L.T. Marshall's Blog, page 9

Asian Romance Apps

Good morning, you wonderful people.

I just wanted to jump on and share a new project I’m working on, alongside my Awakening book. It may surprise some, but those who know me personally will not be surprised at all.

A little known fact is that I have a severe addiction to Asian Romance books, that can be found on a multitude of reading apps. These apps are a plenty and can be found on most smart phone app shops under names such as Webnovel, Hinovel, Ireader etc. I currently have seven of them on my phone and all open with different books. In the last months of lockdown I have concentrated solely on reading this way and giving Kindle a break just for the pure joy of this genre. I find the reading lasts so much longer as these books have much longer word counts that a typical novel. You really immerse in a whole world each and ever time.

I find the genre to be more wholesome in some ways, I guess because the plot is always emotion based and not lust, more dramatic and with many tropes and specifics that just wouldn’t settle in western contemporary romance. I think for me, it’s that traditionalism meets modern that really caught me. It’s an addiction, and I have fallen in love with the long, complex, multi character plots. The cultural nudges that are still strong even in the modern ones and the sweet often misunderstood heroines. Always ending up to be bold, fierce and independent.

Love plays a massive role in the stories, most are no sex at all, and they can vary in length. Some running into thousands of chapters and known as a ‘serial’ novels. These ones splay off into other characters stories within one book, but always keep the main couple central to the overall plot.

I also love the fact that these stories are 100% reader written, and not from publishing houses or restrained by writing rules. Although many are badly translated to English so it’s an adjustment that you have to make and it’s not something I see many negative reviews about. the communities on these apps seem grateful for the joy of stories and like me, ignore the flaws. This is another layer to self publishing and the apps also encourage fan building, interacting, and creating a following. Reading is a huge pastime in Asian countries and the apps overwhelming billions of books I have never seen on Kindle, are proof of that. To date I have only found one of these serial books on Kindle and it was 6 books for one love story.

Awakening began after a discovery of these apps and finding myself surrounded by werewolf stories at my fans requests. Then I moved into the genre I love most – contemporary romance and my fate was sealed. Now having read dozens upon dozens, I have finally submitted my own ‘Asian romance’, following common tropes and trying to be respectful to the things I have learned in the past year of reading them. I am leaving them it for the apps only and won’t be moving this to a published book at a later date. I intend to continue it as long as the story pulls me through and see it as a relaxing hobby away from my other books. I guess it’s a chance to not be so anal on my writing and improving my ability to write first pass chapters.

This won’t be as detailed as my normal books, it’s a chapter a day release kind of thing, but won’t be pre-writing a draft and then padding as I do with my normal books, so it will not be as polished. This is purely an indulgent write, based on the many of this genre that have made me fall in love with this style and the possibility of writing in a new way.

So behold – a popular trending trope of arranged modern marriage. A misunderstoof heroine ina difficult position and a cold husband. I can’t even tell you how many of these stories have drawn me in these past months LOL.

Five chapters already available and I hope to update very often when I need some relaxation. I am tossing the writing rule book aside for this one. Allowing some tongue in cheek writing. – https://www.webnovel.com/book/destined-to-be-his-wife_18919951705571805

It is also going to appear on the app HINOVEL, but for now is still under review.

4 Free Books for New Year

That’s right – all four are free for a few days to celebrate the end of the year, and the start of a new one. Contemporary romance.

The Carrero Effect

The Carrero Influence

The Carrero Solution

Jake’s View

Make up the complete trilogy that follow Jake and Emma on their journey to love. A rollercoaster ride , turbulent story that kick off into the next two trilogies in the Carrero series. be sure to grab them while you can!

https://mybook.to/CarreroSeries

Vlogging on Youtube

I have decided to try and commit more this year to my YouTube channel as I try to make it expand, along with our One Creative Family presence. So I have started filming snippets of my weekly life and aim to upload them frequent. So you can see how boring it is to be an author/designer and maybe get to know me a little better.

Enjoy xxx

Awakening Book 2 on Wattpad

The news this week is that you can start reading Awakening book 2 today, for free.

The bad news is, I am only updating a chapter a day until it’s complete LOL

After writing most of the book I decided we should honour the way this series even started in the first place and am putting the first unedited draft on Wattpad as it’s fluffed up, chapter by chapter. I mean it is how it was create din the first place, when fans asked me to think outside the box and create a romance way out of my comfort zone.

