Leia Howard - Author

When writing multiple series set in one world, keeping track of details can become difficult, especially if the main characters in one series are secondary characters in another.  My process for keeping track of events, timeline, characteristics, and conversations is old school. Basically, I open all of my previous books as pdfs (easy to toggle to and not so easy to accidentally type over).  I have a rough idea of which book holds which details, so I can quickly flip to the pdf and search for a word or phrase and reread the passage.   I also keep a written world bible filled with characters in each book and their relation to main characters and each other.  Did I meet a police officer from such-and-such, can I use them again in later books?  What about mentions of friends and family members?  Places that characters grew up?  Etc. For instance, I have several police characters that my main character in Touch of Gray interacts with in the first book...

As a writer, you want to devote your time to your characters, their story, and the world they inhabit.  Sometimes an idea for a scene or a plot springs into your head as you are cooking or cleaning and you feel compelled to write it down or make a note on your phone to be revisited later.  You feel a sense of accomplishment when you finish writing something, whether it be a chapter or the whole book.  Writing is what we do. As a self-published author, we may not have the same sense of enthusiasm about editing our work.  Even a writer with a publishing house doesn't necessarily look forward to working on copy edits.  To reframe this reluctance, I like to think of editing as an opportunity to refine and revise my work and make it the best story I can tell (in the time allotted). Oops, did I accidentally have someone that left a scene earlier speak dialogue?  Good thing I caught that.  Does an action scene make sense, are the movements clear?  Here...

Touch of Gray takes place in a country that uses a 13-month calendar.  To give you an idea of what the months look like, below is a generic (not year specific) look at said calendar. I don't have a date converter to show you (because I'm not that talented). You can picture me with a paper calendar and the book calendars I created and counting the weeks and days (week 16-Tues, week 24-Fri, etc.) in order to compare dates. Cause, I'm old school... *************************************************************************** I have re-recorded the informational video for Out of Touch (Touch of Gray - Book One) and uploaded it to YouTube .  Invisible Touch (Touch of Gray - Book Two) will have it's informational video re-recorded and uploaded to YouTube within a week.  A new informational video for Wild and Wicked Ways (World of Touch of Gray 01) will be created and uploaded to YouTube at the end of January.  Enjoy! Out of Touch available on Amazon Kindle and Go...

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...

You've worked on a book for six months.  You've edited it multiple times, it has been reviewed by beta readers, editors, etc.  You've listed the book, promoted it on your social media platforms, and it is finally launch day.  Eagerly you wait to see the response to something you've devoted quite a bit of time to. The book is published and now you are monitoring your sales.  You are doing so not for monetary reasons, but you want to see if people are reading your book.  You see the sales numbers and page reads and the region breakdown.  There are people out there reading your book, you can see the numbers.  However, you are not getting any reviews or reader feedback.  So, how can you connect with your existing audience and possibly engage potential new readership? I've found that being on social media not solely for promotion is a good way to connect with people.  I tweet about upcoming movies and television shows, reply to others' tweets,...

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 plan to do a brief, bimonthly (every 2 weeks) podcast about being an Indie Author.  As such, my Podcast title is super simple:  An Indie Author's Life. Enjoy!

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...

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 wh...

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 hate describing characters appearances or details of a location. There are only so many ways you can say what someone looks like or provide the layout of building or street. I have finally given up on providing too many details, instead, I leave most to the readers imagination. For instance, I can describe a house providing detailed descriptions of the furniture and carpet of each room, the color of the walls and the placement of the windows. I can give the layout and lavish praise on the exterior trim. Or I can just say what type of house it is maybe point out a few key features. We, as readers, fill out the details in our own minds. I don't feel it necessary to describe what a Victorian home is, I treat the Victorian home as the descriptor. The reader is welcome to look up images of Victorian homes if they do not know what they look like. A picture is worth a thousand words and all. For characters, I am as vague as possible as well. For Gray, the main character of the Touch...

I enjoy world building the most of any part of the writing process. Coming up with geography, maps, borders, history, characters, etc. is very invigorating. However, my technical skills are not up to my imagination. You should see my poor attempts at drafting the new borders of the US, Canada, Mexico, and new country of the GT (Greater Tribal Council of the Americas) I created for the world of Touch of Gray. Paint, Photoshop, and the like are not my specialty, so I finally just printed off a blank outline of the North American continent and drew the countries by hand and filled them in with colored pencils. Low tech it is. For the 13-month calendar the GT uses, it was super easy to create. Each month has 28 days (except the last month of 29 days) and is named after a different animal. The days of the week are the same as ours though. As Gray ruminates in Out of Touch, the 13-month calendar makes more sense, honestly, being based on a lunar month cycle. I wonder how the comput...

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...