Leia Howard - Author

Some writers loathe research, they created their world and they just want to write it. I love research, sometimes a little too much. I have to force myself away from looking into anything further, I start out wanting to know what flowers are present at a certain time of year in a particular location and end up reading about spring festivals in the area or about a cross-town rivalry in high school American football or something. Prior to writing Out of Touch (OOT), the first novel in the Touch of Gray (TOG) series, I had two extensive research periods. The first when creating the world and characters (world building fun), then after plotting OOT and discovering what more I needed to know to write the first book. Subsequent books and short stories only require me to research stuff for that particular book or story, thank goodness.  I greatly admire writers that have multiple series in multiple worlds going simultaneously. The amount of research needed for just the world creation alone

Beta readers are essential to any author, offering valuable feedback and critique.  Each beta reader I have specializes in different areas.  My longest beta reader focuses on grammar, syntax, and other technical issues.  Two other beta readers look at plot, flow, characters, and dialogue to make sure things make sense.  I have another that looks at cultural sensitivity.  All of these are valuable perspectives and I welcome their input. When we write, we are constantly moving paragraphs or scenes around and we can focus on the minutiae and loose sight of the big picture.  Plus we are the writers so we know what is in our heads, but often we don't get it across properly.  Or we're just sleep deprived, honestly. One of the best things I have read about beta readers is just an image of ten questions to ask your beta reader.  I do not know where I first saw this, so if you know let me know so I can give credit.  But I do follow this model when corresponding with beta readers.

I feel that I have spent more time interacting on social media and promoting Out of Touch than I did actually writing the book.  I know that this is incorrect, but that it how it feels. The promotion is not just sending out a blog post or tweeting a link to the Amazon page.  You need to visually create your space on whichever social media apps you prefer.  Then you need to build your online presence. I am a poor graphic designer or artist, so all of my gifs, videos, and other image endeavours are quite bad.  I know my skills will increase as I do more projects, but my early attempts are very basic. Exhibit A:  my twitter handle background took me about thirty minutes to create.  When you look at it, you probably cannot imagine it taking more than two seconds. Exhibit B:  my promotional post with gifs and a podcast/video about the world of Touch of Gray.  It took me all day to create the media used in the post, much of it spent on YouTube figuring out how to convert my initia

Two days only (Friday, February 1st and Saturday, Feb 2nd, 2019), Out of Touch is available for FREE on Amazon Kindle . If any of my previous posts about the world of Touch of Gray or the Out of Touch excerpts and tidbits intrigued you, please seize this opportunity to read Out of Touch for free. Happy Reading!