Fragments From Floyd

Early in the summer, Tom told me Jerry would probably be happy to sell Slow Road Home in the Blacksburg store. He was.

And a few weeks later, Susan at the store invited me to participate in a book signing there, thinking I might be able to sell some books. I didn't.

But that night at the store I met Linda who was also signing and selling her book, who the next day was appearing on the WDBJ TV morning news. She took a copy of my book with her and suggested to Bob at the station that he call me. He did.

A week later, I got a few fleeting moments of TV air time (that was indeed widely watched because there was a killer on the loose on the Virginia Tech campus that day!)

This morning, I was guest interviewee on the Blacksburg Campus radio station because, it turns out, Pete from WUVT had seen my spot on the TV morning news and thought the book and blog would make an interesting topic for his Saturday morning program. Hope it was!

I will be anxious to see what the sixth link in the chain will turn out to be. In my wildest imaginings I think maybe this path of connection could grow and build and in the end turn out to be like selling One Red Paper Clip that ultimately won a meeting with Alice Cooper. (Oh I hope not!) Or maybe it will bring a spot on Oprah! (Oh my!)

But most likely, should another connection twig off of these first five, it will only reinforce the notion that there are no small engagements. It will encourage me to remember that there are no unimportant readers in this grass roots effort to nurture the public awareness the book. Each reader is the end of this project, the purpose for having written, the point of it all, even while they also help the book along by planting seeds among other potential readers.

Something can come from what seems like very little. Yet another node in this chain of kindnesses will remind that ripples from each small pebble of effort keep moving out into the larger pool, and even when I think I've hit a dead calm and there are no winds in my sails, things still move.

So thanks to those who have smoothed the way and made (and will make) the path easier in these small steps by creating opportunities so all I have to do is show up--no shameless self-promotion necessary--and just keep moving in the direction the winds are blowing.