Meet Mara Duryea

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Mara Duryea.

Hi Mara, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I started writing when I was in middle school. Stories were flying through my head and keeping me awake at night. One day, while sitting at school lunch on a miserably hot day, I had the impression: Write the stories down.

It was an unexpected idea to me. I busted out an empty journal I was carrying around with me. I don’t know why. Someone gave it to me once, but I don’t remember where it came from or why I had it. I began to write. The writing bug took hold of me until I couldn’t breathe without it. Other people liked to write, but one by one, they all stopped and did other things. I COULDN’T do other things. I HAD to write.

After college, I began writing for short story magazines, honing my skills and secretly competing with the best writers. I learned to write “on the street,” so to speak, because I didn’t take writing courses in college or high school.

It was in college that I started writing my first completed book, for I had many unfinished ones in high school. Those characters didn’t vanish, though. They’re alive and well, making their appearances in the books I’ve written, and others will appear in the future ones I write.

The first three books of my Monsters and Demons series are now out. The fourth is completed but needs editing, and the fifth is finally starting to take shape.

It’s all available on Amazon and my website.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has not been a smooth road. One day, someone will say I’m an overnight success. I hope I’m there to chew them out.

First of all, I had to learn to write. I had to hone my skills. I had to deal with endless rejection letters, jerks who hated my work without reading it, people who assumed I was a failure because I wasn’t a millionaire, rejections over asinine reasons (they hated how I described a boy’s hair), and people not reading my things. After all, they assumed one thing or another, bursting my brain over not only writing and editing but learning to format my own books, make covers, and trying it out with Amazon Ads, only to find the class was nothing but a large infomercial.

Finding out how to publish at all was a massive obstacle because I didn’t even know where to start. I didn’t even know what to ask. Any author who came my way refused to give up any information. While everyone was supposedly being supported in their writing by friends, I wasn’t. Jealousy and misjudgments crawled around like a bunch of spiders in a nest; discovering the writing world was heavily political annoyed me to no end.

I refused to write what I thought agents liked. Doing that for a magazine is one thing, but a whole book for an agent whose books I never thought about was another. I wanted my writing freedom. So, I went the indie way. Do you want the red pill or the blue pill?

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I write fantasy mixed with horror and adventure and all that good stuff. It can get really dark and then jump back up into the light. If you read it too fast, you’ll never understand the deeper meanings.

One woman said it was good for a rainy afternoon read, and her review clearly showed she skimmed it. I’ve lived in rough areas all my life, like the Mexican gang neighborhoods in Mesa, AZ, and the Fort Apache Reservation, where I hear gunshots so much that they’ve become background noise. At the same time, I’m an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And you know, nobody from either side understands me. I hold to my values and keep my covenants, but I have a thug’s sense of humor.

These things set my work apart because it comes out in my writing. I’ve seen unspeakably beautiful things and horrible things. And so, my work has a duality to it. Based on the reader, they’re the best things in the whole world. Rabid. Or, you’ve got people about to panic and not know what to do.

Whatever the reaction, they can all agree that my descriptions are out of this world. What made me most happy was when my editor said, (paraphrase), “You made me love to write again. You’ve taught me to write again. I can feel the love you have for your characters that all the authors I work with don’t have.”

I can write multiple characters with multiple POVs that switch from one to the other without using scene breaks, and nobody gets confused. People can also hear my characters in their heads when they speak, and it’s usually similar.

With all that said, without my Heavenly Father and His blessing, I would not be able to write at all, brainstorm, or do anything on my own. I can’t do anything on my own. I need Him. It is He who makes it special. I will always pray to Him for guidance, and all will fall together in His time and in His way, which will be the best way.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
First and foremost, staying close to my Heavenly Father. It’s the only way. People like to separate religion from work, but I don’t. It isn’t safe. Not for me and not for the reader.

• Diligence
• Faith
• Hope
• Determination
• Trust in the Lord
• Stubbornness
• A thick skin
• Willingness to learn
• Humility
• Don’t write for the money, or you’ll throw up trash
• Love writing
• Don’t procrastinate

Pricing:

• Akrenzhen Paperback $25.00
• Akrenzhen Kindle $6.00
• Renzhies Paperback $20.00
• Nri Kryne Paperback $20.00
• Renzhies & Nri Kryne Kindle, $4.99 & $2.99

Contact Info:

• Website: https://maraduryea.wordpress.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sparrowincarnate/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SparrowCove

Image Credits
Julia Benally, Jeff Brown, and Graphics Bad CoChunks