Menu Close

Marina’s Journal

Writing is one of my life’s passions. I put my heart and soul into each and every contemporary romance novel I write, and Marina's Journal, is where you’ll get the inside scoop. You’ll learn more about your favorite characters, and I’ll talk about what inspires me. Best of all, when I start working on my next novel, you’ll be the first to know. Please explore and thank you for visiting!

Marina Martindale

A Halloween Scene from Rivalry

Fall is in the air, and Halloween will soon be coming. Thank goodness. I am so ready for fall. In the meantime, I've been busy working on my latest contemporary romance novel, Rivalry. It's a love story about a young woman and a middle aged man. Like my earlier romance novel, The Reunion, I've included a Halloween scene in Rivalry, so I'm giving you a sneak peek. Please keep in mind this is a work ...

A Writer’s Worst Nightmare

As I mentioned in my last blog post, titled, Well, I Finally Did It, I managed to fill the internal hard drive on my old Macbook Pro. It only had 512 gigabytes of storage. I'm sure for most writers it would be more than enough. However, I'm not most writers. I'm also a photographer who used to produce book trailer videos, back in the day. This means I have a lot of big files. Really ...

Well, I Finally Did It

  I've melted down my computer. It took some time, but I finally did it. I've been a Mac user since 1990. Now don't go getting all upset because I use Apple instead of a PC. Back then I was a graphic designer, and my industry was changing rapidly. Gone were the days of using tracing paper and markers. The Mac II, which came with millions of colors, was now the industry standard. They were ...

I’ll Keep Writing My Novels Myself

There's been quite a lot of talk lately among novel writers about AI, or artificial intelligence. Supposedly, AI can now write books. Needless to say, this has a lot of authors upset, and I most certainly will not be using it. Here's why. I have my own unique writing voice All authors have their own unique writing voice. Just like our speaking voice, our writing voice is our way of putting our thoughts into words. ...

It was Time for a Change

Those of you who are regular visitors may have noticed a big change. My website now has a whole new look.  I began writing books in the early 2000s. This was back in the dark ages of dial-up modems and AOL flash sessions to download your email. The two main Internet providers, CompuServe and AOL, only offered a limited amount of online hours each month. My how times have changed. Back then having a website ...

The Love of a Father and Son

While my contemporary romance novels center around the love between a man and a woman, they also include other stories of love. The love between siblings. And, the love between parent and child.  In this scene from my debt contemporary romance novel, The Reunion, I delve into the relationship between fathers and sons. The scene was inspired by a speech someone gave at my Toastmasters club. He talked about the difficult relationship he had with ...