I took a leap of faith and finally published my book on amazon.com.  I was terrified, I kept going back and rewriting over and over.  I obsessed about the final draft night and day.  I finally did and it is available!  You do not need a kindle to purchase it.  If you can open the sample you can open the book, download it and read it.  In fact kindle offers a free kindle app to allow people to read it on any device ipads, iphones, smart phones, computers, notebooks...pretty much any…

A quote from poet Mark Strand's "Keeping Things Whole" is the Thought for the Day:

http://writingwithoutpaper.blogspot.com/2013/05/thought-for-day_12.html

Mini-novel Focuses on One Woman's Fear of Loving Again

Cassandra Black (a/k/a Amber Creek) has released a new novella entitled Loving a Texan from New Orleans. The mini-novel focuses on one woman's fear of loving again.

Cassandra Black has released a new novella entitled Loving a Texan from New…

Hi girls,

Earlier this month, the London Book Fair hosted all sorts of exciting events for authors.  If you have 45 minutes to spare, I have put a link here to a seminar at the book fair, entitled 'How to Get a Literary Agent'.  It is an up-to-the-minute…

“Life’s Little Instruction Book,” first published in 1991 as a collection of advice from H. Jackson Brown, Jr. to his college-bound son, has sold millions of copies, been translated into 35 languages, and inspired calendars, posters, journals, greeting cards and screensavers.

Not surprisingly, it’s a very popular graduation gift.

The latest edition contains plenty of excellent counsel, like “Get a dog” and “Check hotel bills carefully for unexpected charges” along with…

First the note of impatience in the father’s voice as he cautions his son to slow the grocery cart down in the dogfood aisle. The maybe seven-year-old looks just like his dad in a tee-shirt and shorts, but he moves with an awkward, unfocused gait.

“Nolan!” the dad shouts. “Stop right there and look at me. Look at Dad. Nolan!” Too late—bang!  Staring down at his flip-flops, Nolan has bumped his empty cart into mine. No damage done, but…

As a writer, I opened Rachelle Gardner‘s “How Do I Decide? Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing” extremely curious. Rachelle has a ton of experience working with authors as a literary agent, and from her blog I know her to be an especially level-headed and knowledgeable voice when it comes to the future of publishing.

She absolutely…

Growing up, my mother always told me how special it is to be a woman. I would listen, absorbing every detail she told me about loving myself and my body, and it sunk in so deeply that I didn't even realize how completely it had permeated my psyche. I grew into a confident, happy adult and, in my ignorant bliss, I had…

Have you ever considered the present to be life s most precious gift to you?

Why do you think the „present „is called „ present“?

Simply because it is truly the Universes most precious gift to you. What we call the now, the momentum is all you ever have, from your…

I have blogged at schizoamerica.com, at blogher.com and at SiliconAngle.com on social justice issues and tech innovations.  Then I got back to my own writing and pulled away from everything except my beloved Facebook account.  You can follow me on Facebook as 'Mary Wallace Author', if you wish, and …

I've done a LOT of research over the past five years, watching the old paradigm publishing business close up like a frightened clam.  There is no room for new voices.  If you read the Vanity Fair article about the 10 year process that 'The Art of Fielding' went through from writing to auction, to publication, it's enough to shut down the creative types that are writing the new myths for our culture.  Here's the…

I want the world to know, my first published novel, Until Proven: A Mystery in Two Parts is now available as printed book and as ebook, through the usual sources. I would hope you'd order it through your favorite local bookstore but will surely appreciate your interest however it takes form.

I sent the manuscript to my book designer on June 22, 2012 and as those of you have published independently will know, it was like entering a tunnel. My…

The little woman just texted me from college.  She’s going back to school for a new career and is taking a prerequisite course at the local community college. I am very proud of her, and I know that attending college as a “non-traditional” student can be, uhm, unsettling, scary.  Case in point—the text said:  Some girl just told me that she likes my hair and wants to wear hers like this when she gets old (italics mine).

I pretty much spit my tea out all over my keyboard upon…

A quick surf around the web may have you thinking that it’s the easiest thing in the world to successfully self-publish a book.

There’s certainly plenty of information, lots of blogs and dozens of books for sale on Amazon, telling you exactly how and why to self-publish. The people who wrote these books, incidentally, must know what they’re talking about. The books themselves are, for obvious reasons, invariably self-published.

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