3rd Annual Romance Expo in Mt. Dora, Florida

I am happy to see that romance authors and readers are getting lots of positive publicity lately. The Romance Writers of America just wrapped up its 36^th conference in San Diego last Sunday, and helped raise thousands of dollars to help promote literacy!

Personally, I will be joining 20 romance authors for the 3^rd annual Romance Expo at the W.T. Bland Public Library in Mt. Dora, Florida, on Saturday, August 13 from 10am – 1pm. This is an event that keeps growing every year, so please stop by if you’re in the Orlando area. There will be contemporary, mystery, historical, paranormal, time-travel and romantic suspense authors for you to meet, so if you love stories about Navy Seals, shape shifters, knights in shining armor, secret agents, cowboys, or even Prince Charming, we’d love to share our heroes with you.

I love to meet readers who share my love of stories with happy endings, so I hope to see you there!

Best,

Leigh

www.leighcourt.com 

Back To The Real World

First of all, Happy 4th of July for our readers who celebrate. I came back from NYC to two get-togethers yesterday and another one today. We're also having a huge fireworks display over the lake in our village tonight. Way to celebrate!

If anyone has been to a week-long conference like RWA's National, you know how immersed you get, in the business of publishing, in the creativity of characters and story, in the craft of writing. You're surrounded by people just as focused as you are. The ideas are flying and inspiration is everywhere.

Then, at the end of a train ride that ended up being more like 9 hours than 8, you're back in the real world...

Surrounded by all those people you love who don't have stories in their heads. Surrounded by all those chores that didn't go away while you were gone. Even if you were lucky, like I was, and most of the chores were kept up while you were gone, there's still a suitcase full of dirty clothes and people who want to talk about things like replacing siding on the house and what to bring to the picnic this afternoon.

The real world. Where you have to find that balance again between life and writing. There are workshops for that, but I've found the most important thing is to take yourself seriously. You have to believe your writing time is worth it before anyone else will. And to enjoy the picnic and the fireworks and then close the office door when it's your writing time.

I'll put together my conference thoughts in another post, but wanted to share a couple pictures of the awesome view from the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. Our room was on the 40th floor and had a view of the river. The pictures through the sealed windows don't do the view justice, but just to give you a taste...






Oh, and I came back to an awesome blurb for my 2nd Paolo's Playhouse story, Taking Chances, scheduled right now for late fall! Can't wait to share it with you.

Have a great day!

Natasha
www.natashamoore.com

Conference Report

Going to the conference, my friend and I took a road trip. We stopped off for a day of sightseeing in Savannah, GA. We’d always wanted to visit. It’s an incredibly beautiful (but very HOT) city. I’ll try to post some pics soon.

As we arrived at Disney World our GPS apparently gave us the wrong turn and we got lost in Disney World. Wouldn’t that be a funny twist on a horror movie? That place is like a maze that goes on and on, round and round. While at the conference, I was in too much of a hurry or too exhausted to Tweet or pass along any information. Sorry about that! One of the reasons for this was that we weren’t able to get a room in the conference hotel, the Dolphin, above. We were way down at the Beach Club Resort (below).

While it was a truly awesome hotel that we loved, and it was "next door" it was a very long walk to the Dolphin, especially if carrying 25 lbs of books. Or a somewhat long walk and a ferry ride in the 98 - 100 degree heat. About thirty minutes one way.

Aside from this, it was a wonderful conference. I took lots of notes in the little notebook/ planner RWA and Harlequin provided. I attended the Pro retreat, which was very informative. Donald Maass spoke and he is brilliant, with all kinds of great ideas for improving our fiction. I think I’ll have to buy his new book The Fire in Fiction. One thing he and everyone else were saying is that ebooks sales have skyrocketed since the release of the Kindle, Nook and other recent ebook readers. Some authors are seeing their ebook sales double each month. More ebooks are being sold now than hardback in fiction. They expect ebook sales to surpass mass market soon.

To improve our fiction, Donald Maass suggests that we ask ourselves: What in the world of my story makes me furious? And then give that fury to the heroine (or the hero.) This will put more passion and emotion into your story. He gave us other questions to ask ourselves. Which two new problems can you give your character? And in what three ways can you make these become impossible to solve? What if the best thing turns into the worst thing? What if the antagonist is right? What are things in the setting that only the heroine notices? What could the heroine say to shock herself? He urged us to commit ourselves to great storytelling. What makes your work personal and passionate?

What is micro-tension? Maass defines it as a moment by moment apprehension in the reader. Make the reader wonder what is going to happen in the next few seconds. What are the underlying conflicting emotions? You can put this anywhere. Even setting description can have underlying conflicting emotions and tension. This will make the story emotionally gripping. Take passion from your own life and give it to the characters. What hurt your heroine when she was a young child? What matters to her deep down? The rest of the session was wonderful, including the agent panel.

I also attended Donald Maass’s other individual workshop (The Fire in Fiction), which was packed with standing (or floor sitting) room only. He reiterated some of the above info but also covered several other things. I went to a few publisher spotlights to find out what they were acquiring and Tanya Michaels great workshop about world building. The publisher book signings are always great fun. I love getting all those fabulous books autographed and meeting authors.

Two of my bestest friends... Terry Spear is signing a book for Dana.

I ate breakfast out one day with my wonderful friends and critique partners. (Above, this is Terry, Carol and Dana.) This was great fun!

I didn’t get to explore Disney World at all. There simply wasn’t enough time for everything. But I did watch the fireworks one night and enjoyed every moment of the conference.

One of the beautiful views during our hike from one hotel to the other.

Another view of the hotel where we stayed from across the lake on the Boardwalk, and the ferry in front of it.

The fountain in front of the Dolphin.