After completion, much like we did with book 1, I will then re-pad the book, polish it and publish it to Amazon Kindle and in Paperback. That way you can buy it to save and won’t need to keep coming back to wattpad.

I started this 4 days ago so already the first 4 chapters are live and you can find them all here by clicking this.

Want the padded book 1 – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Awakening-Book-One-L-T-Marshall-ebook/dp/B08J4HZ6BR or you can find the original draft on Wattpad. The kindle version however is way more polished and has padded scenes.

Free Santa Tree Ornament Knitting Pattern

I am continuing my Christmas themed ornaments with a couple of additions this year. First being this cute Santa who fits in so well with the rest of them. You can find the other five here on my Free Patterns page

If you want the pattern just click the file below to download.

The December OCF Craft Challenge.

We have decided to switch up the challenge this month and also add an incentive. So if you want to know more then read the blog for the challenge here – CLICK ME

This is my contribution this month and I have combined it with getting my xmas cards ready for my friends and family. I will pop a print out below to make these yourself and I hope to see you joining in.

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Pickle Elf CardDownload

And if you prefer a smaller easy card, this template has 2 to cut and fold. No extra steps.

Pickle mini cardDownload

To watch me draw and paint and create the card then watch the video below.

Lemon Ginger Shortbread Biscuits

125 baking butter

55g white sugar

180g self raising flour

1 tsp lemon extract

1 tablespoon ground ginger powder

optional – 80grams of lemon candied jelly sweets (I do this sometimes and makes them next level yummy)
Or you can add 40g of cake sprinkles to add extra sweetness and a cute decoration. This time I added golden yellow sprinkles that look like ginger pieces.

Method ;

Mix well until a dough is formed, tip out and roll into a long log the width of your desired cookies. Wrap in baking paper and put in the fridge for a good 45 mins to an hour until quite firm.

Slice off into cookie sized slices, I like to shape mine a little to make them prettier.

Place on a baking tray with a gap between each of a couple of cm as they do spread a little.

Cook at gas mark 6 near the top of your oven, until the cookies are browning on top.

Usually 15 – 20 minutes.

They stay soft while very hot so leave them to cool and harden.

Eat warm and enjoy.

Remembering my Brother – Oct 16th 2020

I have seriously lost my mojo and I have neither the energy nor the willpower to do anything about it. Tomorrow is the anniversary of my brother’s death. The 11th one, and much like every October it makes me feel like doing absolutely nothing for the entire month. The only problem is – it falls smack bang between both my kids two birthdays. Oct 12th and oct 28th and I have to pull myself together to navigate both.

Kevin on his wedding day to the love of his life.

They say a death of a loved one gets easier in time, that it hurts less, but I call crap on that sentiment. I don’t think you ever really move on, I think you compartmentalise the pain and learn how better to live alongside it. That around anniversaries we fall apart because we allow ourselves to let the full whack of it surface some more and feel like we don’t need to hide it as much.

My brother was one of the best people I ever knew. We were close right from my birth and I was his first little sister. He was the eldest of six children , the first 4 of us from a marriage that broke down and then we moved to live with my mother who then went on to have two more girls. So for the first ten years of my life, I was his only sister. I was princess material and he was the kind of big brother you read about in Enid Blyton books.

Me and my 3 brothers before our parents divorced.

He was a soft hearted, peacekeeper who just wanted everyone to get along. he was also stubborn and could have a really awful temper, which matched mine but most of the time he was laid back and go with the flow, and he loved his family deeply. Through the years his pet name for me ‘skinny’ became my name in relation to him, and of course, I called him ‘fatty’ You see Kevin was always of the chunkier side of the family, while I was always delicate and almost skeleton like as a child and it was the way in which we showed our bond.

Over the years we lived together on more than one occasion when he needed to uproot and start over. He even lived close to me in a town I had moved to not long after he returned back from the North and we had frequent contact for years. I was the sister he used to haul out to work on cars and help him get them through MOT’s. He taught me to weld, use a spanner, get oily and he taught me to drive too. He also taught me what a bad temper he had when I reversed his car into his jeep, or that time I drove us into a ditch. Good times.

