey leg for you.