Leigh Landry

One of my most valuable skills is my ability to move right on to the next project once I finish one. It's how I get sh*t done, and it's a vital skill for a freelancer. The downside is it can be so easy to forget (or ignore) the need to celebrate accomplishments. And truly, it IS a need, especially for writers who spend their days correcting their work and asking other folks for feedback on what to change/correct. Even the most respectful, constructive feedback can pile up in the back of your mind and get internalized as negative messages. (And we aren't even talking about negative reviews or submission rejections!) An easy way to balance out that negativity is to invite plenty of positive energy into your life by celebrating your successes. Unfortunately, some of us (*cough*) weren't born celebrators or didn't grow up in an environment where things were celebrated, and we need to actually work and develop tools to help us learn how to PAUSE and revel in our achiev...

Gather any group of romance readers and they're bound to eventually chat about tropes. We love discussing our favorite romance tropes and sharing our favorite books that feature each. You can view a big list of romance tropes on Mindy Klasky's site . For writers, it's a great reference when you're brainstorming or when you find yourself using the same tropes over and over and want to try some different combinations.  All the Kissing also recently did a post on some popular tropes with lists of book examples for each. I love that everyone has their own favorite flavors and that we as writers get to mix them up like wacky Ben & Jerry's combos. YUM! In my current series so far, I've used friends to lovers, sister's best friend, single parent, second chance, and a twist on the workplace romance. With book three, I even used a trope I said I'd never write: secret baby/pregnancy. Never say never, I guess! I will say it can be fun to take tropes you don...

Phew! It's been a wild ride so far this year. I've really busy finalizing and publishing my second novella, Six String Sass , which released last week (yay!), and I'm finally getting a chance to breathe and enjoy the excitement and satisfaction that come with putting a new book out in the world. I loved working on that book so much, and I'm looking forward to finishing up the series after I take a week or so off to work on a couple of other (SECRET, for now) projects. In other news, we have new houseguests ... Meet Mama Pasta, Noodle, and Linguine! Last week (yes, in the midst of release week chaos) we took in a nursing cat and her three-day-old kittens. We've never fostered such tiny kitties before, so we're kind of learning on the fly. Basically we're giving Mama Pasta lots of love and support so she can take care of her littles. We have a whole room set up for her (where we keep all of our fosters), but so far she can't roam fo...

Happy New Year!!! This is my favorite time of year. A fresh slate. New goals to break down. Chilly nights snuggled up with my dreams and my planner. <3 Last year was filled with a lot of personal ups and downs, but I kept my head down and made a good bit of professional headway. One of the biggest leaps I made was starting a new series and releasing  my debut novella ! We also added a new guy to our household: Vader & Meelo The new guy is the one on the right, and he's made himself quite at home already. I'll probably do a separate post on how he's fitting in later this month. Goals for 2018 In the year ahead, I plan to finish my Cajun Two-Step  series and write a few short stories set in that same world. I'm already working on one of those, a prequel story involving the main character of book two. I'd also like to get back to working on the mystery romance series I started and put aside for a while. I probably won't be publishing the f...

November started out pretty quiet, fell into chaos with a book release and 3/4 people down with the flu, then kicked into high gear on the rescue cat front. We took in two bottle babies in September, and after two months of sweet, sweet snuggles, Pumpkin and Spice went back to the shelter and are now available for adoption. These cuties were hard to let go. There were lots of echoes of "Can't we keep them both?" from all members of the household. But if we keep these, we won't have room for the next batch of kittens in need. I've had to remind everyone of that a lot over the past couple weeks! Pumpkin & Spice We also took in this sweet lady for a little while. We've been looking for a snuggly cat to give our youngest some extra love, and we thought this girl might be The One. Sadly, she was pretty stressed about sharing a house with our resident cat, so she's still waiting for her perfect people. Ila  So . . . That leads us to the end ...