The six of us together, getting ready to go to a convention for our religion that we were raised as.

Despite my Drama Queen tendencies, my fiery temper and my stubborn attitude, Kevin and I never warred for long and we spent most of our life on good terms. His ups and downs were always a part of my life and I would travel to stay with him when he moved back up north, to console, to share the happy times and to just hang out. He was a terrible dancer, a lightweight as a drunk and he had adopted my best friend as a sister too and would watch over us on a night out, guiding us home when we got a bit unstable on our legs. It was this way we met his girlfriend who later became his wife and to this day she is still an important part of our family.

We came from a turbulent childhood in which my bio father was not great as one and Kevin was always like my dad in a way. He shielded me from the awful things in life, tried to be what a good big brother should be. With his first wage out of high school he bought me a ragdoll that I wish I had been able to keep all these years. Sadly when my parents divorced it was kept behind with my bio dad and his new family lost among the toys and clothes that were left behind. If I could go back in time then I would bury that doll somewhere safe so in years to come I would still have something left.

My brother was a creative soul but his passion was cars, and as a self taught mechanic he finally went to college to further his knowledge and ended up telling the tutor how to do things more than learn. He could rip apart a vehicle nut and bolt, even take the wire loom apart and redo it in stages without much guidance. He was incredibly talented in that way yet he had struggled all through school with dyslexia. Teachers said he was not bright but now years after he is gone, I believe much like most of our family, my brother was probably autistic. He wasn’t stupid at all, he just had a different way of learning and the education system let him down.

In adulthood his passion for mechanics and his skill is what landed him a job and helped him create a stable life and family with his wife. Their wedding day is one of my most cherished memories and such a good party. It was beautiful. His wife and I were pregnant at the same time with our first children and our kids were born 6 weeks apart.

Sadly on October 17th, only 5 days after my daughters 4rth birthday, I received a phone call at 9am in the morning from my step dad (I consider him my actual dad) and was told that an accident on a bus my brother was working on in a test run around an industrial estate had taken his life. I still remember the exact moment, where I was, how I was sitting and what I was doing in that second. It’s a moment I would never like to experience again yet it still comes quickly to mind and memory anytime I let my guard down. It was the second I knew I would never see my brother again, never have him call me and never hear the word ‘skinny’ when I saw him face to face.

My family fell apart.

He had volunteered to accompany a driver on a test run, because the person who was going to do it had not arrived yet, while he used instruments on the floor panel to check something. They were circling a dark nearby industrial estate at around 7.30 am in the morning. It was colder days, longer nights and would have been dark at that time. Upon turning a corner they were faced with a truck trailer parked on the wrong side of the road, facing away so reflectors were not there to signal a hazard. they ploughed into it at speed but the driver having seen it last second swerved. The trailer shot through the bus killing my brother instantly but the driver survived with minor injuries.

Until the enquiry about how he died showed that he knew nothing of what happened, that he was looking down and wouldn’t have been aware of fear or pain I would have nightly dreams of him being alone and scared. I would cry that he had felt pain and seen it coming. that he was scared or that when he was stuck in the wreckage he had been crying for his wife or family. This went on for weeks and I tortured myself endlessly sad with the fact he would have only known terror and pain in his last moments. Thankfully the medical report and presentation told us, he knew nothing,. His last thought was what he was doing and then he was just gone. It brings me some peace to know that it was a blink to him and then just darkness.

In the years since his passing my family have gotten through it in their own ways. Some fell to religion to be consoled, some drink, some wild reckless behaviours and some severely depressed. But we have gotten through and now 11 years on we are more stable in our grief and more able to talk about him without breaking down.

Being autistic I find emotion very hard, I find crying worse. So my grief for a long time was avoidance. I refused to have any pictures, I refused to visit his grave or the place he died. I tried not to think of him and would talk of him less. To this day I have never returned up north to where I am from after the day we buried him. I think deep down it’s so I don’t have to face the fact he no longer lives there. I know that’s not healthy but baby steps and one day I will go there and accept the fact, he is not.

He left behind three children and a widow, we still see them and the two younger are so like him in so many ways. I see his face when I look at them and hear his gentle personality in my niece especially. He left little bits of him behind and there is some comfort in that.

