Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Judy McDonough. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Judy, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
I move a lot. I love to travel. I enjoy movies and books. I am a huge fan of people-watching and often use friends, family, or past relationships in the development of my characters. If someone tells me a fascinating story, I might use elements from that story as plot points in my books. I am a social person and feed off interactions with other people. The long answer to this question is that sometimes I must step away from my frustrations to spark new creativity, whether that includes watching a movie, reading someone else’s book, taking a walk or shower, or starting a new short story or journal entry to get the words flowing. Sounds easy, I know, but it’s not. I’ve struggled with this so much over the past ten years, especially with our frequent relocation.
That being said, I am inherently a creative person. I have been since I was five years old with my imaginary friend named Jolay. She went everywhere with me, and my mother used to set a place for her at the dinner table to keep the magic alive. I once wrote a creative story in my scratchy, third grade handwriting and even personally illustrated it with a black ink pen. I stapled it like a book and asked the school librarian to put it in the library so my friends could read it. She smiled when she took it, but I’m pretty sure it never made it to the shelves. I excelled in creative writing in high school, was the managing editor for the school newspaper, and I have entertained my boys for the first ten years of their lives with engaging bedtime stories I made up on the fly. In 2011, I finally sat down and wrote my first novel and completed it in six weeks. It was crap, but it was on paper, and as Nora Roberts says, “You can’t edit a blank page.” Creativity has always come easy to me. Until it didn’t.
I was unstoppable. While my first book, “Deadline” was being prepared for publication, I wrote a second complete novel (unrelated to the one being published) titled, “Before it’s Too Late.” I decided to make my first book into a series, so I set the unrelated novel aside for later. While waiting for “Deadline” to be released, I had written over half of the second book in my series, “Lifeline.” Then, a bomb dropped on my newfound career. A huge disappointment and nasty break up (that I was only allowed to label as, “Creative differences”) with my small press publisher a mere 10 months after my first book came out brought everything to a screeching halt. It was the first deep wound my muse and motivation encountered. It hurt, definitely left a scar, and I almost quit, but my friend and fellow author, Jennifer Bray-Weber wouldn’t let me. She picked up my broken pieces and helped me reinvent my brand. She encouraged me to finish what I started and go on to create more stories for the world to enjoy. I’m so glad she did.
Once again, I was on fire. I rewrote, re-edited, reformatted, and redesigned book 1, “Deadline,” and it was back on the market in 2013. A year later I released book 2, “Lifeline.” Then we moved from Texas to Ohio. After unpacking and getting my family settled into a new place, I managed to finish and release the third book in my series, “Flatline,” in 2015, and it was my favorite book. I released it almost exactly two years from the complete overhaul and release of book 1. Doing great, right? Cue the writer’s block.
With everything that had happened, I was simply grateful to be finished with the series so my readers wouldn’t be disappointed, but afterward, I struggled to come up with new material. I joined a local writer’s group. and focused on revising the novel I had completed and set aside. That proved to be harder than I thought. I had submitted this novel to a contest and won an award, but after that I spent more time criticizing my writing than enhancing and revising the story, so I put it back on the shelf for “later.” I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in 2017 and successfully wrote 53,000 words in 30 days on a time-travel romance. Sounds perfect, right? I was so proud to have met my 50,000-word goal, that I took a long break and didn’t complete the novel. We moved from Ohio to Florida a few months later. It’s still sitting on my computer, unfinished and lonely, waiting for me to get back to it.
Our time in Florida was short lived before we moved again, this time to Georgia, but while living there I found my muse again. I was inspired and wrote more than half of a companion novel to my series titled, “Kristy’s Runway.” It was a stand-alone novel using my secondary characters from my series, but it was their story. “Kristy’s Runway” took the trophy for my favorite book. I was thrilled to have my muse back in action and vowed to keep her actively employed even after moving to Georgia. Then, in 2020, the world shut down with something called the Coronavirus or Covid-19. I was asked to participate in an anthology including seven different short novellas that included the pandemic or the virus. Thus, my novella, “The Royal Muse” was born, though I had only touched on the whole virus because it was still early in the world-wide event. None of us expected the virus to last for 3+ years, and people were officially tired of hearing about it, so the sales died out pretty quickly. I loved my story though, and it barely touched on the dreaded C-word, so I got permission to design a cover and publish it by itself. The release of “Kristy’s Runway” followed shortly after. My muse was officially back. Yay!
