Imagine a misfit kid. He’s picked on. The teacher doesn’t like him, and he’s often in trouble. He’s not from around here, so he has difficulty relating to the locals. After many weeks of loneliness, he tries to win the favor of his classmates by providing them with snacks. All is going well until his popcorn machine…
I watched The Hunger Games last night. I read the book before the movie came out, and I’ve seen the movie a few times. So I obviously knew what would happen. Still, a certain scene got me. By that, I mean it made me weepy. I’m not usually a weepy individual, so the moment surprised…
Ah, late April. The weather is warming, the birds are chirping, flies have started to invade my house. And the students at school are almost – almost – done with standardized testing. Think if I say that enough times, it will become true? I wrote a post similar to this last year (find it here) wherein…
This post is about my grandma. Last month, I bought the pictured hummingbird feeder. One of my favorite occasions every year is the end of winter, when we can all climb out of our cozy dens and enjoy the new life around us. I’ve seen hummingbirds in our yard in past years, so I thought providing…
A few days ago, this article came out on Consumerist.com. If you don’t want to click over and read it right this second, allow me to summarize: There are companies that sell five-star reviews to authors, and Amazon is suing these companies. I think almost everyone would agree that paying for fake 5-star reviews is…
This weekend is Hook Queue Weekend in my critique group. The queue only exists on the first weekend of every month, and its sole purpose is to determine if your submission has a good hook or not. It’s brutal. Allow me to explain a bit before I get to the point. Anyone reading submissions is…
Someone suggested I tweet historical facts, because my book is an historical mystery. Not a bad idea, I thought. That was until I started digging for said facts. Most are, well, boring. Some are just plain weird. Sure, I could tweet them, but I thought it would be more fun to display them as if…
Originally posted on Eclectic Alli:
Welcome to the next of Taliana’s Events! I’d love for you to join us — if you decide to write a post for this be sure to link to this post so that I can find your post. Unlike previous events, Taliana is not inviting you all to a party,…
Warning: this post contains book spoilers. Run away if you haven’t read the book. I’m sometimes asked which character in The Fourth Descendant is my favorite. As I was writing, my answer changed, I think because I spent more time with one or another for a while as the story progressed. One week was Jonah’s week. Then…
One of my favorite books is Stephen King’s On Writing, and one of my favorite parts of that book is when he describes the rabbit. Remember that part? After a few sentences, readers pictured a white rabbit with a blue number eight on it. King used the illustration to describe the telepathic nature of reading and…
Allison Maruska 