Leia Howard - Author

Hello, all.  I apologize for the extended hiatus from the website and social media.   As you all may be aware, I am in healthcare and the past 18 months have been challenging, to say the least.  My first year of residency began in July and I moved to a state 2,000 miles away from where I am from.  It has taken a bit for me to get my bearings, but I am settling in. In book news, I have completed writing Blood Song and it is off to the betas.  My plan is to publish it in November 2021.  The cover reveal, book description, and pre-order link will be posted in mid-September followed by an excerpt sometime in October.  I am excited to share this story set in the World of Touch of Gray with you and hope you enjoy it. As it has been over a year since I have published anything, you may need a reminder about the Touch of Gray series and the World of Touch of Gray.  Feel free to peruse this post . I will be a little more active on Twitter over the nex...

Greetings.  It has been a long time since I have posted (six months) or published anything (one year). I wanted to apologize for the extended silence on my end.  I am wrapping up my final year of healthcare related grad school, and I will be entering into a post-graduate residency program beginning in June.  My current focus is studying for licensing and credentialing exams and moving 2,000 miles away to the East Coast where my residency program is located. During this past year, I have not devoted the time I need to writing nor editing and am therefore behind schedule.  I have most of Blood Song (World of Touch of Gray #2) written, I just need to add about 3,000 more words of story, then begin the editing process.  I am half-way through with writing Keep in Touch (Touch of Gray, Book Four).  My plan this year is to complete writing and editing Blood Song with hopes to publish late 2021.  Then I will see where I stand with Keep in Touch, it will either...

Writing, for me, is a very individual endeavour.  I don't mean writing individually versus writing as a duo.  I mean that each writer has their own process, ritual, timetable, schedule, etc.  I've posted before about how I research .  Some writers love to research and spend more than half of their time researching while other writers want to devote their time to creating characters, building worlds, and/or developing intricate plots.  They agonize over the correct words to use to paint pictures in the readers minds, wanting everything to be just right. I, however, am a full-time student in a doctorate program.  I have a limited amount of time to write so I cannot afford to do extensive research nor other creative tasks, no matter how much I may wish to.  So fair warning, this 'How I Write' is based on my writing process and will not work for everyone. After I've done my preliminary research, I switch to writing mode.  Anything I may need to go...

This blog / website will be on hiatus until the end of October. Thank you for your understanding. A few things to look forward to when the blog returns in November.  I'll have the book description and the pre-order link to Wild and Wicked Ways as well as an excerpt, plus a few more posts. You may see me pop up on Twitter occasionally during this website hiatus because it's easy to briefly come up for air over there. But mostly, this month I'll be concentrating on studying and school.

In this day and age of self-publishing, not many independent authors can support themselves with their writing.  I am no exception, if I had to survive on my royalties, I wouldn't last a day.  Mostly because there is a six week's delay in receiving royalties from your self-published works, but the sentiment stands.  Let's just say that writing isn't even a side hustle for me and leave it at that. All of the above is only relevant if you are an Indie Author with no representation.  Even in the world of self-publishing, it is still recommended for any author to engage an agent and an editor.  So don't panic if you don't have, nor wish to have, a publishing deal.  However, get an agent (who can usually hook you up with an editor) as soon as you can.  No, I don't have an agent nor do I wish to have one, but what can I say, I've never been one to take my own advice. So, why do I put myself through being a self-publishing, agentless author?  B...

I tend to use Twitter to discuss TV shows I follow.  I have both Netflix and Amazon Prime and watch a variety of shows on these platforms.  In addition, I have Season Passes for several network television shows.  If you ever wish to discuss TV with me, here are some examples of shows I watch: North American Crime/Legal/Mystery Dramas : Chicago PD FBI Criminal Minds Keen Eddie Mindhunter Rookie Blue Veronica Mars British Mysteries : Grantchester Shetland Vera Wire in the Blood Genre TV : Battlestar Galactica Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel Netflix Marvel Shows Outlander Stranger Things Comedies : Brooklyn 99 Community Frasier Gilmore Girls Golden Girls (don't ask) The Good Place Happy Endings The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Parks and Rec The Office (American version) Scrubs older BritComs : Are You Being Served? Coupling Keeping Up Appearances  The Vicar of Dibley Animated : Avatar the Last Airbender Batman: the Animated Series ...

I've been publishing a podcast for four months, An Indie Author's Life.  I release about two episodes a month and most are less than 12 minutes in length.  There are a variety of topics, including expanded thoughts of self-publishing, self-editing, promotion, fellow Indie Author book reviews, and other topics I wish to explore. The podcast is hosted on Podbean and is also available on iTunes .  If you enjoy the podcast, feel free to like or subscribe.  Below is the two most recent podcast episodes.  Enjoy! Episode 08 - Length and Pricing of Books   Episode 09 - Pushy Promotion I also have a Podcast page on the website where all the episode links are available.  If there is a topic you wish me to discuss or if you would like to comment on prior episodes, then please contact me.  You can reply to this post, submit a Contact Me form, or reach me on Twitter .

This will not just be about Writing Workshops, but also Creative Writing courses and Writers Conferences. I feel that writers have the most experience with Creative Writing courses. This could be either in high school or college/university, or both.  At least in the Creative Writing I was exposed to, we were given a variety of topics to explore.  Sometimes our response was to be with poetry or as a scene in a play or whatever else the professor assigned.  Other times we had free rein on how we wanted to respond.  With any assignment, we were put in small groups and asked to critique each others' work.  Some classmates were kind and constructive while others were pedantic and derogatory.  Ultimately, while I am glad of the experience, I do not wish to repeat these types of classes.  I have attended a few of Writing Workshops in my life, which I feel are more beneficial to me.  Many times, workshops are short sessions so by nature, you are limit...