After three years as a Georgia peach, we moved to my hometown in Arkansas where my muse decided to go dormant for 2 more years. We moved again, this time from Arkansas to the Wilmington, North Carolina area, and it’s the first place we’ve lived based on preference, not because of my husband’s job or our extended family. We love it here, and guess what? My muse is back and ready to rumble. I’ve plotted out a plethora of stories I plan to write this year, and one is already 80% complete. Maybe it’s the ocean that draws my muse from her cave? Maybe she’s a mermaid. Either way, I’ve discovered, after much trial and error, that being near water works best for me. In Texas it was the Gulf, in Ohio it was Lake Erie, Florida is a peninsula, in Georgia our neighborhood surrounded a giant lake, and in North Carolina we are fifteen minutes from a gorgeous beach.
The short answer to your question of how I keep my creativity alive… Variety. They say it’s the spice of life. I get bored easily, and I tend to thrive on change. I have a wanderlust to go, see, and do everything I can in this big, wide world, and use those experiences to create imaginative stories. I have to keep moving (hopefully not literally, I’m tired of packing and unpacking boxes) and living, meeting new people, seeing new things, and experiencing everything I can before I die. And, of course, water. I don’t know the science behind it but being near a large body of water–whether it’s the ocean, a lake, or a river–inspires my creativity and makes my muse sing… like a mermaid.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’ve already explained how I started writing, but I didn’t tell you about the inspiration for my series. The Bayou Secrets Saga is in the paranormal romance genre, meaning it has a ghost, witch, vampire, werewolf, zombie, etc. in it. Mine has ghosts. Most people misunderstand that, thinking it’s a romance between a ghost and a human. That’s not how my books are. There is a love story, but the romance is strictly between humans, and I would classify my series as more of a paranormal mystery. Honestly, I’m not a fan of genres in general. I don’t want to be classified as just a paranormal romance author because I never know what will inspire me or what type of story I’ll write until I write it. The idea for “Deadline” was inspired by an actual paranormal event I personally experienced while living in Louisiana.
My series follows Caroline, Trevor, and Cade. In book 1, after Caroline accepts a marriage proposal from the charming-but-promiscuous Trevor, he succumbs to his controlling jerk father and pushes Caroline to spend the summer in the bayou getting to know her estranged father so there wouldn’t be any “Daddy issues” in their relationship. Weird things had started happening to Caroline the second she put that ring on her finger, the most disturbing of which were recurring dreams of a young girl she assumed was herself. When she begrudgingly pulls into the driveway of her father’s property in the spooky Louisiana bayou, she realizes he lives in the house from her dreams. Caroline’s uncontrollable curiosity and the buried desire (she didn’t know existed) to know the man who had deserted her and her mother forces her to slog one foot in front of the other to ring that doorbell. What happens next changes the course of her entire life. The more she researches the history of her family with the help of her handsome new Cajun friend, Cade, the deeper she falls for the bayou. But, as the deadline of her wedding quickly approaches, she races to get to the bottom of the mystery that could affect her future.
In March 2000, right after Mardi Gras, I was stationed with the U.S. Navy in New Orleans, LA. I lived in the newly renovated barracks at the Naval Support Activity on the West Bank in Algiers. This base is no longer active, nor is the port where I worked. It’s really sad because it was once a beautiful, thriving base filled with sailors and marines. Anyway, our barracks was an old building that had been renovated on the inside, but it was interesting because it sat on a hill. If you’ve been to New Orleans, you know it’s very flat and below sea level. The bottom floor of our building consisted of the NEX (Naval Exchange store), some public bathrooms and a Subway restaurant. The elevators were original and large, and the ominous buzz between the three upper floors was unnerving. I lived on the top floor at the end of the hallway with my roommate, Janet. We had a key card to enter our room where you found the common area consisting of a kitchenette and a bathroom, and there were two doors (A and B) that were our rooms. We were constantly locking ourselves out of our room and had to go all the way to the front of the base to get a new key made. Both of our keys worked for the common area, but my key only worked for room A and Janet’s only worked for room B. Also, the centrally controlled air conditioning for the building was kept at a frigid 67 degrees. It was so cold in our rooms my aloe vera plant died.
Every day when we left, we had to make sure our room was ready for inspection. It was the military, and surprise inspections were a frequent occurrence. Part of those preparations included pad locking our closet in which we kept all our valuables. Several times I had come home to my unlocked closet with the pad lock dangling from the latch, and my belongings would be scattered about as if someone had been looking for something. I asked my LPO (Lead Petty Officer) if I’d had an inspection, to which he repeatedly denied. Supposedly, no one had been in my room. Convinced I had lost my marbles, I made a very conscious effort from that point on to lock my padlock and hide my key in different places each day. Why didn’t I take the key with me, you ask? I was a twenty-year-old and was afraid I would lose it. So, I hid it in a different place each day so if someone was, in fact, messing with me, they wouldn’t know where the key was. The intruder was inconsistent; I never knew when it would happen, but I continued my diligence hiding the key. One day, after weeks of nothing, I came home to an open closet and my things ransacked, though nothing was missing.
The activity had stopped for a while after that last occurrence, so I assumed whoever was pranking me had lost interest. One night, I was reading and had my Navy hoodie on because it was so cold in my room. I took it off to go to sleep and slung it across my room. The rooms weren’t huge, but large enough I wouldn’t be able to reach it once I crawled into bed. Shortly before my alarm went off the next morning, my bare arm went numb from cold. I remember rubbing it to warm it up. I don’t know why I didn’t just put it under the covers, but I was sleeping, so who knows? Either way, I remember a distinct warmth and nestling under it to go back to sleep. When my alarm went off, I awoke, and my entire body became one big goosebump. I remembered what had just happened with my arm, and I slid out of bed, staring in horror at my hoodie draped neatly over where I was laying, so neatly that I could read “Navy” on the back of it. It was as if someone had covered a sleeping child. But I was in the room alone! My door was shut and locked.
I marched over to Janet’s door and banged on it, my adrenaline rushing through my veins, and a few minutes later she opened it. I had woken her up, and she was not happy about it. I dragged her to my room, her cussing the entire way, and pointed to the hoodie. At first, she didn’t know what I was talking about, so I exclaimed that I hadn’t done that. When she realized, after all the creepy intruder things that had happened regarding my closet, she stepped back three steps and said, “Oh hell naw!” We still laugh about it to this day. Whoever my ghost was, at least it was nice.
So, after I moved out into an apartment, I did a little digging and asking around. I found that the building that had been gutted and renovated into our barracks had once been a Naval hospital during WW1 and WW2. I met an older man one day at a restaurant on the West Bank, and he was talking about the history of the Naval Support Activity, so I asked him if he knew anything about the base and the renovation of the old Naval hospital. He told me so many fascinating and creepy things. The building had served many different purposes over the years, but it had, in fact, been a hospital during war time.
–The large original elevators with the ominous buzzing between floors were large enough to fit a twin sized hospital bed
–The reason the building was on a hill, something unnatural in New Orleans, is because it was a man-made hill to fit a basement that was used as a morgue. In the newer usages and renovations, it was where the janitors kept their cleaning and maintenance equipment.
–The top floor where Janet and I lived was considered the hospice floor when it was a hospital. It was where they kept patients comfortable until they passed.
My imagination went wild, but at the time I didn’t act on it. I tucked the information away for another day, and when I finally decided I wanted to write a novel, I pulled it out and made a wonderful series about it. I like to think that poltergeist ghost who rummaged through my things and covered my shivering body that night/early morning had once been a nurse. Maybe she still thought she was a nurse taking care of her patients, and all those times she dug through my closet she was looking for her medical supplies.
I often wish I had stayed in the barracks after that. I dreamed of how cool it would’ve been if I could’ve stumbled across a loose baseboard or hidden floorboard and find a journal she had kept, detailing her life as a nurse, caring for wounded soldiers. Considering that building had been gutted and rebuilt, I knew that would never happen. So, I made it happen in my own fictional world in the Louisiana bayou.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The three most impactful qualities for being a published author are ones I had to develop over time. I did not have all of them at first, and through trial and error, or a traumatic learning experience, I eventually gained them.
1–Thick skin. It’s a necessary evil that I didn’t, and sometimes still don’t, possess. You can’t worry about what people will think of your writing. Not everyone is going to love your book or your writing style, AKA: your voice, and that’s okay. I am a people-pleaser by nature, so when I started this journey, whenever someone didn’t like my book, it bothered me really bad. I cried a lot. Also, reading your reviews can be damaging in so many ways. I finally resorted to having my husband screen my new reviews and only read the good ones to me. Now, having done this for a decade, people’s opinions don’t bother me as much.
Also, don’t listen to everyone’s “advice” about what you should do for your book. Stay true to your vision and don’t change so much to please other people–professional or not–that you lose your own voice.
One time I changed an entire novel I wrote from first person to third person because a very successful NY editor told me no one likes first person and that readers are nosy and want to know what all the characters are thinking. After I changed everything and applied all the new writing techniques I had learned, I realized the entire book was from one POV, but I couldn’t revert back to my original because I had changed the original document. **Insert face palm**
Never edit the original draft. Always start a new document and copy/paste into it. You never know when you might need to go back to square one or use portions from each draft to put in the third draft. You may think that’ll never happen to you, but when it does and you took the measures to save your original, you will thank me. Also, save all your documents to a removable jump drive and keep them in a safe place. Don’t trust technology to keep your work safe. Computers crash.
2–Fight against Imposter Syndrome with everything you have because it can kill your motivation. Someone once said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Write for yourself, and don’t compare your success to the success of others because sometimes it’s just a matter of releasing the right thing at the right time to the right audience. Writing to be rich and famous, for a movie deal, or writing for trends will only lead to disappointment, so write what inspires you and brings you joy. If you have one person who loves your writing, you have succeeded. Write because you love it, not because you’re trying to be the next J.K. Rowling. She is the exception, not the rule. Who knows, maybe someone will make a TikTok of your book with the #booktok and you’ll go viral, prompting millions in sales. It could happen, but don’t expect that when you start. Also, don’t try to keep up with those writers who can pump out a new novel every 30-60 days. Chances are they had an arsenal of manuscripts when they started and are strategically releasing them while writing new material. Or maybe they just write fast. Either way, write quality over quantity. Don’t try to keep up with the rat race because once it’s published, it’s out there.
Sometimes insecurity will spread its spiny claws and drag me into the depths of imposter syndrome, thinking I’m a fraud and nowhere near as good as other writers with whom I mingle. I liken this to when I tell my boys how handsome they are, and they thank me, but add that I have to say that because I’m their momma. It doesn’t make the statement any less true, they really are handsome, but because I birthed them, they don’t believe me. Writers don’t believe we’re worthy until we’ve hit a best seller’s list or sold millions of copies of our books. The problem is, we’re always chasing that carrot. Once we hit a list, we’re not satisfied until we hit a bigger list, or win an award, or win a bigger award, or get validated on social media, or have a certain number of followers, or make a certain amount of money. There’s always something that keeps us from feeling accomplished. The thing we all need to realize is this: if we have one person, just one who was inspired by our writing, we’ve succeeded.
3–Stay true to your book’s character. I’m still working on this one, and it resonates from the first point I made. Worrying about what people think. I have two rules I like to adhere to for my own personal reasons. I don’t use the F-bomb in my books. At least, I haven’t yet. And I don’t say GD. I find alternative options in the cases where they would likely say these things. Navy SEALs so I might have them spin around and spew a stream of cussing that would’ve made their momma cry.
