Raine Balkera - Romance Author

As mentioned in another post about outlining, plotting, and analyzing prior to actually writing my next novel, it is time to get down to business and begin work on story #3. And, as predicted, the endeavor to chart a course this time around isn't panning out as well as I had hoped. It is too much like work, which is precisely why I'm not digging it. However, outlining still has it's appeal and so hope to proceed because I am an overly curious person and want to discover just how much of a difference (good or bad) plotting makes in my craft. To begin with, I'm supposed to search online for 'famous' people who somewhat resemble my cast of characters and then display them somewhere -- like, on my den wall in front of me here, and in a blog post for posterity. Fun stuff, I must say, and I did spend a majority of last evening doing just that. Since I'm not a huge fan of Hollywood, their movies, or their stars, I'm not familiar with most of ...

Today is National Comic Book day , and in most parts of the United States, if you visit a bookstore or outlet that sells them, you're liable to take home some freebies! It's been awhile since I last read a comic book, but that doesn't mean I don't want to anymore. Like most kids of my generation, we grew up on comics -- whether they be in the form of Sunday Funnies that we eagerly slipped out of our father's newspaper after church, or the store-bought kind we always had spare allowance change to buy. For me, it wasn't about superheros or the standard favorites and all about love. I'd be hard-pressed to give you the exact date and time of my first glimpse into one of these charming, old relics, so let's just say I was still in elementary school and leave it at that. What I can say with definite certainty is that, for me, it became the equivalent of an old Lay's potato chips slogan: you can't read just one. I poured ove...