ATTENTION: Owing to some kind of error in the huge, unresponsive bureaucracy of Kindle Direct Publishing, part of Amazon, many of my outstanding small-press publisher’s books are no longer listed on Amazon.com. This includes my Amazon Best-seller immigrant saga The Price of Passage and also the heartwarming coming-of-age story, Izzy Strikes Gold! 

FORTUNATELY, we do not rely on Amazon to get our books in people’s hands. You can purchase either or both of these books direct from the publisher by clicking these links: Izzy and Passage.Thank you for your unwavering support of fine literature from small, independent presses.

Larry F. Sommers, Your New Favorite Writer

I am an aged writer now recovering from a major surgical project on my lumbar spine. They re-aligned and fused the L3 and L4 vertebrae through a seven-inch incision, in a six-hour operation. 

Ouch.

Recovery is not so quick and easy.

I used to make my own breakfast, because I like it a certain way, and my wife does not get hungry as early as I do. Now, she cooks the oatmeal, and I just sit at the table and spoon on the berries.

After breakfast, it used to be: shower, shave, dress, and go about my day. Now, I totter from the table to the recliner and stretch out for my first rest period. Breakfast is tiring, you know. 

In the recliner, blissful relaxation takes over. My whole body feels happy except for some minor discomfort in the back—you know, where they did the construction project. To relieve the boredom, I check the email on my cell phone, and maybe look at the day’s news headlines. But, you know, holding up the phone above my head wears me out, so I have to take it in stages.

Eventually, I make my way to the bathroom for the shower-shave-and-dress routine. It takes longer than it used to. By the time I present myself, fully dressed and smelling good, it’s time for lunch.

And lunch—well, you know—lunch can be exhausting. I need a time of rest after lunch.

On a good day, there may be an hour, or half an hour—between post-lunch rest and mid-afternoon nap—to sit at the laptop, focus, and achieve something. It may be only re-arranging medical appointments. Or puzzling out the meaning of a significant email. Or tending to something that needs advance planning, like marketing events several months in the future. 

Maybe I can write a page or two on one of several works in progress. But not much progess. It goes by inches, not yards.

Then it’s time to rest again. You get the idea. 

The thing is, Dear Reader, I have, at this moment, three or four good books in me—fun books, interesting books, useful books—but it’s hard work to get them out of my head and onto paper. It takes time. Your New Favorite Writer’s time at this point, like J. Alfred Prufrock’s, is being measured out with coffee spoons. 

But one must endure.

I discovered I am not young anymore. Some wag long ago minted the lines:

“How do I know that my youth is all spent?
Well, my get up and go has got up and went.”

And it’s true, Neighbor. It’s true.

It’s the sixth of Shakespeare’s seven ages:

the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.

Some old men move as if they were made of Waterford crystal. I fear I’m starting to walk that way.

At eighty, when you are blindsided by something your body has been saving up for decades, you can be forgiven for wondering what else might be in store. You can’t help turning a kind of mental corner. 

Life will be different now, maybe wildly different. At the very least, adjustments must be made.

But it’s early in recovery yet. I’ll be back, Dear Reader. 

I pray the good Lord will give me the time I need to get what’s in my head out onto paper. 

I expect to be in my booth at book fairs early in the fall. Come buy The Price of Passage or Izzy Strikes Gold!

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer