Malcolm R. Campbell's Blog, page 251

'Garden of Heaven' released as a free download

This afternoon, I uploaded a PDF file of my mythic novel "Garden of Heaven" to the book's website. I considered making "Garden of Heaven" available on Smashwords, there my two novels published by Vanilla Heart, are available in multiple e-book formats. However, Smashwords cannot handle novels formatted into multiple columns. Perhaps, one day in the future.

"Garden of Heaven" is my companion novel to "The Sun Singer." While "The Sun Singer" follows the hero's journey of young Robert Adams into ...

The Route to Buying 'Swimming With Wings'

I've been known to buy a new book in a spontaneous fit of divine madness. More often, I approach books I've just heard about like a cat playing with a toy filled with catnip. I approach, then I run off. Then I pretend to approach, then I'm diverted by a doorbell or a thunderstorm or a glass of wine asking to be poured.

What a labyrinthine process it is.

The first time I heard about Lee Libro and her novel Swimming With Wings was on a blog tour interview on my friend Lauren E. Harvey's blog The ...

Wordless Wednesday - a constant gardener

When I look at old photographs of myself, I'm never sure who exactly I was then. But the stakes here tell me, I had high hopes.

Nasty book reviewers

Some reviewers on Amazon go past the call of sadism chopping up books they don't like. Yes, I know it's tempting sometimes, but most readers are astute enough to see the difference between a review that states why a book doesn't work for a reviewer and a review written by a reviewer who enjoys having cutting things to say.

As far as I know, I've only given one book a seriously harsh appraisal; it was a novel that used a real life person as a character in a method that should have been grounds ...

Handwriting = Very Tired Hand

Normally, my right hand gets exceptionally tired only once a year: when it's time to send out Christmas cards. (Yes, we still send out paper cards rather than e-cards.)

Today, my right hand is cramping up after writing only 24 postcards yesterday. In today's computer world, I have no handwriting stamina at all. The cards are part of my direct mail campaign to Montana bookstores and gift shops, urging them to stock my Glacier Park novel in time for this summer's deluge of tourists celebrating t...

Stop by the VHP Authors Blog

The relatively new Vanilla Heart Publishing Authors Blog now has eight posts which we hope are of interest to writers. The blog, written by authors with books published by Vanilla Heart, is more or less a how-to place for folks working on novels, poems, articles and short stories.

Today's post, by author, editor and writing coach Smoky Trudeau looks at reasons to consider small, independent presses with your manuscripts rather than thinking NEW YORK, NEW YORK. "First and foremost," she says, "...

Wanted: Message in a Bottle

I grew up in the Florida panhandle, a vast section of real estate referred to by writer Gloria Jahoda as "The Other Florida."

I liked living in the other Florida, driving forgotten roads, exploring a scrub oak, slash pine and palmetto world tourists avoided en route to the rest of the state; I swam at beaches that I hope are just as little known today as they were fifty years ago.

The tides brought me scallops and periwinkles and sand dollars and blue crabs and sea horses and dreams, one of whi...

How Many Hookers Have You Slept With?

Honest novelists must engage in tawdry activities in the name of research, of being sure they're really writing what they know and not something they dreamt about while coming up out of a hangover.

If we don't lead interesting lives tracking down the best possible stories for you, the reader at home seeking an escape from the laundry and the whining brats, we sure as hell ought to have the sense to lie about ourselves.

Consequently, I am--once again--absolutely flabbergasted at some author inte...

There is no Twitter

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

--The Matrix

"A day will come," writes Deepak Chopra in The Way of the Wizard, "when you will realize that the entire universe can be found inside you, and then you will be a wizard. As a wizard you don't live in the world, the world lives wit...

Robert Allerton: The Private Man & The Public Gifts

In 2007, the Illinois Bureau of Tourism designated Allerton Park at Monticello, Illinois, as one of the Seven Wonders of Illinois. The central Illinois representative on a list determined by popular vote, Allerton was described as a National Natural Landmark that "invites guests to explore a sprawling 1,500-acre estate with picturesque gardens, unique sculptures, winding trails, nature areas and a stunning mansion."

Robert Allerton (1873-1964), who managed the farming property for his father S...