La-Tessa Montgomery

Hi all, please welcome my guest for the day, Shay MacLean.  Shay’s here to talk about her process for generating new story ideas, something all authors must due continually.  Shay is also celebrating the release of her erotic tale,  Shooting Stars, which I’m reading now. But don’t wait for me to tell you about (although I will be post my own review  ). Follow the link to read the free excerpt and/or purchase this spicy number.

Stoking the Fires: What Ignites My Muse’s Ardor

Ideas, concepts, insight, scheme, theory…all of these can be summarized as brainchildren to a writer and his or her muse. But, what sparks the ideas of creativity for a writer thus igniting her muse, who more often than not can be finicky at the best of times and a downright bitch/asshole at the worst. Every writer has their own way of coming up with ideas for new stories. Each can be either very exacting in the details or laid back in how much information they need to begin work. In my case, I feel I am a very lucky, my muse is very laid back. He likes to feed me ideas for a work in progress slowly over the course of a couple of months most of the time.

What makes his head perk up though?

The sources of his inspiration are varied and many. If I’m trying to come up with an idea of what a story should be about, I’ll go searching through the stock photo websites. Many snippets of information have popped into my mind as I browse the images. Just last night I was searching for a picture of a dragon (one of my personal obsessions ) to display on my website and I had the image of an existing character in my Rift Hunter Series’s love interest as a dragon shape shifter flash in my mind.

I quickly grabbed a pen and jotted down as much information as I could about what I saw and what my muse whispered to me.
The same thing happened when I was looking for new sexy pics of the week. I came across a picture of a couple dancing and a scene for a project came to mine. For that same project, I had a flash of inspiration when my husband took me out for Valentine’s Day. A café in Italy or Rome where my two heroes were talking. Later that same night, I got the image of those men meeting my heroine for the first time in a nightclub of old, like in Casablanca, where she’s singing with only a piano for accompaniment.

As a writer, everything around you, every setting, every conversation, every smell, every taste…becomes your playground and potential fodder for ideas and characters (yes, I said characters. All you writer’s know what I’m talking about   ). We’re always on the lookout for new and exciting ideas to keep our writing fresh and engaging for the reader. Just as I sat down to write this post I caught sight of a story on Yahoo’s homepage about Hidden Man Made Wonders of the World. I could definitely see using some, if not all, of them as a backdrop for a story. Even music videos have sparked ideas for characters.

About the author:
Shay has been writing ever since she can remember, penning her first short story about Tom Turkey in the fourth grade. As a teenager, she focused mainly on poetry, but still dabbled in writing shorts. She didn’t find her niche though until she started listening to the characters in her head whispering about the dark and sensual worlds to be explored in erotic romance. Now when she’s not engrossed in a great read, she listens intently when her muse murmurs seductively in her ear. She also enjoys dabbling in arts and crafts now and again. And although she isn’t an artist by any means she designed the tattoo featured in Shooting Stars. When she’s not writing she enjoys reading and spending time with her family. 

You can contact her at shaymaclean@yahoo.com or on her Facebook Page.



I had the pleasure of interviewing Theresa Meyers, author and publicist, for Savvy Authors. Check out the interview here.

I was given the opportunity to inview Author Victoria Schmidt over at Savvy Authors. I first posted about Victoria Schmidt’s craft book  Book in a Month here.

Victoria was a blast to interview, head over to Savvy Authors to check it out.

I had the pleasure of attending the book signing for Beautiful Creatures and meeting the authors Kami and Margaret back in January.  Of course, I got caught all up and I’m just now getting around to posting my recap of the event. 

I attended the book signing with one of my local writing buddies.  We both found it to be very interesting event.  For one, these two authors have one of the most unlikeliest, fairytale-ish, comedy-of-errors type of road to publication.  The short version of the story is that neither author had finished a story on their own, so their kids dared them to write and finish a book.  Being the sports they are, they accepted the challenge.  The proceeded to write the book, turning over the completed chapters to their kids to read as they were done (and as proof they were actually writing the book-lol)

By the time they were finished, they had several students (like 100′s)  that attended school with their kids wanting to read their finished product.  So they were going to post it to the net so all of the kids could have access to it, when one of their friends (who just happens to be a published author) stepped in and stopped them.    Said friend also sent the book to his agent, and the agent loved it.  The story gets really funny now (in a Lucy & Ethel type way), but long story short, after several mishaps and thinking the interest of the agent was a practical joke, Kami and Margaret are now proud authors of their first published book, which also happens to be the first book either of them has ever written.

