My Writing Process - Blog Tour

A few weeks ago, I was tagged to do a writing process blog, but due to circumstances I'm only just doing it now, and trust me I am filled with guilty guilt.

The lovely author who tagged me was no other than Deb E. Howell, who penned the marvelous Healer's Touch, which I read and reviewed last year and thoroughly enjoyed. You can find her musings on her blog and I suggest you go check it out!

First question,
What am I working on?

As Soul Blaze came out in March, I immediately jumped into Soul Inferno after a few days rest. Only three thousand words in, I can feel the finality in each paragraph as things begin to come to a head, and ultimately, the end. I forsee many tears in my future (also I might be a bit sad about writing the end of my trilogy).
When I'm not working on Soul Inferno, I'm brooding over Ruthless, my Victorian Steampunk, which is about to undergo a complete redo, from start to end, on account of it just not working. Ruthless is my longest project, started in October 2011, and I have a very love/hate relationship with it. Maybe one day it'll see the light of day, or maybe it'll stay buried in my writing folder where it can burn.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I'm really not one for floating my own goat, but I will take this opportunity to.
When writing Soul Fire, I became aware that my main character, who was telling me her story, was not your average YA Mary Sue. Rose Evermore AKA Sky is a food-loving, bird-having misfit who only finds her true place when she's taken to Lotheria, a magical alternate reality. She slips up, eats a lot, fails at a lot of things, breaks hearts (including her own) and above all fights her own battles! I will not point fingers in a post where I am floating goats, but I'm a little tired of reading female MC's who merely seem to be on-site narrators and don't do anything. Real heroes don't fight from the sidelines! Sky gets her butt kicked on several occasions, but worst of all in Soul Blaze.
I try to steer away from genre stereotypes, and I'd like to think that I've done so.

Why do I write what I do?

I would like to say that I'm in control of what stories I write, but I'm really not. The stories tell me they want to be written and I hop to. I was plagued by Soul Fire for over six years before I gave up and wrote it down. Ruthless' MC, Ainsley, was so persistent she practically wrote herself.

YA is one of my favourite genres to write, as it can be a myriad of things smooshed together. And then there's Ruthless, which defies all age ranges I try to throw at it, because it hates me.

How does your writing process work?

Well, I have a very clear procedure, which I follow to the enth, every day. It begins like this:

1. Rise at 6am and go for a walk, allowing the inspirations of the early morning to soak in.
2. Return home, and eat a bowl of plain muesli, whilst musing on the inspirations that floated to me on my walk.
3. Sit gracefully at my impeccably tidy writing desk and start a series of hand-written notes, so neat they pass for accidental caligraphy.
4. Transfer the hand-written notes to Microsoft Word with the wifi turned off, accidentally writing the world's newest bestseller, a deep, poignant piece which inspires great thinking into what makes us ... us... you know?
5. Sign a contract for a million dollars on said project.
6. Repeat.

I most certainly do not drag my sorry butt from bed at 11am in my Harry Potter pyjamas and begin the day with an energy drink and chocolate as I shove cans and wrappers aside so I can get to my keyboard where I tap out a thousand words, cry, delete 98% of them, check Facebook as a reward, then wonder why I'm getting nothing done.

No. Not at all. Refer to the former procedure for an accurate representation.

And now...

I shall stop boring  you with my drivel and introduce you to the three wonderful authors I have tagged -
 Kathryn White, author of the newly released Cats, Scarves and Liars as well as several other titles based in South Australia.

Nicole Horlings, who I met on Jottify a few years ago and have remained in contact with ever since! She writes brilliant poetry and scripts, head on over to her blog to check it out.

Kara, who I met through Goodreads several years ago, and hosts a very active blog.

The Past Week

So Soul Blaze went on sale on March 29th 2014. In that time I've had slow, but sure, purchases both paperback and ebook.

Two reviews have filtered in on Goodreads, which can be found here and here. As they came in on the same day, you can imagine I was one chuffed little author.

And now I move onto the final installment of the Soul Trilogy, Soul Inferno. As this is the last book in the series, I won't be setting a release date right now, as I want the final book to be absolutely perfect. However, it's going to be incredibly sad to say goodbye to Sky! She's been so much fun to write, and as I hate goodbyes, I expect I'll be flooding my keyboard as I write her final scenes.

Soul Inferno opens in the Tsalski Empire, which is loosely based off of Indonesia. I travelled there in May last year and had a great time exploring the islands, which will be an invaluable source of inspiration for this exotic setting.

I can't wait to go travelling in other countries to use them as inspiration. Until then, I have very fond memories of this trip and enough photos to help remember the experience! The Tsalski Islands will be very fun to write, especially as their centuries old Empire hates Lotheria and its rulers...

Let me know where you've travelled in the comments!!

Moving the ol' blog over to something more up to date and a giveaway to celebrate

So after much deliberation (about twenty minutes) I've decided to abandon Wordpress. In the three or so years I've been on there, I've run into restriction after restriction and still don't have the hang of it. Even though I'm not the most tech savvy of my generation, I would hope after three years I would've learnt how to post without getting frustrated.

And so, I've moved to blogger.com, following many of my other friends and blogs that I'm a fan of. For those who want to access my posts before this date, here's the link to my old blog: http://aprillelegacy.wordpress.com/

Apparently there's some funny stuff buried in the archives, mostly around 2011-12.

Moving on

To celebrate the release of my second book, Soul Blaze (The Soul Trilogy #2), I'm hosting a giveaway of the first book in the series, Soul Fire.

Rose Evermore has lived in Ar Cena her entire life. Despite this, she still feels like an outsider, like a shoe that doesn’t quite fit. Halfway through her eighteenth year, she begins to notice changes around her, such as the fact that she has a stalker who can hold fire in his bare hands, or the dreams that she can turn into reality.
After a series of mishaps, Rose finds herself in an alternate realm, brought there to hone the magical power she was born with. Even here, though, Rose feels set apart. The Academy Masters treat her differently than the others. Her assigned soul mate avoids her when he should be working with her. Despite all this, Rose begins to grow into something no one could’ve seen coming; a hero.
With her, nothing is as it should be, and she decides to find out why. Soon she discovers that not everything about this new world is what it seems.
Least of all her.

Enter below and don't forget to tell your friends!


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