Association Of Catholic Bloggers

This week I head north to Lancaster, PA to attend the annual Catholic Writers Guild (CWG) Conference (8/1 to 8/3/18). I’m looking forward to spending time with my fellow Catholic authors and publishers, as this conference gives writers an awesome chance to network with skilled professionals. My ability to review many of the books you’ve read about, on this website, results from the development of personal relationships, cultivated with quality Catholic authors and publishers. This week holds great promise for me. I will be speaking at one of the breakout sessions on  The Reality of Self-Publishing . This is my opportunity to “pay it forward,” by sharing my experience of entering the self-publishing business. My goal is to share with others some lessons learned, so that they can be successful. At this conference, ... Read more...

A good self-mortifying exercise for Lent?  Look no further than your local self-publishing site. Actually,   Smashwords    publishing  is  wonderful, explaining every step with diagrams and in ordinary terms  in a  Smashwords Style Guide. . .but I am a technological idiot. After days of fumbling, forcing myself to work as if I was technologically intelligent, I finally self-published a short, free e-book on Smashwords.  The bonus of this ordeal is now, if anyone is stuck while trying to self-publish, just ask me..I made all the mistakes.    continue reading Link to  Echoes of the Divine “Melanie Juneau—motherofnine9—knows that a woman’s ground of creativity lies as close as her child’s heart. In her delightful stories and memories of mothering nine children, she shows how a Christian mother bathed in love brings all the power and light embodied in her faith to that most important sphere of hope, the family. ”— Isabel Anders, author of Blessings and Prayers for Married Couples 

Well, I have taken the plunge, and officially started to compile my stories into sections for a book. It might take forever to rewrite and edit because my method of writing is pretty basic; I simply  spill out artless slice-of-life stories with little or no revision. I am surprised how many I have actually written. If I include spiritual reflections on family life, I have the book  more than half done with 46,700 words without calling on my adult kids to help trigger my memory. I also entered a first chapter contest.  After finishing two more teaching modules, I will be officially finished the first chapter which is about 9,500 words. To win, I need  people to click on the  cheer me   on  button. Winning simply means promotion on the editor’s website. Perhaps the first stage will be to self-publish a short excerpt with the helping of Connie who is staging a forum to help newbies. If you are interested drop in to register for the 30 minute, free forum tonight and as many times