A Day in the Life of the Mega Talented @RJ_Blain #Paranormal #Fantasy #BYNR

It’s 8:30, and the phone rings. It’s reminiscent of one of those old-fashioned tellies most people only see in museums nowadays. If I wasn’t already at least a little awake, the sound would’ve had me sitting up groping around to answer the phone, only to realize it’s my alarm. What can I say? I have to trick myself into waking up in the mornings.

Usually, though, I beat the alarm up by five or ten minutes, sleepily checking my email for any new stuff from my editing clients. I have roughly an hour to wake up, and I tend to spend most of it addressing little things I can do on my phone while half asleep.

By 9:30, I’m mostly conscious, and have sent my husband off to work. Then, and only then, can my real work begin.

Cue chaos.

First up, I have client work to address. This means I’m reading through manuscripts trying to find ways an author can improve their novels on a structural level. Some days, this involves picking at writing on a sentence level, making recommendations on style improvements, tension and pacing improvements, and even general improvement of English-language skills. On other days, I’m picking apart character arcs, plot arcs, and the general tone of a novel.

Once I reach my benchmarks for the day, I’m drafting or editing my own novels. This can be rewriting scenes I think need a lot of improvement, tweaking sentences, or addressing problems my editor(s) have pointed out.

During this, I’m dealing with household emergencies, bills, making sure my four cats don’t try to eat me, you know, the usual. Sometimes, I flake out and do things other than what I’m supposed to be doing. One of my favorite flaking-out activities is drawing maps of my world. I used to sketch them on my computer, but now I do them on imitation parchment paper and scan them into the computer. Sometimes I sketch things like dragons. Other times, I’ll crochet something (badly) or try to knit.

Mostly, though, I work and try to pretend that I’m not falling behind on the house chores again. One of these days I will get a maid. Of course, one of these days will probably never come, but a girl can dream, right?

At night is when things get really weird. On the surface, I look like this responsible and serious editor-writer person. Then, my husband comes home. If I owned the proper attire or felt comfortable in that sort of thing, I’d probably get into a catgirl suit, find some daggers, and try to play my computer game character. My fellow gamers just call me StabbyStabby. I play a rogue, and I’m prone to saying StabbyStabby before it’s time to kill something in the game.

I guess all work and no play for a few years made me a kind of crazy person. I raid in Everquest with my husband a few days a week, which gives us time to spend together doing something we both enjoy. Rogues are great therapy characters. If I have a bad day at work, it’s no problem. I can take it all out on some unsuspecting monsters in Everquest. Stabbystabbystabby…

Whenever I find time, I settle down and read books. I usually try to review the books I read, because I enjoy the process of explaining what I liked and didn’t like about a story. I also find it useful for readers who are potentially buying a story.

To sum it up…

A day in the life of RJ Blain: Busy but rewarding.

Here’s to tomorrow.

When Allison is asked to play Cinderella-turned-Fianceé at a Halloween ball, the last thing she expected was to be accused of murder on the same night. She has to find the killer or she’ll be put to death for the crimes she didn’t commit. To make matters worse, the victims are all werewolves. 

On the short list of potential victims, Allison has to act fast, or the killer will have one more body to add to his little black book of corpses. 

There’s only one problem: One of the deaths has struck too close to home, and Allison’s desire for self-preservation may transform into a quest for vengeance…

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Genre - Urban, Paranormal Fantasy

Rating – PG

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Storm Without End (Requiem for the Rift King) by RJ Blain @RJ_Blain #Excerpt #Fantasy #BookClub

“Stand up and drop the weapon.”

A long shadow stretched over the grass, followed by a second. Breton loosened his grip on the weapon and let it fall. Careful to step on the blade as he rose, he held out his hands to show he wasn’t armed.

A second robed figure emerged from the knee-tall grass, and the tip of a second arrowhead glinted in the sunlight. Breton ran his tongue over his teeth. The first stood close enough for Breton to reach, if he could avoid being struck.

The second man would prove the true problem. If Breton was hit — or if the archers missed him and hit Ferethian instead — he’d have more than his survival to worry about. While he needed to find Kalen, he didn’t want to lure the Rift King back to the Rift through death.

“That’s right. Easy now. Keep your hands where we can see them, Rifter.”

Breton glanced out of the corner of his eye at Ferethian. The Rift King’s horse stood rigid, the animal’s dark eyes staring beyond the two outsiders.

The pair of large shadows moved closer, and it took all of Breton’s will to stare at the two figures in front of him.

“Hands up higher, Rift King,” the man snapped.

Breton hesitated, glancing at each figure in turn. They thought he was the Rift King? He frowned and considered the two men. They didn’t exactly go out of their way to describe Kalen to anyone. However, he could recall a few missives talking about how unusually small the Rift King’s horse was. Had they learned of Ferethian, but not of the man who rode him?

“Do it!”

The shadows solidified to the towering forms of black horses. The taller of the two Breton recognized from the familiar warmth in his chest born from being near his horse. Perin’s teeth were bared and both ears were turned back. The second horse was covered in river mud and dust, with black patches showing through.

Breton held his breath.

Ferethian lifted his hoof and struck the ground once. A chill ran through Breton. The two large animals took their placed behind the robed figures, their movements silenced by the ever-present hiss of the wind.

“Halter your horse,” the man ordered.

He lifted his hands to his shoulder to grab the ruined halter. Ferethian snorted and reared back, slamming both hooves down at the same time.

The outsiders fell to the heavy blow of hooves to the head. Angry squeals broke the silence, and Ferethian surged forward to trample the fallen, his long tail bannering.

Breton shivered, stooping to pick up the poisoned blade and the outsiders’ bows and arrows. One of them was carrying a small pouch tied to his belt. He grabbed it and tucked it away in a pocket. Pivoting on a heel, he left the bodies for the nibblers. The three Rift horses flanked him.

