Writer’s Block Need Not Be A ‘Vice’: A Brief Story About the Struggle to Create

September 10, 2018February 25, 2019Leave a comment

Vice is finally published! Part two of my YA Sci-Fi series has made its way into the world, three years after the release of the first book, Tick. I did not plan a pre-release. I have not sought many ARC reviews. The birth of Vice was a challenge to say the least, and I wanted to share what I have learned about the process of writing this book, what I hope to gain from the experience, and some advice and wisdom to other struggling authors.

Let’s go back to the beginning. I wrote the first draft of Tick in three and a half weeks, a serious feat for any writer. The story poured out of me from beginning to end. I knew little about where the story was going beyond a handful of major plot points, and I didn’t have an ending. I got up every morning and hammered out 5-8 thousand words a day, seeing maybe only the next one or two chapters in my head. It was during the process of writing Tick that I discovered the ending, that I realized the purpose behind the story, that I was revealing a part of myself that needed to be healed in not only the process of writing Tick, but sharing it. I spent an additional seven months rewriting and editing Tick, but it was an almost magical writing experience. Continue reading →

Join Me on Indie Author Day!

September 18, 2016Leave a comment

self-e_indieauthorday_logo_white-02-e1462825520372-copy

Join me for Indie Author Day on October 8th at the Alhambra Civic Library!

Over 300 libraries from all across North America will host their own local author events with the support of the Indie Author Day team. I, along with my a dozen other indie authors — including my dad, Dennis Sanchez — will be at the Alhambra library from 1-4 pm.

At 2:30 pm I will be part of the “Writing for Young People”, so be sure to be around for that. Authors will have books to sell and sign. Please come say hi!

Two new reviews for Tick

July 21, 2016July 21, 2016Leave a comment

Reviews are still coming in for “Tick”, which is fantastic motivation as I slog through edits of part two in the series, “Vice”. It is so easy to get deterred during the editing process, and then positive reviews remind me that there was a reason why I started writing Jo Bristol’s story in the first place, so hurry the hell up and finish, dumbass!

Ah. Had to get that out. I feel better now, thanks.

Anyway, here are some snippets of those reviews, in case you haven’t read “Tick” yet and are looking for a reason to:

Indie Reader Review

Rose is a good writer of dialogue, and is deft at slowly doling out information to locate the reader within Jo’s world. The story is exciting, fast-paced, and full of surprises… TICK is a terrific book, which more than stands its ground in a crowded field of dystopian fiction featuring awesome, if “wrett” female heroes.

Side note: Props to the reviewer for using my slang!

Readers’ Favorite

…Author Allison Rose kept the essence of thrill and action all the way till the end. This is one of those novels that will keep your heart beating and make you live the life of the character. I was completely invested in the story from the first chapter. Jo is the type of character that you root for right to the very end. She was awesome and very reflective.

Thanks for those reviews!

On the subject of book two of The Tick Series, I can’t say for certain when it will be released. It’s a complicated story with a lot of elements involved, which makes editing tricky. I don’t, however, want to rush the process for the sake of a release date, but I assure you, it is coming. Patience, grasshoppers.

Guest Post Update: Why It’s Time to Redefine the “Strong Female Character”

November 6, 2015November 6, 2015Leave a comment

everybody loves crazy (image courtesy of Netflix)

Emily over at Awesome Indies has granted me the fabulous opportunity to write a guest post for her blog. Originally intended as an exploration of Strong Female Characters in literature, the post took on a life of it’s own after I spent most of my birthday weekend binge-watching Orange is the New Black. Clearly, it was a great use of my time. It did, at least, provide some much-needed inspiration for the blog post. I have posted an excerpt below, but please read the rest at Awesome Indies:

The issue is not that we lack strong female characters—there are quite a lot of them cropping up in spandex jumpers and heeled boots—but that we lackstrong characters that are female. We are made to assume that the term is synonymous with “strong women”, meaning that at the end of the day these females are decidedly the heroes of their stories who fight against all odds (i.e., the patriarchy) and emerge with battle scars and a sense that they have got it all figured out. Simply putting a gun in a girl’s hand (or an arrow, or a tattoo gun) does not make her a strong character; it makes her a character with a prop.

