Raine Balkera - Romance Author

(EDIT: an hours-long power outage left this author in a pinch, so #ThursdayThoughts is now a FridayThoughts) Since I plan to be extremely busy this weekend, I thought Today would be as good a day as any to Wrap Up the Week. And, it was a surprisingly eventful one, indeed. First , I'd like to share a few bits of awful news on the personal home front. My daughter witnessed her first deadly car crash the other day, and I am very worried about her frame of mind right now. Ma and I sat down with her last night to let her vent, share her feelings, and ask a lot of questions, which I hope helped her some. I think what made it worse was that when she finally arrived at work, one of her co-workers was weeping on her cell phone, and as it turned out, it had been a family friend who had died in that same crash. Second , a rash of vandalism and theft have occurred in our neighborhood. Several weeks ago, my vehicle and my son's (both parked in the driveway and locked --...

16Personalities.com My son is currently teaching at a Language Camp on a Minnesota lake and has to figure out how his students will behave/respond over the next few weeks. He sent me and his sister the link to a Personality Test and surprisingly, my daughter and I are more alike than either of us ever realized or care to admit. Not surprising at all, my son is the complete opposite. When I took the test, I went into it like I do all of the others . . . with a semi-lackadaisical attitude and a surefire hunch the results wouldn't perfectly match me and who I really am (or, more to the point, who I perceive myself to be). From the picture above, the answers resulted in my being termed a Mediator, and I'm sorry, this just couldn't be more wrong. The "I like to mediate and make sure everyone is happy" part. That is my son and somewhat my daughter, AND me until I was in my thirties, but definitely not who I am today. The rest of the explanations, th...

We've all read at least one review (possibly about our own novel) that manages to not only upset but also give the impression that said reviewer would write something awful regardless of content or execution. It's a tough call, especially when it isn't the author's job to cast judgment on a reader in the same way a reader can and will do to any and all authors. We've probably read at least one blog post or online magazine article that recommends authors 'ignore' bad reviews, and I know a few authors who never read their book's reviews at all: good OR bad. Yet there are authors who like to brag-post a glowing review -- which probably has more to do with attempting to boost sales than it does a need to feed their ego -- but again, it's hard to tell sometimes. Lately, we read and discuss the issue of 5-Star reviews and their possible draw-backs. There are countless blog post and online magazine articles that offer some form of advice about...