Originally posted on What Inspires Your Writing?:
Our new literary magazine has officially arrived! Here’s what it’s all about: Page through any literary magazine, wander the aisles of any bookstore. What do you see? A whole lot of books by authors who appear to have it all: huge readership, major name recognition, plenty of sales.…
Originally posted on Allison Maruska:
Readers choose a story because they think it will hold their interest, so why do they sometimes skim or stop reading the story? There’s probably a variety of reasons, but I’ve noticed a few trends in comments in my critique group and from my own reading habits that may offer…
Things don’t always go the way you plan. This is a tale of that very lesson. We have two cats: Lily and Meeker. Lily is small and sweet and afraid of everything. Meeker is big, in charge, and loves to go outside. Meeker loves going outside so much that he doesn’t care who he has…
Today, Dan shared this post from Writer’s Write, the entirety of which was this image. It’s a list of 115 ways to say “walk.” I’m all for synonyms and lists of synonyms. Especially for my crutch words (variations of look, for example), sign me the frick up for synonym lists. My characters can only do…
Originally posted on Allison Maruska:
Pop quiz time. What do the following things have in common? Traffic jams Fish in the ocean The full moon appearing every month Negative book reviews If you answered they are all certain to happen, then you pass! Every book gets negative reviews. The Hunger Games, a book I absolutely…
The past couple of days, I’ve been with my sons at their Taekwondo tournament. Athletes from all over the world gathered to compete in an array of events, including board breaking, traditional and creative forms (see the first video – my son is the one on the right), and team events. First thing on…
Have you seen this floating around the interwebs lately? My local radio station posted it on their Facebook page this morning. As of this writing, it’s been shared from that page 55 times, and it’s one of many pages I’ve seen it on in the past few days. I’m sure the number of shares is…
Have you noticed this trend, especially in sci-fi or superhero movies? I think I first noticed it with Ronan in Guardians of the Galaxy. But after that, I started noticing it other places. How about Darth Vader? Or even the “queen” dragon in How to Train Your Dragon. I’m not talking about motivations, or back…
I stumbled across this image in my phone. Apparently I decided to save it at some point. I think past me knew that present me would need to read this right about now. I recently started querying agents with my completed middle-grade novel, hoping to one day join the ranks of published hybrid authors. I’ve…
When we fiction writers put pen to paper or finger to keyboard or, I dunno, bloody toothpick to cocktail napkin, we are likely writing a story that 1. We enjoy in our heads enough to write it into reality, and 2. We hope others will enjoy as well. Lifelong readers have come to expect certain…
Allison Maruska 