What about those other women, the ones who are not fighting wars or preserving their innocence for the sake of personal sacrifice during the climactic moment of the plotline? A woman’s strength is not defined by her physical dominance or thirst for revenge. She does not need to be superior to the other female characters; she does not need to be equal to her male counterparts. She does not need to be a superhero or a badass warrior or a feminist advocate. More than anything, the female character must be human, a complex individual whose agency moves the plot forward separate from any other character in her story (man or woman), equally capable of failing and succeeding, equally capable of dishing love and pain, a woman who can both fight for herself (literally and metaphorically), but will also forfeit in a sob storm when she doesn’t feel strong enough … and sometimes in the same scene. That is what makes her a strong character. READ MORE

The Science of Sci-Fi, Tick Style: Pt. 2

June 30, 2015March 17, 20202 Comments

In Part One of The Science of Sci-Fi, Tick Style, I discussed the use of optogenetics as a possible cure for mental illnesses in the future. It is exciting science, to say the least, especially with the implications of it being a non-invasive way of giving so many people piece of mind. However — as the skeptic that I am — I can’t help but wonder about the abuse that could come out of such a technology. Where does the desire to “fix” one’s self stop? Who is to determine what exactly is a defect worthy of fixing? And if all the mental abnormalities are removed, what does that do for the creative muse?

It begs the moral question: Is the creative muse a neural defect and should it be fixed?

THE BRAIN, THE MIND & THE MUSE

the road to mental recovery

My research of optogenetics not only aided me in the extensive rewrites of Tick, but also made the threat of brain alterations feel that much more real, and therefore real for my main character, Jo. Over the course of my scientific research, I had a bit of a mind-bending experience.

Let me get a little personal on you for a moment. In my formative years, I was plagued by a severe depression. No matter how brutal it was at times, I continually battled against the idea that whatever depression I was suffering was not the result of a chemical imbalance in my brain as the psychiatrist insisted. It was environmental, I argued. I was always an overly perceptive kid. People called me an “old soul” when I was 10. I knew my compulsion to create art and express myself was not just a product of an excessively emotional teenager. Still, I couldn’t function in the “real world” so they put me on anti-depressants. My mind was not my own on those drugs, those thoughts were that of someone who could care less about literally anything at all. I made no art. I wrote no music. I was a shell of my former self. After a couple of years, I stopped taking those drugs and took the time to simply grow up a little. A decade later, I am living life depression-free, but the experience has forever changed my perception of my own mind. Continue reading →

The Science of Sci-Fi, Tick Style: Pt. 1

June 16, 2015July 1, 20153 Comments

“They’re called botheads!”

I have been thinking for some time about writing a post about the scientific research that went into Tick, but found that the information (and the many connections to my book series) was an intimidating amount, too much to add into one block. So, I have decided to break them down into more readable chunks so that I can share with you the science behind the science fiction in my debut YA series, Tick. This post commences Part One.

Let’s go back a bit. I honestly can’t say exactly where the inspiration came from for my YA sci-fi series, which is, in short, about Josephine Bristol, a teenage girl desperate to become an artist in a drone-surveyed Los Angeles where neuroscientists permanently “fix” people with brain disorders, a task perhaps not so daunting were she not plagued by a violent mental and emotional dysfunction. I have mentioned in quite a few interviews that my main character’s “tick” — as she calls it — bears resemblance to issues of my own adolescence, although not in the “art imitates life” sort of way that has caused readers to question my husband’s safety (people are worried!). Jo’s tick is rather a dramatized representation of my years suffering from a deep and dark depression and the journey I have taken to finally write a book about it. In my series, the use of these brain-adjusting doctors is a futuristic evolution of psychiatry, and I am in awe of how many readers have noted the possibility that sometime in the near future, neural brain adjustments can become something not only used for medical purposes, but for personal advance as well.

I didn’t just make this concept up. Scientists are in the process of targeting specific neurons in the brain to inhibit or assist the movement of signals between synapses, thus altering certain cognitive functions. The purpose for this research is hoped to be applied in treating brain disorders such as schizophrenia and depression, but it takes no stretch of the imagination to see how easily this technology could be used to “fix” people of minor inflictions, like their compulsion to drop $20 at a fancy coffee shop every day. The science is called optogenetics, and I’ll get to the specifics of it later in this post, but first I want to get into how I even learned about optogenetics in the first place. Continue reading →

Facebook Summer Bash Author Party – June 9th

June 6, 2015June 7, 2015Leave a comment

This Tuesday, June 9th, I will be participating in a Facebook Summer Bash Author Party! I will be joining these amazing authors: A.S. Winchester, Christy Sloat, Emm Cole, Emma Raveling, E.J. Mellow, J. Kowallis, L.K. Hill, Sunshine Somerville.

The Author Bash will be live from 5pm PST to 10pm PST.
Allison Rose time slot is 6:30-7pm PST. Come early! Stay and support the other authors!

For the event, I will be giving away free copies of the Tick eBook and two canvas book totes in a raffle for those who participate during my time slot. Also, we have a Grand Prize for one lucky participant … a Kindle Fire HD6! You won’t want to miss out on this!

Also, if you haven’t already checked out the 5 Star review of Tick on Vicarious Caytastropy, you can still enter to win a paperback or one of two eBooks. Going until June 17th.