On Saturday November 4th Watauga public library hosted an indy author day to which I was invited, and I gladly joined. Wautauga is a small city located between Dallas and Fort Worth. It is closer to Fort Worth. They also hosted an indy author day last year, which I also partook in. We all had a booth where we sold and signed our books. I did not sell a whole lot, half a dozen, but that’s OK. It is a great way to interact with and get to know other authors, and it is fun.
We also read a short passage from our respective books in front of an audience. My reading went very well. I read one of the shorter funny Bronco stories from my book and people laughed a lot. Well, I had practiced, and I was animating the story a bit. I felt like a comedian. I am including the story I read at the end of this post. If you are an indy author and you live in the Dallas Fort Worth area I suggest you participate next year, just for the fun of it.
The story I read during reading time (3 minutes)
Bronco’s Hamster Search and Rescue
Back when Bronco was young, the kids had pet hamsters—Moldova and Montenegro. The hamsters escaped from their cages sometimes, but Bronco usually helped us find them whenever they did. Claudia (my wife) would tell him, “Bronco, find the hamsters,” and he would go around the house sniffing until he found them. One time he found them in the linen closet; another time he found them on a shelf in the living room.
On one occasion, a friend of David (our son) trusted us with his two hamsters while he and his family went on vacation. A couple of days later, Claudia noticed that the two hamsters were missing from their cage. The next thing she noticed was that Bronco’s cheeks looked puffy, so she said, “Bronco, drop it!” Out came the two hamsters, both unconscious.
In a panic, Claudia started performing CPR on the unconscious hamsters. She put one hamster at a time in her hand and gently compressed each tiny chest using the finger of the other hand. Fortunately, one hamster revived right away. The CPR didn’t seem to be working on the other hamster, but Claudia put both of them back in their cage, and soon the second hamster also woke up. We decided to keep the incident to ourselves. Hamsters don’t squeal.
The question is, Did Bronco try to eat the hamsters? Or did he simply find them and pick them up, intending to alert us to their presence? I’ve asked several people this question, including some who know Leonbergers well. The answer they give is that he tried to save them from whatever danger he thought they might have been in. If he wanted to eat them, they say, he would have tried chewing them. But clearly, he didn’t.
Note: Unless they bought my book, they probably still don’t know what happened
Have you been an indy author day or similar?
Leonberger Life 