An Unfortunate Announcement & IWSG

Let me start by giving a huge 'Thank You!' to this month's IWSG co-hosts  Lee Lowery, Juneta Key, Yvonne Ventresca, and T. Powell Coltrin! You make all this writing love run more smoothly.

I'm going to forgo this month's optional question and get on with my announcement which has heightened my insecurities by more than a few notches. *Writers - please read to the bottom because I'm looking for some advice. TY!*

*clears throat*

Last Friday, I received an email from Leap Books, Motley's middle grade publisher, informing me that they have decided to close their doors after eleven years. *Feel free to read their heartfelt post and press release. 

I want to thank them for the kind words they said about me, my fellow Leap authors, and the entire Leap team. I know they did not make this decision lightly. My heart is heavy for them. They are wonderfully, talented people and have always been enthusiastic and encouraging about my work. I'm also sad for my fellow Leap authors and what this means for them. Mostly, I'm heartbroken for the world of MOTLEY EDUCATION that I've created. I was just finishing up work on the second book in the series, and I was in hopes that it would be released by the end of the year. I can't imagine Ebony and Fleishman without a home. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, or even what my options are.

I've always been the type of person to take things in stride. Being married 27 years and having four kids will do that to you. Dwelling on a negative is a waste of time. Saying that, the past 16 months have handed my family blow after blow starting with my mom entering a nursing home, which left my dad home alone, and all has continued to go downhill from the stresses of starting a new family business, my wonderful brother-in-law passing away at the age of 49, being concerned about my sister-in-law's loss and her three kids, my father-in-law entering a hospital four months ago which led to a nursing facility where he's now on hospice, worrying about my sweet mother-in-law who probably shouldn't be living alone, and having to say goodbye to our beloved family dog of almost 14 years. 

Now with all this and Leap's closure announcement, I need to take a step back to reassess. I'm not quitting writing. Never. I have more spooky stories that need to be told. And who knows, this setback with Leap just might be what my work needed to catapult it to higher and more successful ground. The one thing I do know is that I need to take a step back and breath. I'll be shying away from social media and blogging for a bit, while I try to figure out what my next move should be. But if you need to contact me feel free to use my email. 

More Participants!

So, what should my next move be? Leap is reverting my rights back to me, presumably to approach other publishers with Motley. How do I go about finding Motley a new home? Is it like regular querying? Have any of you been through this or know a fellow author that has? Could you share that experience with me? I'm truly lost in this jungle of unknown. Thank you for any help you can offer. 

Research with Kristy Fairlamb, YA Author of LUCID & a Giveaway!

TOUR SCHEDULE

One of my favorite aspects of writing fiction is the research. It's the part where I get to lose myself in someone else's data, ideas, theories, or facts, and then manipulate them to fit my story. It's so much fun to do!

Today, I have Kristy Fairlamb here to share her personal experience of researching topics and
information while writing her new release LUCID. 

Using Research In Novel Writing: An Account

by Kristy Fairlamb

I didn’t do a heap of research before I started writing, but I was intrigued by the dreaming element of this story so that’s where I focused my research to start with. Most of what I learned about lucid dreaming doesn’t really apply to my character, Lucy, because her dreams are nothing like your typical lucid dreams, but it was good to have something as a starting point. 

Most of the research for the book involved a strange mix of things that were often minor touches to add truth to certain aspects of the story. I searched for info on what it’s like to die a certain way, which brought up some very interesting and depressing articles. I needed info on a particular medication and its side-effects. I researched brain injuries but had to call on a doctor friend to help when this impacted some scenes and I needed to make it more believable. I looked up details on Queen Victoria and how Jet is made.

I did a lot of reading on aeroplane crashes and watched episodes of air-crash investigator. I needed to come up with causes for a plane to realistically crash, which was not easy. I came up with a scenario that helped me write the scenes I needed. But when things got serious, I called in an expert. I had a contact through a writer’s group who was an expert on aeroplanes and had worked in Air Traffic Control. He helped me come up with an even better scenario for my crash. 

Thank you, Kristy!

Now let's take a peek at Kristy's book!

BAM | Chapters | Indies | Amazon 
 TBD | GOODREADS

LUCID

by Kristy Fairlamb

Released: April 23, 2019

Publisher: Lakewater Press

A terrifying power. A horrifying curse. 

Lucy Piper lives a lonely existence on the precipice between life and death. She possesses the horrifying ability to resurrect real-life tragic events in her nightmares, reliving over and over, as if she were there, the last few moments before the victim takes their final breath. Car accidents, drownings, plane crashes – Lucy has seen it all. No one understands what it’s like living death by night and fearing sleep by day.

When Tyler Sims and his family move to town to escape past traumas, Lucy is drawn to him. The two of them are linked through their dreams, and with Tyler’s trust and friendship, hope for a brighter future returns to Lucy’s world. But Tyler's presence awakens something else in Lucy, and with this new knowledge, she will be forced to make impossible decisions. Decisions that will change history, and the future.

Chilling, haunting and compelling, this novel is the first in a two-part series for fans of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer and The Hidden Memory of Objects that will leave you breathless for days.

Kristy Fairlamb is an Australian author of the Young Adult Lucid series coming out in 2019. She spends her days drinking coffee and torturing her characters with loads of tension – both love related and the nail biting kind. Long before her days of writing began she spent half her childhood in a make believe world; daydreaming about growing up, falling in love, and travelling the world. She’s worked as a nanny in country England, a junior matron in a boy’s boarding school south of London, a governess in East Timor, and made coffees and cleared tables in the New South Wales snow fields.                                                                                                                                                                                        She lives with her husband, teenage daughter, and two sons in the beautiful Adelaide Hills where they’re lucky enough to get occasional visits from the local koalas. She’s terrible at gardening, likes her bookshelves sorted by colour, and recently checked off a lifelong dream of jumping from a plane. When she’s not writing or daydreaming about her stories you’ll find her reading, cooking for her family, or doing anything to avoid the housework.

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If you're a writer, how much research do you do?