We Make Plans and Life Laughs

By Merri Maywether on September 20, 2020 • ( Leave a comment )

This week a friend in the publishing industry announced they were going to publish a sweet romance anthology. They made the call for twenty-five short stories from 5000-8000 words that match the theme “When You Least Expect It.”

As we all know, I’ve been working on my short stories. I had been trying to shorten them down to 1000-2000 words.

In other words, in this instance, my weakness is a strength. Yes. This should be an easy assignment.

Ha. We make plans, and life laughs.

Here’s what happened next. I got stuck. My strength turned to goo, which meant I spent a good day wandering around wondering what to write. After thirty-six hours, the goo loosened, and the gears started their slow whirl. Then I remembered, I have a list of story ideas!

At the top: the story of how Victor and Mayra finally went from two friends in the same social circle to Mr. and Mrs.

Easy.

Nope. I remembered that Mayra had a lifelong crush on Victor. She reached the summit of her unrequited love when he spilled a soda on her, and another man came to her rescue.

Victor’s wakeup call launched him to defend what he’d taken for granted.

How does a man do that? As in, how does he make amends for a lifetime of oopses?

I had to do some research.

Let me tell you. I learned some things.

Apparently, men are hard-wired for reconciliation.

Of course, I ran to my friends and said, “Girls, Get this!”

My friend Elaine called shenanigans. She was rather adamant when she said, “My husband doesn’t know how to say the words I’m sorry.”

I replied, “Because they tend to do it with their actions.”

I don’t want to go too deep into the conversation, because it will give away what Victor does. Let’s just say, Elaine gave me the “oh” and nod of “I see your point.”

If you’re really interested to know how men make up from a disagreement, the links will be on the bottom of this blog.

I’ll end this story with an announcement and a request.

The anthology that will include “Happy Birthday, Victor” will launch on December 18th.

The second is a request. I forgot Victor’s last name. It happens after twenty books and a list of short stories. So, I went to Amazon to read my blurb for The Chance to Win Her Heart. Several books with the same words in the title appeared, but mine didn’t. I did some research and figured out why. The reviews for The Chance to Win Her Heart ended in 2018. It had been so long since anyone commented, the Amazon search engine forgot the story existed.

If you’ve read The Chance to Win Her Heart, can you please share what you thought of the story? What did you think of Ashbrook, or the friends, or the happily ever after? I’d appreciate any feedback you’d be willing to share.

Here are the links to the store pages:

Apple | Amazon US |Kobo US | Barnes & Noble | Google Books

Now, I’m logging off to finish Victor and Mayra’s story.

I’ll close this note wishing you a happy first week of autumn. May your warm ciders taste sweet, and I hope your cocoas contain the perfect whip cream to chocolate balance.

Until the next note,

<3 Merri

p.s. here are the links I used to figure out how Victor solved his problem