Raine Balkera - Romance Author

Reading is what everyone can do and writing is what some are capable of doing. But, not all writers are capable of doing it correctly. Which is where reader's feedback comes in handy. Honest feedback is essential to our craft and what helps us improve, so it is a necessary evil in our line of work to not only receive reviews but to read them objectively in order to learn from  our   mistakes. I subscribe to BookBub , which alerts me daily to Free and discounted E-books via Amazon, and while I agree with Collette Cameron about the idea of free and cheap being a potential detriment to us authors, I also see it as a way for authors to gain valuable feedback. For a writer, it pays to understand what comprises bad writing in the same way that it pays to read outstanding works of art. We gain by learning from both. The reader, on the other hand, is merely screwed by the purchase and reading of bad writing, but in the long run, so is that...

Really should be writing right now. I will, I tell myself . . . for the past few hours now. So, when all else fails, I blog. Let's start with today's People Magazine award, shall we? People Magazine selects  David Beckham  as Sexiest Man Alive for 2015. It bugs me more to keep thinking that this dude already won the award, like, ten years ago or more, only to do an online search that comes up with zilch in the fact-checking category of needless things. My vote? Ross Poldark's  Aidan Turner If I knew how to make the Eartha Kitt purr, I would. Up next, a post that includes excerpts from a list of the 2015 Nominees for Worst Sex Scenes in Fiction. And, this isn't even Romantic Fiction! It's just sex scenes inside a fictional novel, which is funny enough as is. What they've chosen as nominee material, however, is a lot more funny and even more unbelievable. A lot of 'what the hell were they thinking?'  as I read each excerpt. ...