Leia Howard - Author

I am a very organized person. I have written prior posts like how I World Build and all the little things I do behind the scenes to expand the details of the world I create. I have maps, calendars, character sheets, a history of the world, Gray's timeline of events before and after arriving in her current location, etc. All of this I developed before writing the first draft. You may wonder if I outline my book before writing the first draft? You would expect that as organized and detail-oriented as I am, I outline extensively. In fact, I don't outline, at least not traditionally. I actually just list major story beats and then timeline it. It may be similar to how television writers, screenwriters, or playwrights write their scripts or plays. I do not write like they do, narrative versus scenes, but I may create the structure of my story similarly. In more detail, here is what I do. First, I construct the main plot or mystery. This can pertain to a police consultation or i...

Here is the last tidbit or excerpt for Out of Touch, the first book in the Touch of Gray series.  It is available now on Amazon Kindle for $0.99USD or free through Kindle Unlimited. From Chapter Eleven: ______________________________________________________________________ I had one hour between returning from lunch and my teleconference with Sheriff Helki. I put that time to good use by surfing ridiculous Reddit threads. Whatever, I was feeling horribly lazy and I was the boss, dang it. Fifteen minutes before the teleconference was to start, I received an instant message from Dani. Chica, Sheriff Helki just walked in the office with me. He would like to have the meeting with you in person, and not in the conference room. UGH, he couldn’t have requested this earlier? I could have meet with him in his office. Glare at him for me, you know my scary stare. Tell him to give me ten minutes to get my office in order. He can sit on a chair and wait, and don’t offer him anyt...

Out of Touch, like any first book of a series, has the herculean task of setting up the world of Touch of Gray.  It must provide the rules of the world, the geography and parameters, the characters, the history, as well as the individual conflict within the book.  A book jacket or description is designed to intrigue and entice the reader, but space is too limited to provide much information. As such, I have put my incredibly poor media skills to use to create a video primer of the world.  Though I should say that this is more a podcast set to a couple of slides rather than a proper video.  Yes, I am narrating this (and there is a reason I am not a vlogger nor audio book narrator). With all of this said, if you are interested in learning more about the world of Touch of Gray, feel free to either read the short gifs or listen to the much longer video primer. [Updated Dec 30th, 2019:  new video uploaded with better audio and geared toward my YouTube channel.]...

Out of Touch is the first novella in the Touch of Gray series. Thank you to everyone that has sampled the novella, either from purchasing it on Amazon Kindle or from participating in Kindle Unlimited or Kindle Lending Library. Invisible Touch, the second novella, will be forthcoming in 2019. It will take place about six weeks after Out of Touch. The official description is not yet written, but below are hints of the events that occur. Gray becomes more involved in the Psycept community of PsyTown Gray's siblings are due to visit her Touchmarkers are called in If you have questions like, what is a Psycept? or what are touchmarkers? Out of Touch has the answers. Out of Touch is available now on Amazon Kindle . I will soon be returning to university and a vigorous doctoral graduate program. I will only blog about once or twice a month through May. More will be provided about Invisible Touch closer to the release. Feel free to follow or contact me on Twitter ( @AuthorLe...