Ask the Author: Mary Wallace
Answered Questions (6)
Mary Wallace
I head to a coffee shop and sit for an hour or two, knowing I'm going to leave at a certain time. I get food and a drink, open my notebook and tap a few times until a few words come to me, then the writing starts flowing and I lower my head and stare at my paper until the flow ends... Then I leave, happily, knowing something came forth.
Mary Wallace
It's what I was born to do, along with being a mother. All the things that made me weird, are part and parcel of being a writer... I have stories running around my head, I see people and think of stories, I hear stories and think of ways to help people redeem their life dreams.
Mary Wallace
WRITE! Everyone has a story to tell, yours is just as important at the next person's... The business is tough and getting published does not equate to making an income, you'll need to work long and hard for years if you want to be a successful writer, but the act of writing is important and your story is important. I often wish we had a memory bank like in a Star Trek episode, where everyone's life story is remembered and can be accessed in order to learn.
Mary Wallace
Road Angel is a novel about a black truck driver who doesn't know how to be connected to family or land. He accidentally picks up a white teen runaway and in trying to save the kid, he finds the roots of his own deep wounds and has a chance at family redemption.
Mary Wallace
Whole stories come to me and then I spend hours every few days letting them tell themselves to me. I hope to live long enough to get out all the stories that I have inside.
Mary Wallace
My first novel, Unburying Hope, came to me in an ice cream parlor on Maui, at least 15 years before I wrote it. I could see the little girl in my mind, sitting outside with all her worldly possessions in a black trash bag... The story blossomed over the years. I did drastically change the ending though, with the extended war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I couldn't let my main character succumb to PTSD, I just couldn't. We have too many brave soldiers returning who need to hear that redemption and return are possible...
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