No this isn’t about Game of Thrones but it is about a book. If you follow the blog, or my Twitter, or my Facebook Page, or even my Pinterest feed., you know that “January” was published in the Hazard Yet Forward charity anthology last week. Now I gave you the sales pitch already, but I wanted to give more a reason why I chose this story for this anthology.
You see, charity anthologies are not common. Simply put, no one makes money on them. Which is expected, as it is a charity. But, especially in the current economy, it’s not uncommon to for writers to pass on such projects. For some, a story sale means they get to go pick something at the store other than the ingredients for tuna noodle casserole.
But it is also the time do what you can to help others, even in the smallest way, when ever you can.
A lot of people don’t realize the expenses one can accumulate in just a short time if they have a medical crisis. After it was all and said and done, before insurance was factored in, my liver transplant cost around $2,000,000 dollars, give or take a few hundred thousand. I won’t go into what the insurance did cover, because that was, and still is a debacle. But still, millions of dollars, which is a price that I think Stephen King would go, “Holy Hell!” when he saw the bill. I also had a brother-in-law that passed away from brain cancer. I saw how much can be asked of the one diagnosed and the family.
If contributing a story can help in the smallest way, How could I not knowing worse case scenarios.
But why “January?”
For those that haven’t been with the journey of this story, I wrote this for the ill-fated Dead Bells anthology before my transplant. The anthology fell through about a year and a half later and I have searched for a home for it since. I don’t want to give too much away from the story, but the inspiration came from my nephew, Jack, when he was a quite little and I saw what he learned, what he didn’t, and what he discovered on his own. I reflected on my childhood and how I learned, didn’t learn or discovered on my own some of those things. With a child protagonist all alone, I wondered how much she could survive. Definitely a stark interpretation of the theme “hazard, yet forward.”
In a way, I saw a synergy between the theme of the story and the impetus of the anthology. Charity is a hard thing to come by these days. We have to teach charity to others because it is not a natural tendency. People, especially the normal healthy people, don’t know the stress of dealing with a major health issues. Hopefully, the existence of this anthology will not only help a good friend, and good writer, Donna Munro, but also help educate more on these two subjects.
I would mean a lot to me, the 75 other writers, and Donna and her family if picked up a copy of Hazard Yet Forward on Kindle for $9.99.
If you want to check out more about the anthology and the contributors, visit the anthology website.