It's been several weeks since I've posted a Writing Corner blurb, I apologize. Hopefully, my six-part series narrating chapter one of Out of Touch tided you over. I have posted before about being an Indie Author with limited funds.  As such, I've chosen not to hire an editor at this time, though it is a future goal.  Luckily, a couple of beta readers are more like proof readers in exchange for the occasional meal or two. So, due to monetary woes, I have to self-edit, which can be problematic.  You are so close to the story that you know the characters, plots, etc.  You know what you are trying to say in the dialogue scenes or when you are describing action.  You also know so much about the world you created, you may tend to provide way too much exposition.  With all of this and then some, how can you truly edit yourself objectively?  Well, I am no expert but I have a couple of techniques that I use, with varying degrees of success. Do not edit ...

I wanted to make a little post based on some questions I have received. My name is spelled Leia, but it is pronounced LEE-AH. My icon is a picture of Princess Leia plush toy that I own.  I grew up loving the original Star Wars trilogy because my parents did, so I just embraced it.  As for point 1, they chose to go with the original pronunciation of Leia from A New Hope, not the way it was pronounced in subsequent movies. I am in graduate school, specifically a Health/Medical based program.  So I will not graduate with a PhD, rather a Doctor degree.  Then after graduation in two years, residency. I've had the idea for TOG for many years.  It originally started as a X-Men fanfic about Rogue, but I went completely away from that.  There were no other X-Men in my story though I gave her a family; her powers were nothing like her X-Men powers; mutants are not a thing; and I didn't want her to seek refuge with the Morlocks nor on Genosha with Magneto, I sen...

Have you ever been reading something and had to reread a prior sentence, paragraph, or section to keep up with what is going on? You read a sentence and think, "Wait, I thought it was morning time," or "Wasn't Character Q on the other side of the room, did they move?" or something similar. That is just as a reader, imagine being a writer. For big picture stuff between books, I reread my previous books in the Touch of Gray (TOG) series prior to writing a new story. This is to refresh my memory of prior events, character details, and perhaps I planted a seed for future story and I need to jog my memory. Though I may be writing the books months apart, a reader may be reading the books back-to-back and inconsistency in small details like the color of the wall or what type of vehicle a character owns would give me pause. I know some authors never reread their books, or they focus on one section if they have to recreate a scene. I prefer to just reread everything. L...

Right now I am using Amazon Kindle as my eBook publisher of choice.  However, after the Kindle Select / Unlimited period ends, I will make Out of Touch available on Nook and as an iBook from Apple or through Google Play Books and maybe a couple of others.  It will be interesting to see the complete sales charts after all formats are made available.  How do you prefer to read your eBooks?  Are any readers a member of Kindle Unlimited?  Do you prefer paper copies or are audiobooks your preferred option? I know there are countless posts, blogs, and vlogs about the difficulty of being an indie author.  Not only do you have to write the books, you have to edit them, interact with beta readers, edit the books again, file for copyrights (if you choose to), format them for paper and epublishing, work on book covers or engage cover artists, the list seems endless.  Then you also have to shamelessly promote your work in a market that is saturated with simila...

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 al...

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 YouTub...

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...

I live in Texas, which is the second largest state in America. We measure distance as time, which seems odd to many people. For instance, someone will ask me how far away a certain town is, and my reply could be "about four hours or so" or something similar. Texans tend to drive similar speeds so we all know how the time converts to distance. This holiday season, I will be driving all over Texas. Some family are about eleven hours away while other family is fourteen hours. I have friends that are much closer at six hours away. And yes, all of this driving and I am still in the state of Texas. As stated earlier, Texas is a fairly large state. This is a map showing places closer to Texas, miles wise, than one tip of Texas is to another tip. Not everyone celebrates Christmas, I can appreciate that. The holiday is not big in my family either. However, since my sibling and I are both university students, having Winter Break is what allows us to spend time together...

This blog will be mostly writing tidbits, excerpts, process, and updates. I enjoy movies, television, books, music, etc. but I prefer Twitter for that. Forces me to keep my thoughts short and sweet. I am not much for pictures (despite them being worth a thousand words), thus why I am not on Insta, Snap, nor Tumblr. Now, for more writing details. The idea for the Touch of Gray world was borne of a long ago idea for an X-Men:Evolution fan fiction story focusing on Rogue. I never wrote that, but I created this full world of psychics (rather than mutants) fearing for their freedom in America and fleeing to a neighbouring country offering sanctuary. Canada may have been ideal, but I had the idea of an alternate history in which Native Americans/Alaskans and First Nation peoples joined together to form their own country. Even though 'owning' land is not a goal of most tribes I have come in contact with or researched, the idea of protecting the land is. So the tribes come to an agre...

I am Leia Howard, author of the Touch of Gray series. Rather than create a Facebook page, I thought I would try blogging.  My posts will be divided between promoting my series and writing process in general.  There will also be a personal post or two tossed in.  As I become a more active blogger, I may post about writing workshops, appearances, editing or publishing services, and the like.  But for now, this is my small corner of the blogsphere. I live in Texas and am a full-time doctoral graduate student. Writing is my joy, but I do not expect to make a living from it.  This blog is not a place to advertise nor sell products, other than my own books. Thus I feel no need for a separate Disclaimer page. Touch of Gray is an Urban Fantasy series that takes place on an alternate earth where psychics are real, can be detected by DNA tests, and seek refuge in a country that will not force them to use their powers against their will. Comments are open for all an...