About a week after Thanksgiving, I posted this on Facebook. It led to a variety of comments. There was one odd man out. Yes, Dan, I called you odd. That’s what you get for liking that song. This post has a different point than “Christmas music sucks” (though that’s a valid point). The point is what came…
Books are made of chapters, and chapters are made of scenes. Those segments of the story are what hold the whole thing together. Write them well, and you have a page-turner. Write them not so well, and… No writer wants to do that to their readers, so it’s worth figuring out what makes a scene…
“Creating that all important sense of danger, wonder, and high adventure that genre fans crave she delivers a thoughtful narrative that engages and enthralls from the very start, achieving an equitable balance between her reimagined human world and fantasy that tugs at the heart strings.” How cool is this?? Drake and the Fliers received an…
Over two years ago, I participated in a genre mashup flash fiction challenge – the “genres” I was randomly assigned were dystopian and shapeshifting. I took some literary license and went more post-apocalyptic than dystopian, and I created a short story about a teenage boy who survives a global pandemic only to be gifted the ability…
When I published my first book twenty-one months ago (two years ago come February, so you don’t have to math), I didn’t know what to expect. I knew I’d sell some copies, probably my friends would read it, and it would get a handful reviews (hopefully good ones). If you’ve followed the blog for a…
Have you guys seen Doctor Strange yet? The fam and I saw it yesterday, and it completely blew me away. I rarely see movies more than once in the theater, but I think this one deserves another viewing – maybe in 3D – just to comprehend the stuff I missed the first time. I’m not…
I’m penning this post at the end of a long and irritating day. What should have been a three-hour event ended up being an eight-hour ordeal. But this story isn’t really about me. It’s about my kids. Both of my sons train in Taekwondo. They attend classes three times per week, and they participate in extra…
Last night, I finally got the chance to watch the Season 7 premier of The Walking Dead. I made the mistake of watching it right before I went to bed. It took a while to fall asleep. Like, a couple of hours. Because man. That was rough. Anyway, I’ll be using specific details from that…
I had so much fun making the trailer for Drake and the Fliers that I had to take a stab at Project Renovatio. Like Drake’s, I made this one without paying for anything (click on the Drake post to see how). I’d love to know what you think!
Fellow authors, I need to tell you a secret – you can create a book trailer for free. Last night, my son (he’s 11, by the way) showed me a “trailer” he made with his school iPad. It was pretty cool, so I asked him to show me how me made it. He directed me…
Allison Maruska 