Lily O. Laverick's Blog, page 2

Flash Fiction Friday: Lanner & Kric!

My first entry for my own writing prompt! It feels amazing to dive back into The Lavaria Galaxy and give you guys another short story and more exiting content to read! And for Free!! Hope you enjoy!

[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://lilylaverick.com/wp-content/u..." data-large-file="https://lilylaverick.com/wp-content/u..." tabindex="0" role="button" width="1880" height="1253" class="wp-block-cover__image-background wp-image-1919" alt="" src="https://lilylaverick.com/wp-content/u..." style="object-position:19% 32%" data-object-fit="cover" data-object-position="19% 32%" />September Prompt:

Imagine character A shooting at the enemy. They are or get hurt, how do they survive (if they even do)?

How they went from being young boys, sitting on tree roots and branches, to now running in blood-soaked mud, only Lanner would know. Neither he nor the one he was running to find had family left to tell their tale, one of the reasons they didn’t fight when being recruited. At least they could stay together.

He wasn’t sure he would find Kric in all this smoke and dust. It didn’t stop him trying. That was until the earth shook and his balance was snatched by the jaws of impact and missile.

“Kric!” Lanner shouted while his body was thrown to the side, stumbling down into a crater as if he was nothing but an abandoned doll. Something in his pack cracked when he landed on his back. It pushed into his spine, and he grunted. He couldn’t take much more. It had taken all his energy to get back up again the last time he was thrown, then had run off his desperate need to find his friend. Laying now, it wasn’t until that need reared again and he tried to get up did the full effect of the blast kick in. His nerves came alive, sending bolts of pain up his leg.

Shaking, he pushed himself onto his side. If he didn’t get up now, all would be lost to him. He’d become another number in their database, a poor lost soul, a casualty the army would forget about seconds later. He used his pain to fuel his actions, but it all faulted and he came crashing back down onto his elbows as a beam of light shot past him, just missing his shoulder.

Lanner cursed himself, cursed this war no one was winning. He’d given himself away when he’d called out for the one person who might remember his name. His position was compromised and over the brow of the crater he saw them advancing. They wore the colours of those who took, who didn’t take lives but preserved them. Brown, sullied like the blood they kept. His fellow soldiers, and him, had nightmares about what they did.

If his eyes didn’t already sting from the dust, if they weren’t already wet from his dwindling hope, he would have wept at the sight of them.

He didn’t want this to be his way out, but he was given no other choice. His team had been given firm instructions.

If they came for you, you didn’t give them the chance to take you.

His laser was on the other side of the crater, broken in half. He had nothing to defend himself with. One of them had reached the bottom and was making their way to him fast. This was it.

I’m sorry Kric, he thought, pulling his pack around to his front. He reached in, blindly delving for that special unbreakable compartment where they kept it. A vial that would take everything away.

He couldn’t fight them.

He threw his pack to the side, no longer of any value to him. The enemy was feet away, Lanner kept his eyes on them. Uncorked the vial. He thankfully couldn’t smell it over the stench of battlefield. He could now see straight into the eyes of the one who would incapacitate him, take him, and do only the gods Anates knew what with him. He stared into the being’s eyes. He wasn’t even sure what he was fighting, only following orders. They were the enemy, so he had to fight them.

Their eyes widened, clearly knowing what he was about to do. Or maybe not.

Before they could take one more step, a plume of sparkling light hit them in the chest, killing them instantly. The thud of their body hitting the ground had Lanner stopping. What?

The vial flew from his hand, knocked away by an unseen force. Before Lanner could react, another’s hand grabbed his bicep and hauled him up. Lanner didn’t have time to cry out in pain, too relieved and shocked to change his sights from bloodshed to orange eyes.

“Kric,” he sighed.

“Yes, me, now come on!” Kric shouted, tugging him, shoving another laser into his arms and thrusting him backwards, away from the enemy. “You die on me; I will follow you! So, you stay alive because I have heard enough of your lectures about how my life is precious!”

Kric’s rambling had a soothing effect over Lanner, and with a smirk, an eye role, and a new sense of determination, he plotted out their path to get themselves leagues away from here.

Thank you so much for reading till this point! If you like this and want to read more, my debut novel Boy Jayck was also set within The Lavaria Galaxy! And for other free content to read, I currently at the time of posting this, three short stories available here on my website.
Soon I will be releasing my next book, a novella, Ocean of Emotions! Be on the look out for that!

Want to have your fiction published on my website! Check out The Lavaria Galaxy to find out more!

