Going Viral

Yes, THE FUNERAL SINGER comes out in one weekon Tuesday, September 24! To celebrate, here is one last sneak peek inside the book. This is the scene where Mel realizes a news clip of her singing “Amazing Grace” at Mick’s funeral has gone viral:

What? This couldn’t be. I sunk slowly into my desk chair. Two million views? Last night it’d had less than a thousand. “I didn’t realize Mick’s funeral would be such a huge deal. They haven’t been on tour or anything for—.”

And then I saw them. On the right-hand side of the page appeared a string of videos: “Melody Martin,” “Melanie Martin,” “Funeral Girl,” “The Funeral Singer.” All showed freeze frames of me singing. I scrolled through them—seven in all—and clicked on each one. Most were shot at funerals, though one was taken during my solo at a chorus concert.

Why on earth would people be posting these? And an even better question: Why would people be watching them?

“You’ve gone viral. Can you believe it?” Lana grabbed my shoulders from behind and shook me. “This is so cool!”

“Cool?  More like weird. Why would a million people want to watch me sing ‘Danny Boy’?”

“Who knows? Why did that video of that big, fat beagle howling ‘God Bless America’ become such a huge hit last week? Nobody knows why these things happen. But it is happening. To you. This is so awesome. So freaking awesome. And check this out.” Lana nudged me out of the way, logged onto Facebook and brought up a page with a huge photo of me and the heading: THE FUNERAL SINGER.

“Whoa. I have a group page? And thirty thousand people like it?”

“Look at these comments: Fantastic voice … How can I get her to sing at my funeral? … Almost makes me wish I were dead (in a good way).

I laughed. “In a good way. That’s hilarious.”

Lana grabbed the back of my chair and swiveled me around to face her. “Can you believe this?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what to think. It’s so … so….” My voice trailed off. I felt as though I were in a heavy fog trying to make out the road ahead of me. How had this happened? What did it mean? 

What DOES it mean for Mel?

I hope you’ll download a copy of THE FUNERAL SINGER next week (!!!!) to discover how it all turns out.

Thank you for reading and sharing this journey with me!