He hurried to where the Foristasa cut its way through the plains. The weapons vanished beneath the white caps of its waters. Perin draped his head over Breton’s shoulder and sighed. There was only one reason he could think of for outsiders to make their way to Blind Mare Run. They wanted the Rift King, dead or alive.

If the outsiders learned the truth of the Rift King’s disappearance, he didn’t want to think of the consequences. Breton knelt by the river’s edge and clucked his tongue at the horses. Perin came without complaint, letting him clean the blood from his legs.

The other two horses refused, as though unwilling to wash away the evidence of their devotion to the King no longer within the Rift.

He glanced in the direction of the bodies, shook his head, and headed back towards Blind Mare Run to call for the other Guardians.

Kalen’s throne is his saddle, his crown is the dirt on his brow, and his right to rule is sealed in the blood that stains his hand. Few know the truth about the one-armed Rift King, and he prefers it that way. When people get too close to him, they either betray him or die. The Rift he rules cares nothing for the weak. More often than not, even the strong fail to survive.

When he’s abducted, his disappearance threatens to destroy his home, his people, and start a hopeless and bloody war. There are many who desire his death, and few who hope for his survival. With peace in the Six Kingdoms quickly crumbling, it falls on him to try to stop the conflict swiftly taking the entire continent by storm.

But something even more terrifying than the machinations of men has returned to the lands: The skreed. They haven’t been seen for a thousand years, and even the true power of the Rift King might not be enough to save his people — and the world — from destruction.

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Genre - Fantasy

Rating – PG - 13

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Practical Advice for Beginning Writers – RJ Blain @rj_blain

Writing a novel is a huge task, and it is kind of scary when you’ve never written one before. Is it really possible to write 50,000 words? 75,000 words? 100,000 words? Doubt and uncertainty plague fledgling writers, especially those who have never tried to write so much in a single piece before.

Take it one word at a time. If you can write a single word, you can write a novel. Take your first word, and then add another until you’ve written a sentence. Sentences are the fundamental building block of your novel.

If you can write a sentence, you can write a novel. After all, a novel is nothing more than a collection of words and sentences that tell a story. Worry about writing your story first. There’s a time and a place for writing a good story, and that happens after you have told the first version of the story.

Understand the Role of Editing

Editing is a trap many new writers fall into. Some writers edit the life out of their story without ever actually finishing their novel. Others don’t understand that they need to edit in order to turn a bad story into a good story, or a good story into a great story.

Editing has a role, and understanding how it plays in the writing process can really help relieve a lot of stress – and help get that project done.

For beginners, I want to stress how important editing is, in its time and place. That time and place is after you have experienced the joy of writing a novel and finishing the first draft. There may be the temptation to edit the life out of something you’re working on, but I really recommend you resist that temptation until after you’ve completed a novel.

There are a lot of doubts and uncertainties that plague beginners who have never finished a draft before. Worse still, for every unfinished draft that exists, it gets even harder to try to finish the next one.

Finish your draft first, then edit.

So, what role does editing serve? Editing serves a lot of purposes. It lets a writer better pace the novel. It lets a writer fix problems with character development, plot development, grammar, and spelling. There are lots of things a writer can fix through editing. They can’t, however, fix a novel that hasn’t been written yet.

Bad Habits to Avoid

Every writer approaches their novel(s) in a different fashion. Some write, edit, then write some more. Some write the worst drivel they can think of, and then fix it after they’re done vomiting words. Others spend years writing a novel one sentence at a time. However, there are a few habits that should be avoided.

Try not to…

• … set conditions on when you write. If you only write when the stars align, it’ll take forever and a day to finish a project. Chances are, you’ll never finish a project, and that’s frustrating. This also applies to muses.
• … write only what you view is politically correct. It’s okay to write about difficult subjects. Write what you want to write. Write what you love, and write about what you wish you could do. The possibilities are limitless.
• … procrastinate. Procrastination is a certain way never to finish a novel.
• … associate your value with the quality of your novel or how others perceive your novel. Your writing is not you.
• … expect to write a masterpiece the first try.

Good Habits to Embrace

Like with bad habits, there are good habits you want to embrace. A few of them include:

• Write whenever possible. If you’re writing every day, even if it is a sentence, you will finish your novel.
• Challenge yourself to do better. Study grammar. Emulate authors you love. Love your craft.
• Critique others. If you can spot problems in other people’s novels, you can start spotting those problems in your novel. That’ll help you fix them.
• Write about things you love, not necessarily what you know.
• Study people. It helps with characterization.
• Read lots of things – fiction, non-fiction, whatever you enjoy reading. Just read. It helps when you go to write your own stories.

Most importantly, have fun. Writing is a lot of work, but it can be really enjoyable as well.

Kalen’s throne is his saddle, his crown is the dirt on his brow, and his right to rule is sealed in the blood that stains his hand. Few know the truth about the one-armed Rift King, and he prefers it that way. When people get too close to him, they either betray him or die. The Rift he rules cares nothing for the weak. More often than not, even the strong fail to survive.

When he’s abducted, his disappearance threatens to destroy his home, his people, and start a hopeless and bloody war. There are many who desire his death, and few who hope for his survival. With peace in the Six Kingdoms quickly crumbling, it falls on him to try to stop the conflict swiftly taking the entire continent by storm.

But something even more terrifying than the machinations of men has returned to the lands: The skreed. They haven’t been seen for a thousand years, and even the true power of the Rift King might not be enough to save his people — and the world — from destruction.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Fantasy

Rating – PG - 13

More details about the author

Connect with RJ Blain on Facebook and Twitter

Read More