Love Chains Blog Tour! #ASMSG

Love Chains Blog Tour

LOVEChainsBlogtour

Welcome to the Love Chains Blog Tour!LeTeisha Newton and Lillian MacKenzie Rhine have partnered together in a co-op marketing duo the likes that have never been seen before. “Love Chains” has become the calling card for their novels Accepting Their Claim and Wronged Dersires, respectively, to be released from Amira Press in early 2014.

I was lucky to get a chance to sit down with these ladies and get some looks at the behind the scenes these ladies go through to get where they are now.

Lillian, I’ll start with you. Tell me a little about the process you went through for Wronged Desires…

To start, Wronged Desires was inspired by two different photos – a woman and a mansion. I was challenged to write a story that incorporated both pictures and Wronged Desires was born. Most of my pieces are paranormal and the ones that aren’t mainly contain either high drama or adult humor so Wronged Desires was sort a challenge when I started working my way inside of the story. It contained drama as well but it was more of an internal battle instead of outward craziness. What helped me cross those emotionally intense barriers, I began to watch romance movies. Just Wright, Love Jones, Mahogany were a few to start but my inspiration really came from the subtle storylines of love. To see a man push through the wall of making his love known in The Breakfast Club or watching a woman fight for her man’s honor in Dirty Dancing were pivotal visual accounts that helped my process of showing the complexities of remembering the moments of a love lost.

Now on Amira Press

So a lot really went into the thought process behind the book. Didn’t even realize that.

LeTeisha, you’re up next. What helps you on your writing process?

You know I’ve been asked a lot about what my process is when I write. The truth? I stop reading and start dreaming. Really. I don’t want to read anything that could influence me so I put my Kindle and Nook up and hide them! Then, when I lay down at night, I start thinking about my characters, my scenes, and how I want the story to play out. Sometimes I even write a paragraph or two in my head. I remember the great lines and forget the ones that could be tossed anyway by the time I wake up. That weird place between wakefulness and sleep lets me think up some awesome scenarios.

The next day I sit at my computer and map out my characters and the gist of the story. Then I write. Yeah, I know. I’m a pantser. I don’t plan every single thing. I have planned chapters before and I find I focus so much on getting the plan into the pages I lose on some of the extras so I stopped doing that. I know what my characters motivations are, their dreams, and who they are, and the end goals—even my villains. That’s it, in a nutshell. Some people tell me I’m crazy, others say that means I really have the gift. For me? It’s just a love of writing, and trying to get these characters’ story down on paper so they stop yelling at me! (Yes, quite obviously I hear voices)