I was asked to donate a book that had a Christmas scene in it to a group project. As I thought through my books, I realized that 8 of my 22 fiction books have very prevelent Christmas scenes or themes. Eight! What’s so odd about that is that I’ve only intentionally written 2 Christmas novellas […]
Love at First Sight?
Readers often criticize romance stories and romance books for the concept of “love at first sight.” The consensus most often expressed is that “love at first sight” isn’t “love”, as in the true love of your soul, but rather just a physical phenomenon, a pheromone reaction to certain identifiers that your psyche recognizes on a […]
Cowboys, Christmas, and Second Chances
Ranches aren’t so different from farms, right? A few more horses and cows, a few less sheep and chickens. Still country living near small towns. Still wide open spaces instead of back alleys. Still the smells of nature rather than exhaust fumes. Still romance. Just add cowboys. Stir. Enjoy. I’ve been toying with a cowboy […]
Tired Tropes
On my post the other day, I had a comment that I’ve been mulling since. The commenter asked why there were so many single mom/parent books out there these days. Now, I’ll admit to not having written a ton of them, but I do realize they’re super popular. You only have to look at a […]
What’s Your Favorite Christian Romance Trope? Plus Giveaway
Once upon a time, I didn’t know what romance tropes meant. I just knew themes I loved writing about: friends to true love, woman in jeopardy, second chances, opposites attract. Then I heard about popular romance tropes and realized about my ignorance. In time, I added more tropes to my list, and some of them […]
Romantic Comedy: Is it all just a bunch of fluff?
Hello. My name is Krista Phillips, and I write non-fluffy romantic comedy. I know… what? There IS such a thing? How can that possibly be? For those who may not know it exists, I thought I’d enlighten you today! I like to say I write filled-cupcake fiction. Fluffy (fun) on the outside, but when you […]
Royal Weddings! And Christmas Movies! And #Giveaway!
I’m sure y’all have seen the big royal news by now – Prince Harry has found his princess! The wedding will be in May and a couple friends and I are hoping we can get together to watch. (Have you read Bethany W. Turner’s The Secret Life of Sarah Hollenbeck?! Or Mikal Dawn’s Count […]
Differing scripts
Ever have a conversation with someone that ends up going wrong and you can’t figure out why? Sometimes you simply give up and walk away, throwing your hands in the air trying to figure out what was wrong with the other person and why they held the attitude you did. Later, you talk to a […]
Reader Input Requested — and a $10 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway!
My last blog post proved to be so much fun (when I asked for reader suggestions for unusual hero/heroine occupations) that I decided to pose another question this month! First of all, thank you. We authors couldn’t do what we do (that is, live in a story world with our characters a good majority of the […]
Reunion Stories by Merrillee Whren
Recently I attended my 50th high school class reunion. I keep saying I can’t believe I’m that old. Some of my classmates had the same feeling as we gathered together to reminisce. My two best friends from those years came to the reunion. One of them I haven’t seen for over thirty years. The other […]