When I started, I knew my mom, my preacher, my teachers, my kids (someday) would be reading my stuff, so I was very hesitant to write things I wouldn’t say myself or would make them disappointed in me. It’s also why I didn’t write graphically detailed love scenes.
You’ll notice as you read my series that my writing gets a little more risqué as the books progress, and my writing also gets better. It’s mostly because over the time span of completing these books, I attended many writing workshops and conferences on how to become a better writer and learned what not to do. Throughout my series, my writing goes from mostly passive to active, more showing than telling, and I am less afraid of sending the old church ladies I grew up with into their pearl-clutching horror over the language I used or the sexual encounters my characters enjoy. My books are not terribly steamy in comparison to most mainstream romance writers, but they’re not exactly wholesome children’s books either. I’m still growing, and I hope I never stop. You’re never too old to learn something new or take a chance you’ve always been afraid to before.
My advice for those early in their journey is to believe in yourself. First, join a local writer’s group and attend writing workshops. Go to a conference and surround yourself with other successful writers and learn from them. Pick their brains. Learn everything you can about novel writing because I promise it’s different from what you learned in high school English class. Take master classes (I highly recommend Margie Lawson. She’s amazing.) Buy Stephen King’s book on writing. Bob Mayer and Donald Maas also have some good writing craft books.
Second, once you’ve learned some of the dos and don’ts of writing a novel, have the courage to write your story. As I said before, Nora Roberts says you can’t edit a blank page. Get it down on paper, or at least on your computer, and then you can edit it later.
Third, once your book is written and you’ve polished it to the best of your ability, decide if you want to be traditionally published or if you want to independently publish. Both have pros and cons, so you’ll need to research which one appeals to you the most.
If you choose traditionally, learn how to write a query letter before you just wing it, because those can make or break your chances. Also, research your agents and editors to know who you’re submitting your material to and what their requirements are, or their wish list includes.
If you choose indie, hire a skilled editor. Don’t leave it in the hands of your momma, sister, uncle, high school English teacher, or next-door neighbor. Hire someone who edits novel manuscripts either freelance or as a profession. Then, hire a professional graphic designer to design your book covers. Preferably someone who specializes in book cover designs. Knowing photoshop is a must, but you want someone who knows the process and design of what a successful book cover requires.
Also, the blurb on the back of the book is harder to write than the entire 80,000+ word novel. It’s something I still struggle with and will always struggle with, and I’m not ashamed to admit I seek help when trying to summarize my entire novel into a tiny couple of paragraphs. You have to hook people to want to read it without spoiling the entire story. It’s maddening. Just know, we all hate it.
To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?
I would talk to my mom every day when I first started writing. She would let me bounce ideas off of her or help me brainstorm. She would give me suggestions, correct my grammar or spelling, and she always let me know if my accent is coming through in my writing. I’m southern and tend to write like I talk sometimes, so she would always point it out to me. I’ve pretty much fixed that unless I’m purposefully writing that way to portray my southern character. My mom has been a pillar in my creative life. She gave me the love for reading from the time I was able to read. She embraced my creativity (my imaginary friend) and encouraged me to use my imagination.
She’s always loved romance novels. When I was a teenager, and my family didn’t have a lot of money for me to go to the mall with my friends, I would stay home and read her book collections. They consisted mostly of Heather Graham novels which I loved because, not only is she a phenomenal writer, but her stories also had lots of ghosts and mystery. The day I got to meet Heather in person at an event was an emotional day for me. Now, Heather is a friend of mine, and I love getting to see her at events and steal a hug.
My mom has always told me, “If you love to read, you’ll never be bored.” She is absolutely right. My mom has dementia now, but she still reads a lot and loves her romance novels. I don’t get to talk to her as much about my writing because she doesn’t remember the details about the story I’m working on, but occasionally I’ll bounce ideas off of her, and she still loves it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.Judy-McDonough.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Judy_Mack
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JudyMcDonoughAuthor
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/judyMcDonough
- Other: Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/judymcdonough
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheBayouKrewe
Image Credits
Kendall Palmer photography