His wife deserves to be happy in her life and move on, I wish nothing but that for her but I don’t see it happening soon. I know she has in many ways rebuilt her life and moved on in some ways but I am not sure if she will ever remarry. I hope so, I want her to know that. I don’t think of it as forgetting him, or a betrayal to his memory, because I know my brother wouldn’t want her to be alone. She’s a strong and lovely person, a great mother, and she deserves to have a second chance. His children will never forget who he is, even if they did get a new stepdad.

So tomorrow I will do what I always do. I will feel sad, stay away form people, ask my own kids and partner to give me space and disappear into my own head for day. I will light a candle and dig out his picture. the only one I allow myself and wish that for just one second, he would call out ‘Skinny’ and make me eye roll like I always did.

I wish I knew how to navigate grief, I wish I could say there is truth in the ‘time is a healer’ sentiment but that[‘s not truth for me. We don’t stop caring, we don’t stop missing and we definitely do not stop hurting. So excuse me for being a mess in the month of October, from here until the end…I doubt I will ever get a better handle on this and I apologise for the delay in my current book through this time.

October should be a good month for me – I met my fiancée in October, both my children were born in October and we moved to our forever home in October. I became a mother for the first time – in October!
Yet all of that pales in comparison with the thought and fact that my brother left us in October. The last phone call we had was my daughters birthday in October, and we laid him to rest on the 25th October. October for me is Kevin’s month and always will be, which is both sad and disappointing for my children and I try not to let it colour their birthdays but they understand.

So this post is for him, so he knows that despite never mentioning him much, hiding his pictures and trying not to dwell on things that were in his life, including places, that I haven’t forgotten. I just deal with things in my own way. Wherever he is, I hope he is watching over his wife and children and knows that we all miss him so very much xxx

Opening up

After much thought, time to reflect on the dreadful months we have all had, I have taken time to think about the direction of my blog and my YouTube channel. I feel that my lack of dedication to posting blogs and videos comes from the fact I choose to only share a very small portion of my daily life and try to keep posts either educational or upbeat.

I have always been someone who faces her battles internally. Pushed my struggles to below the surface and presented myself in a capable light because I find vulnerability a very hard thing to show. Maybe it’s because I had a disrupted childhood and not the happiest of starts, maybe it’s because I am on the spectrum and find sharing emotion hard. Or maybe it’s because I am someone who sees tears and struggling mentally as something shameful thanks to past abusers in my life making me feel weak. Either way I find it very hard to share truly the problems in my life outside of a mere couple of people. I have been trying to better this part of me and with some friendly support and encouragement I have decided to be more frank about my life and struggles on my blog and my YouTube. In short, open up my life to help others who may also have my struggles.

One thing people always tell me, is that I am real… that I am who I am and I make no excuses. Who you meet online, in person and in life, they are all the same and I treat everyone at face value. I have patience for most people. I am relatable and easy to share issues with and it made me think about the unfairness of it being one sided. I have always been the shoulder to cry on and the strong friend who will help when she can, but I am not being real and honest when I brush aside my own pain and troubles and refuse to share with people who care. My fans and followers are more than just readers and faceless names, many are my friends and have shared deep secrets and issues in their own life with me. I enjoy interaction and respond to emails and messages when I can. I have forged some true friendships because of this, brought about a community in my fan group and made solid relationships with many who trust me to help them with their issues. Many look to me for advice and I value every one of them.

So I intend a change in how I write my blogs and create my videos, they will be more than a place to share crafts or books and I want to share aspects of my life, motherhood and the struggles of raising two autistic children while being on the spectrum myself. My life is far from rosy. I am strong yes, but I am not indestructible or built with boundless energy and composure. far from it. My career is not as effortless as it seems to fellow authors and my talents come at a price to my ongoing mental health. I am me…and I hope to share more with you in hopes that someone out there struggling will get some sort of support form knowing they are not alone.

To outsiders my life seems controlled, peaceful and as though I always ‘handle’ everything and that image is not accidental. I am someone who is stubborn, who gained strength and independence from a troubled youth and find it hard to show anything more than capability. I am often praised for my abilities to keep on going, to handle both career and family life and to still always have a smile for people around me. Some say I am super woman or incredibly strong, those who know me much more personally know that it’s not entirely true. I am tired, but I am a fighter, a survivor. I just don’t know how to give up.

