La-Tessa Montgomery

Just got back from GRW’s Moonlight & Magnolias conference.  And as usual, it was excellent.  The workshops covered a variety of topics, and the hands on workshops on critiquing–which I had the pleasure of co-moderating– and pitching went very well.  The conference was in Decatur, GA this year and was my first time visiting.   I must say, the area we were in was very charming, had excellent restuarants, bars, and shopping all withing walking distance.

Now, on to the conference highlights:  First up, I really enjoyed the pitch workshop.  The attendees were divided up and paired with a published author for hands on pitch work.  I was lucky enough to get author Mark All, and just let me tell you, he really helped me get my urban fantasy pitch together.  Trust me when I say I needed it.  I’ve been writing, living and breathing Contemporary Romance the last 3 years and had no clue how to best pitch my UF.  Mark stepped in and shed light on it for me.  A big help as I went on to successfully pitch that day and received a submission request.  YAY!! for me and THANKS!!!! to Mark for his help.

Leigh Michaels’ workshop, Things that Stump the Best of Us was super awesome.  One of my weaknesses as a writer is that I tend to focus a lot on back story and character history, as opposed to present story action as I start off my stories.  Leigh reviewed quite a few quick tools to help eliminate this, improve pace, and fix up transitions.  Really good stuff, I can’t wait to implement in my revisions.

Of course, meeting up with friends, making new connections and the Maggie Awards are the crown jewels of M&M for me each year.  Here are a couple a memories from the weekend:  Some of the authors I met:

Author D. Renee Bagby

D. Renee was up for a Maggie for Eris this year in the Paranormal category

Jodi & author Leigh Michaels

Leigh delivered two excellent workshops this year.

Author Shiloh Walker

Got the chance to meet Shiloh at the book signing.  She was being coy

Author Gabi Stevens

Gabi gave a great workshop on themes and how they can be used to strengthen your story.

Now, on to the Maggies, we had a ball:

Me & 3 of my critique partners.  Lovely ladies in blue, black and white

Pam and & I posing with author Jax Cassidy

Chudney mid groove- LOL

No clue what Jodi and I call ourselves doing right here.  None at all

J is feeling the music I tell ya.

Nicki, Trish, and DJ Silver Knight.  He kept us on the dance floor all night long, whether we wanted to be or not!  Good times all around!

Again, another great conference put on by the members of GRW.  I’d be remiss if I left out the highlight of the conference…. I pitched to 2 editors and 1 agent and received submission requests from all 3!!!  WOOT! I’m super excited, even more so because my the editor I pitched my contemp romance to seemed just as excited about my story as I am.  This is important because my contemp happens to fall into a subcategory that makes it a bit hard to place.  But I love the story, so I’m sticking with it.

If you’re an author, published or not, and looking for a conference to attend in 2012, I’d highly recommend Moonlight and Magnolias.  It will be back in Norcross next year which means one thing… The Norcross Train Station for dinner and desert.  Personally, I can’t wait

I managed 216 new words yesterday. Not much but progress is progress, so I’ll take it.   At first I wasn’t going to write anything, despite my plans to do so.  I’ve really been struggling lately with actually putting my butt in the chair and my hands on the keyboard and working on any of my wips.  Yes, I have a lot going on both professional and personally, but even taking that into consideration, there has been a tangible block to me writing.  And I believe, no I know it’s been more mental than physical.  But I received a  call last night from a friend, who happens to also be a writer, and I was inspired/encouraged sit down and do something after our talk–which oddly enough only focused on writing for like 5 mins of our nearly 2 hr conversation.

So even though I didn’t want too, and even though I needed to go to bed within the next 20 mins,  I pulled out the laptop and tackled a brand new scene in my UF wip.  And with no plan or outline I might add, just a general thought I wrote down while doing my narrative outline last week.  Amazingly, it went well.  I’ve been so busy lately doing other things like workshop and program outlines, critiques, and brainstorming (all things I enjoy doing), that I’d forgotten how good it feels to let loose and just write.  Once I tapped into that special place, the one where the natural words, cadence, ideas and imagery lives,  the words just flowed.  Yeah, it was only 20 mins and yes, it was only 216 words, but I was enough to get me back into the swing of things. I got my mojo back, I got the jones for that feeling back, I got the excitement about my story back, I got the confidence in my words and my abilities back.  Those 216 words are so much bigger than the number seems.

I tell ya, Zen is the plane on which no inner critics exists.  As a writer, I’ve got to learn to tune out my left brain better when I’m tackling right brained activities.  There is a difference in the creative skill set needed to write vs the one needed to revise.  I’ve also got to get back into my daily writing habit, even if it’s just 216 words a day I manage.

“Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not words.  Trust movement.” ~Alfred Alder

I’ve decided to trust movement.

Image source

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 was all set and prepared to do a blog about my local writer’s group, River City Romance Writers.  The plan was to let writers in the Memphis area know what a great group and resource we are.  And we’re not just for romance writers; we have authors of all walks of life here:  suspense, woman’s fiction, paranormal, urban fantasy… You name it, we got it.

 BUT my critique partner and chapter member, Robin Hillyer-Miles  beat me to it by doing excellent write up that was featured in The Commercial Appeal.  <– click the link to read the  full article and to see a pic of yours truly, along with a few other RCRW members.

Before you head over to The Commercial Appeal to check out the write up, here are a couple of key events we have coming up:

Duel on the Delta contest:
The 20th annual Duel on the Delta contest is open and taking submissions through March 15th.  This is a great contest and excellent way to get your manuscript in front of some of the top editors in the industry. And no I’m not just saying that because it’s my chapter sponsoring it. :-)  We have an excellent line up of final judges for each category (including editors  from Carina Press, Samhain Publishing, Bethany House, Harlequin, and Oceanview Publishing).  Plus each and every entry is scored by 3 trained judges using a detailed 2 pg score sheet.  Each entrant will receive their submission back with their scores and 3 sets of feedback.  You can’t beat that.  For more information click here.

Spring Retreat:
Come join us April 9th as we host award-winning author Karen Doctor as she teaches us techniques on avoiding the dreaded sagging middle with the W Plot (a hands on workshop);  and best-selling author and President Belle Books, Deb Dixon as she speaks on the current state of the publishing industry.  For more information, click here.  Also, if you join RCRW before the retreat, you can attend at a discounted cost.

I’m a few days late with this, but it’s November which means it’s NaNoWriMo time!

Once again, I’ve signed up for the ride.  The goal is to complete a 50,000 word novel within 30 days. Or in my case, add 50,000 words to my current wip. I’ve participated in NaNo the last 2 years but I’ve not successfully completed the challenge

However, I’m feeling this year is my year.  I’ve been writing routinely the past month as part of my mentorship, so I just need to push my daily word goal a bit and I think I can do it.

I’ve added a NaNo word count widget to track my progress. As of today, I’m running a bit behind, so I’m off to do it to it.