Their story is a YA/Paranormal/Southern/Gothicy mix that has gotten rave reviews both on Amazon and from the radio DJ’s that I initially heard talking about it.  Listening to the authors describe their story and their influences really piqued my interest as well.  So I did something I rarely, if ever do.  I purchased a book–a hard cover no less–written by authors that I knew nothing about (other than what I’d heard than night) or whose books I’d never read before.

The one quote/piece of advice these ladies gave, that I will always remember, is “There’s no such thing as a bad book, just a bad draft”.  This was their response when an aspiring author asked them for insight into their writing process (which, in an of itself quite hectic).  This matra is the one thing they both kept in mind to keep them going, and I think it’s worth remembering & repeating.  I will definitely be pulling this one out the next time I have a crisis of confidence regarding my writing–or– the next time I recieve a rejection. 

For one, I’m really digging the book cover, and cover art usually doesn’t play a strong part in my book buying decisions.  But something about it appeals to me, and I LOVE the title font, it’s very fluid and artsy.  But I’m really looking forward to reading this one.  It’s next on my TBR list.

Oh, and did I mention?  Beautiful Creatures has been optioned for a movie.  Congrats ladies!

I attended the RWA Conference in D.C. last week.  This was my first time at Nationals and I had an excellent time.  I met some new authors (both aspiring and published), caught up with some friends I hadn’t see in a while (or ever as the case with my online critique group),  picked up a few pearls of wisdom, & attended some very informative workshops.

The best part of the conference for me was meeting some of my critique partners for the first time.  We all meet in an online workshop and hit it off, so we  formed a critique group.

Book Signings:
I missed the Avon book signing (because I didn’t know about it) but I made sure to attend the Harlequin, Pocket Book, Berkley, Grand Central, NAL, Ballantine/Bantam, St.  Martin’s, and Sourcebooks book signings.  With this being my first RWA book signing event, I went into the Harlequin signing with my money ready to purchase a few books and get them signed.  Imagine my happy shock and surprise when I was promptly told to put my money away because all the books were free.  Wait a second, free books???  And from some of my favorite authors???

Woohoo!!!

Here are a few, just a few, of the authors I got a chance to meet and chat with:

 Social Events

I attended both The Gathering (sponsored by the FF&P chapter) and the Samhain Publishing wine meet & greet.   The Gathering was a lot of fun, mostly because I met Allison, one of my critique partners, (see photo at top) for the first time and we got to hang out for a tiny bit.  One of the best parts about The Gathering was getting the chance to put a face with the names of several people that I communicate with online via the message boards.  Oh and let me not forget, Ms. Jade Lee is a trip!  LOL.

After dinner and the PRISM awards, they hosted a panel consisting of many of the PRISM award winners.  It was quite interesting and I learned of a new author (well, new to me at least), Leanna Renee Hieber.   She spoke of the need for perseverance and determination in all aspiring authors.  But the most important thing I got from her was to not write to the trends of the market, but to write the story of your heart. 

She’d been writing and trying to get her upcoming novel, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, published for 10 before she got her big break.  Talk about perseverance.  The Strangely Beautiful Tale… is a combination Victorian Paranormal/Gothic-y story.  I read the preview she included with our gift bags and let me tell you, I did not want to like this story.  But after reading the first 3 chapters, I am eagerly awaiting its release on August 25.

 

Thanks for reading my conference recap.  I know I haven’t touched on any of the workshops I took, but I may do another post about those later.  In the meantime, head over to the RWA site and browse through the list of workshops that were conducted.  I believe they are selling both DVDs and audio recordings of many of the workshops.  Also, I believe the handouts may also be available for download on the site.

If you are interested in reading about my sightseeing adventures in D.C., head over to my personal blog .