James Russell Allen

When I was introduced in a writing workshop and asked what I had been writing I responded; "As a CPA, I have been mostly writing financial reports and statements." The professor's response was; "Okay then, you are an experienced fiction writer." Well, I don't know about that, but I am satisfied to be writing when, where and what I want to now.

As a freshman in high school, I was placed into a new experimental class teaching speed reading. It was a challenge and results were shown almost daily. The readings, while we learned new techniques, were usually from the Reader's Digest and we were timed and then tested for comprehension. I remember my speeds got up into the thousands of words per minute on some types of articles with over 90% comprehension. This probably began my love of reading.

As an adult there was always a stack of books, usually three or more at my bedside. One year I decided to discover how many books I actually read for that year. The total was seventy-two. When a person reads enough, it is possible to read some material much more quickly than more complicated stuff. Also, you begin to make judgements about the authors and their writing approaches. It often instills the desire in some of us to try writing on our own.

In 2007 I was waiting in a Doctor's office, (Isn't that what you are there for, the wait? Don't they call it the "waiting room?") when I noticed an article about the Amazon Kindle in Time magazine. I read it twice before I was invited in. By that evening I had ordered the Kindle for $399! I've never looked back. Our family room sported some custom made bookshelves filled with books, most of which I had read. I had read many of the Louis L'Amour books in paperback and collected them but one day while I was out of town, my wife decided they were taking up too much space on the shelves so she contributed them to a library. Oh well, they are light reading and always entertaining if you are as familiar with the Southwest as I am. Now I can carry my current library in one or another of my electronic devices. The book world has changed, especially for those who are voracious readers.

Many of us think we would like to write a book. When we learned about the difficulty and probability of actually getting published it was and is daunting. Now you can write and publish a book yourself and the book can be done quickly and done to the highest standards. You can also have paper copies of it made for purchase on demand on several ebook sites and Amazon. So, being a retired CPA and seeing all of this develop over the past few years, that was the incentive to go forward with a book. With the cost of an e-reader like the Kindle now very affordable, more and more people have one. By the way, now with a Kindle you have something better to do in the "waiting room."