If you know me in real life, you know I go to Starbucks a lot. A lot. My kids attend Taekwondo classes across the street from the Starbucks location I frequent the most, and they pretty much live at Taekwondo, especially around tournament time. The baristas know my name. I gave them copies of The Seventh…
Originally posted on San Giacomo's Corner:
Put on your seatbelts for this roller-coaster-rocket-ride dystopian thriller. Within the pages of The Seventh Seed we meet Javier, a prodigy of the scientific community. He has accidentally stumbled onto a horrid truth concerning a corporation called LifeFarm. For the most part, LifeFarm is almighty and all-powerful. The…
Originally posted on Allison Maruska:
A few weeks ago, I handed off a final copy of Drake and the Fliers to some proofreaders. One of them asked if there was a story before the book, describing what took place before we join Drake in the office tower. There isn’t, but her question gave me an idea. Welcome…
My birthday is in a few days, and I only want one thing. Seeing as it conveniently overlaps with everyone’s reflecting on the past year, this should be easy. Here goes. If you read a book you loved this year, go to its Amazon and/or Goodreads page and write a review for it. That’s it.…
Originally posted on Allison Maruska:
In clicking over to read this post, you’re probably wondering what the difference between an A/B and a B/A is. I’ll start by saying it’s more than simple word order. I had an epiphany a few weeks back whilst discussing blogging with another author. He was telling me how blogging…
Yesterday, I read this list that Meg Dowell compiled. It describes 18 things that writers should stop worrying about, and one item in particular jumped out at me, but not for the reason you might think. 6. Writing things your friends and family will read/love. I suspect the reason that item is there is along the…
In the writing community, there’s a saying that there are no new story ideas – there are around 12, and every “new” story is one of those 12 told in a different voice and from a different angle. The Orphaned Chosen One and the Unasked For Journey are two common ones. Another “branch” of these is…
Originally posted on Kellie Michelle Parker:
Hello, friends! I’m so excited today to share my recent interview with successful indie author Allison Maruska. Allison writes YA urban fantasy and adult mystery/ suspense stories. Her debut novel, The Fourth Descendent, has been on Amazon bestseller lists since shortly after its release in February of 2015. Since…
Sixteen days ago, I went out to dinner with some friends. One of them told me about a TED talk she’d seen about how long it takes to learn a skill. We were talking about the 10,000 hours to achieve mastery statistic, I think, and my friend disagreed. “Twenty hours to proficiency,” she said. Yeah,…
Check out my guest post on Linda Sienkiewicz’s blog! Playing favorites… for a reason: Just over a month ago, my most recent novel The Seventh Seed was released to as much fanfare as I could muster. I hosted a Facebook launch party (where Linda contributed as a guest author and was FABULOUS), wrote blog posts, created ads,…
Allison Maruska 