My children have their own difficulties and in recent years both have become increasingly hard to deal with in terms of life and school. Both are diagnosed autistic but my daughter also has similar issues to me – OCD, ADHD traits, severe social anxiety, dyslexia, and she also suffers from depression. Both of my children do not enjoy the social aspect of school, life in general, and both have health issues not related to being on the spectrum. My daughter has chronic fatigue syndrome, which was diagnosed this year, and was something I myself was diagnosed with at 15. I truly feel like she is reliving my youth and my struggles. Whereas my son has IBS and ongoing toilet related issues and pain, and problems with leg pain.

Therefore my life has daily battles and struggles in merely trying to get my children through every single day. Both have attendance issues at school which are anxiety related as well as health, and both find it very hard to stick to any kind of sleep routine. I am lucky if I get four hours on a good night without being woken and most days I am beyond exhausted. My children just find sleep a very hard thing to obtain properly and I myself have had broken sleep and erratic sleep schedules since I myself was young. I believe it is common in autism. Because of them my life is filled with health related appointments and school meetings and I am often run ragged with dealing with both. My daughter gets weekly therapy but due to her inability to communicate well I too have to be involved in the sessions. I feel like sometimes I rarely have a minute to myself so it shocks me that to date I have written so many books. I often wonder how I have managed that at all.

I myself have a few health issues and since contracting suspected Covid in march 2020 (sadly I was not tested for weeks) I have had ongoing breathing related issues which kickstarted childhood asthma again. I suffer from severe pain in my hips, legs and lower back which has been present my whole life and possible EDS but it was never confirmed. I gave up trying to find solutions to my own issues when my childrens health became priority. I am extremely awful at prioritising myself in anyway. I guess most mothers are. Isn’t that just what we do to ourselves when little ones come along? I also suffer from sensory issues and severe social anxiety and I will go into that in more detail in a future post.

In the past two years I have learned so much about the process of going through assessments, dealing with schools, things in place for children like mine and it’s a never ending battle. Getting your kids diagnosed is not easy and we started this journey with my son when he was 4, he is now turning 11 in two weeks. My daughter was more severe and as she was placed on a risk list for being suicidal her evaluation only took two years. It’s the worst thing in the world to feel so powerless and not be able to make things happen faster or give them a quick fix to cure how they feel.

Of course all of this greatly impacted the writing career I had struggled so hard to start and despite the ups and downs and sporadity of books coming out, so many followers have stuck by me. I can only thank them beyond the bottom of my heart for continued support. Patience and encouragment have truly kept me battling on.

So I guess I wanted to touch base and start to share my life with you, even briefly to rip the band aid off, and this blog is how I am doing it. I will go into more detail on certain aspects in future posts and only wanted to make a dent, before I lost my courage. Lift the mask of capability, no matter how scary that is, and show that I am human too. I struggle, I cry, and breakdown. I hide in dark rooms when I can’t face the world and despite always seeming confident and pulled together on social media, sometimes I am sat in pajamas with unwashed hair and barely holding myself together. It’s not shameful to admit we all struggle and sometimes wish this was not our life. I want to be a voice to reach out and say I see you, I struggle too. You are not alone and motherhood can be hellishly hard.

It’s not shameful to not be able to navigate life every day and to buckle with the pressure of problems. It’s being human. It’s how we deal with the fallout that defines us. I can cry, yell, vent, and even sit in a dark room for days and that’s okay. It’s okay to break. It’s okay to need to lean on others and it’s taken me a long time to see that. What I need to do is allow myself time to feel, to fall apart, and to rest mentally, but as long as I get up to face it head on again, that’s all that matters.

Strength is not someone who never stumbles or breaks down, it’s the person who buckles and sobs and gets up to keep on fighting that is truly strong. It was a lesson I had to learn for myself. To appreciate what truly being strong was. It’s not weak to show vulnerability.

So from now on I intend to be more frank and hope to start filming life videos without keeping the negative stuff out. I hope you will come along for the journey, although I have no idea what I am doing, no plan, no clue at all. I intend to go with the flow. I only hope that my words will help someone out there who feels like they are failing and see that everyone fights battles, everyone struggles and there is no yard stick to measure yourself up against. We are all only doing our best.

Leanne x

Awakening is Free for 5 Days!

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