I promise you that the title of this post was not clickbait. :) According to a couple of my readers, I have written books with unlikeable heroines. Let me give you a few examples of what their reviews said: “I didn’t like (the heroine) very much, for a Christian, she was too judgemental.” “(The heroine) […]
Learning to Paint
by: Staci Stallings Life is interesting. First, back in 2014, my niece, Veronica, started coming every so often to talk about life. She, like many young people today, was trying to figure out college and how to get her feet on the ground. She was working through a lot of internal messaging that had culminated […]
All in the Family – Sibling Sagas
Who is your favorite fictional family? There is something about a big family that I just love to read about. All the family dynamics that come in to play (positive and negative)! I grew up with three older brothers, so I have plenty of material to work in to my books. I have been having […]
Women in the Work Force by Merrillee Whren
It seems to me in romance circles that readers and writers talk about the occupations of the heroes in books more often than they talk about the heroines. Cowboys, firemen, policemen, and military men= seem to be among the most popular occupations. But do we ever talk about the occupations of the heroines? Maybe, but […]
Be Do Have–The Ultimate Lesson
by: Staci Stallings Many years ago I wrote an article for a blog called “Be Do Have.” It was about an insight I had recently had about life. In the article, I explained that most people in life get this backward. They believe that they need to have before they can do and they need […]
How People Meet & a #Giveaway
I was talking with another author recently. We were brainstorming the start of a book, and she was stuck on how she could realistically take the hero and heroine from complete strangers to the point that they trusted each other enough to share some deeply personal secrets. I kept coming up with ways for the […]
Things Authors have to Google (and other ways we research)
Google is a writer’s best friend – or at least it seems that way sometimes! I’ve researched everything from bread baking techniques (for Danielle in Summer to Remember) to how to embezzle money from a doctor’s office (Spring Fever). While we often pull from experience from former jobs, relationships, or current hobbies, sometimes we get […]
The Seeds of a Story (and 2 giveaways)
Have you ever wondered what inspires stories for authors? Where do they get their great ideas? The answer? Sometimes in the strangest places. Shortly before I wrote Oslo Overtures (working title Pink Skies), I was listening to the radio on the way to work one morning. The presenter was discussing female pilots and listeners were […]
A Return to Arcadia Valley (+ #Giveaway)
In 2017, I was thrilled to be a part of the the Arcadia Valley Romance project. If you weren’t a blog regular then, this was a multi-author series with contributions by: Valerie Comer, Lee Tobin McClain, Annalisa Daughety, Danica Favorite, Mary Jane Hathaway, and myself. Like most group projects in the history of time, it […]
Someday My Prince will Come by Deb Kastner
And apparently, that day is today—in the book I’m writing, at least. I’ve been married to my real-life Prince Charming for thirty-three years and have currently been quarantined with him for two months. I almost lost him three years ago to a double stroke, so I know just how blessed I am right now—even if […]