La-Tessa Montgomery

Hi good peoples!  After a year of speaking  & presenting live workshops on blogging, Twitter, website basics, and branding, your’s truly is conducting her very first online workshop.

Yep, that’s right.  I’ll be working with the Colorado Romance Writer chapter of RWA to present two workshops this year.

Starting next week, I’ll be conducting a 4 week workshop that will serve as a great intro to all things social media.  So if you, or anyone you know, would like to jump into the social media pool via blogging,  Twitter, Facebook, and countless other social media outlets,  in an effort to build and extend their platform, this is for you.  For more information, click here.

Then in March, I will be offering a 2 week Twitter bootcamp-esque workshop designed to take the fear and mystery out of one the fastest growing social media sites around.  For additional info on this fun and interactive workshop, click here.

I’m really excited and nervous about kicking off this new avenue in my life.  Thanks in advance for all your support.

Hopefully, I’ll see you in class

I’m working on my new wip (YES, I am also still working on the UF revisions too) and this song currently is rattling around in my head.   Adele has one of those voices that just cuts right through to my soul.   This song is perfect for my new story.  The leads have quite a few challenges to overcome to reach their HEA, this song gives a good feel for the uneasy path they face.

A fairly common trope in the romance genre is that of “love at first sight”.  Within the context of fiction, this concept is readily acceptable as long as it’s well written and executed.  One of the joys of reading romance, according to informal polls I’ve read and taken, is that is allows the reader the opportunity to escape their lives, if only for a bit of time, and allows them access to fantasies that may be missing from their lives either at the moment or altogether.

Some detractors of the romance genre say this escape tendency causes people to have unrealistic expectations of how “real” relationships work; therefore setting them up for romance failure in their personal lives.

So, this got me to wondering (uh oh is right  ) exactly how many of us (romance readers & writers and people in general) believe “love at first sight” truly exists?

I don’t know if I believe in this concept, per se. But I do believe that while it may take someone a while to admit to themselves that they are, indeed, in love with someone; I think it takes very little time to actually “fall” in love with someone.  Think about it, what does falling in love really mean?

In my opinion, falling in love is an active thing that begins the moment you meet that special someone, whether you’re aware of it or not.  I believe the “falling” is a constant process that continues throughout the span of a healthy relationship.  It could start out small, like a snowball rolling downhill that picks up substance and speed as it travels along…  Or, it could start out like “WOW!” all big and in your face and continue to grow from there.  It varies from person to person.

As someone that both enjoys romance and writes it,  I’m interested in your opinions of “love at first sight”.  Is this a theory you subscribe to?  Or do you feel it’s just a bunch of commercialized hooey?

Another year has ended and new one is ushered in.  Every January 1^st  I’m compelled to take a look at the past year for an account of what I’ve accomplished and what I haven’t in relation to the writing goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year. It’s all in the spirit of accountability.  If I can’t be accountable to myself, then I will not be accountable to anyone else.  So, taking a look back at 2011, the goals I set for myself included:

    1. Complete polished draft of Edge of Desire (the UF) and begin submission process
    2. Complete 1st draft of WFF and get the first 3 chapters polished (for submission & contests)
    3. Outline 2 new projects
    4. Apply for PRO status
    5. Set up office

And just how did I fair with these, you may ask:

1. Not quite- I am actively still working on my polished draft of the UF.  To say I got side tracked in 2011 is an understatement.  But on the flip side, I have renewed energy for this story and I am furiously working on it right now.

2. Umm… No- I got nowhere near touching WFF in 2011.  Outside of my new outline, WFF has been in a coma… waiting to be revived.  In fact, I like to think of it as a modern day Sleepy Beauty, just waiting for its Prince to come along.  (And by “Prince” I mean me sitting my butt in the darn chair and hammering out the outline and cranking out the words.)

3. Yes, but No- I now have the next 2 stories in my contemporary romance series formulated (yay!),  but I have not put my thoughts on paper yet or made any tangible brainstorming progress. (I know, I know… There is no excuse)

4. No.  It’s a tad bit hard to apply for PRO when you are working on multiple manuscripts, yet not finishing one of  them.  But I digress…

5.  And for the 2^nd year in a row, I gotta say NO!  This really shouldn’t be this hard; I’ve YET to redo my office.  But I have a feeling I won’t have a choice but to get this one done in 2012.  In fact, I’m almost willing to bet that if I don’t do a thing else, I will definitely have a new office set up going

Now that the year-end accountability is over, I’m looking towards 2012 and the things I plan to accomplish this year.  Instead of my traditional resolutions and goals, I’m going to take my critique partner’s advice and rally around a theme.  After much thought, my theme for 2012 (In all aspects of my life) will be PURSUIT.  Just in case you are unfamiliar with this term, Dictionary.com has it defined as:

Pursuit [per-soot] –  an effort to secure or attain; quest:

I am very committed to my goals of becoming a successfully published author.  I have invested years into increasing my knowledge and understanding of the craft, improving the consistently of my writing, and the development of my voice and style.  So, in keeping with my Pursuit theme for 2012, I have two areas I want to concentrate on as far as my writing goes.

In pursuit of my goal to become a published author, I will:

1. Complete my polished UF draft, enter it into contests and pitch it to editors/agents for consideration
2. Complete a rough draft of WFF (book #1 in my contemporary romance series)
3. Complete a rough draft of book #2 in my contemporary romance series

In pursuit to my goal to develop/expand my own author platform, I will:

1. Develop  workshops centered around my subject matter expertise (social media, branding and PR) as it relates to helping authors promotion themselves and establish a web presence.  It is my hope that I will be able to conduct said workshop(s) throughout 2012 at a variety of venues.

So here you have it. You know what I’ll be working towards in 2012, what about you?

Someday I’ll fly, someday I’ll soar
~John Mayer

If interested, you can check out my personal 2011 reflections and plans for 2012 here.

It’s that time again!

Once again, I am taking on the NaNoWriMo challenge.  And once again I got a ton of stuff going on which will make it even more of a challenge for me to “win”.  It’s not going to stop me from trying though.

However, I will not commit to daily or even weekly updates this year.  I honestly have too much going on.  But I will update when and how I can–which means a lot more Twitter NaNo updates that actual blog posts about it  .

Ok, off I go into NaNo land…. It’s 11/4/11 which means I’m already running behind.  I know, I know. Not a good way to start off things,  but I still have faith!  The weekend is upon us and I have plans on churning out some serious word count.