“Lily O. Laverick is an indie author creating imaginative worlds where the boundaries of space and identity blur. A proud bisexual and asexual writer, Lily brings her unique perspective to life through her works, most notably in her debut novel Boy Jayck, a dark YA MM romance set in The Lavaria Galaxy—a fictional universe where LGBTQ+ characters thrive. Lily writes to fill the gaps she feels are missing in mainstream literature, focusing on space operas and character-driven narratives. Living in central France, she draws inspiration from both her rural surroundings and her desire to offer readers a place where they feel valued and accepted.
Her second release, Ocean of Emotions, is a contemporary romance novella packed with teenage angst and heartfelt emotion.
When she’s not writing, Lily enjoys reading fanfiction, sipping sweet tea, and spending time with her four-pawed companion, Pudsey.
You can follow her writing journey on Instagram @lilylaverick_writer.”

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My pen name is Lily Obediah Laverick: names all belonging to my family, including my great grandparents and further back still. You can call me LOL for short. I love a good laugh.

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September Writing Prompt

Calling all Space Opera lovers! Here is this month’s writing prompt!

“𝘐𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘈 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘺. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘵, 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘦 (𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘥𝘰)?”

I have decided to start a monthly writing prompt to increase the number of epic space adventures out there for readers to read and writers to write! Feel free to join in!

What kind of worlds will you create? What planets will you build and let us explore?

Write a flash fiction (1000 words or less) and you could be featured in my newsletter alongside my submission to this prompt!

Let’s blast off into new worlds together! See you around!

A Sequence of Events – The What If’s of Life

I was wandering what to write about this month. I was going to ask my Lavaria Management group for inspiration, a Q&A question maybe. Instead, I remembered I had a ‘prompt a day’ saved in Instagram so I decided to check it out. That’s when I saw I’d been tagged in a post by @carolannmooreauthor. This was that post:

“Do you ever think about how crazy it is that your paths crossed with someone? Like a sequence of events that had to occur for you to meet them and be involved in one another’s life… absolutely wild.”

It is wild isn’t it when you truly think on it. What events have occurred in your life that made you think back to what you had to go through, what obstacles you had to climb over to get there?

Here’s one example I think of immediately as I have marvelled at this series on events often: I left school at sixteen, I tried homeschooling but wasn’t for me, I fell back in love with an old crush, he broke my heart, I got a job, the job brought me so much stress I started writing fanfiction to escape my reality, I quit that job, became adamant I’d become a full-time writer, I continued writing fanfiction, I built a great little community, I met Vicky of @positivepointseditorial by chance one day, she asked to read some of my fanfics, she started editing them for me, a writing group started up in a local town, she asked if I want to join, I did, a year and half later I published my first book. (Find out more here!)

Take all this in consideration, if I hadn’t left school, if I hadn’t quit my job, where would I be today? If he hadn’t dumped me, would I have come out of the closet and embraced being bisexual?

Another massive, huge, impactful instance: if my mum hadn’t moved to France when I was two years old! What then? Our lives would have been completely different! I wouldn’t have met anyone I know today! Think back even further, if my grandparents hadn’t moved out here first, my mum would have never followed years later! (Find out a little more here!)

The experiences we receive in life all mould who we are today. Like a pebble thrown in the lake, we can never know how the ripples will affect us but isn’t that the exiting bit? Never knowing where you’ll end up.

Have a think back and see what has occurred to you to get you to a certain point in your life.

And don’t just think of events, what about the people we meet.

I know of a friend who, unknowingly, over the period of ten years was at the same concerts and festivals as the man she ended up being years later. Was it destiny trying to get them together? Then why did they not meet earlier? Had fate decided they weren’t ready for it at those times? Again, she met another person in England at a convention. Ten or so years later they meet again in the middle of France purely by chance. The coincidences of it. The world is so big yet so small in other aspects.

I would love to hear your versions on this!

Thank you so much for reading, and see you in the comments! Xx
~Lily O. Laverick

I Was a High School Drop Out!

You might know me as that eclectic indie author who calls her debut novel her first baby and who shouts about it way too often. My friends know me as that one in the group who takes enjoyment out of hurting her imaginary friends. My cat knows me as that human who can’t leave him alone for two seconds (in my defence he’s too cute to not touch and cuddle every time I pass him). My mum knows me as her daughter who would happily do a Lord of the Rings trilogy marathon and would keep pausing the film to recite off her list of facts about each and every scene even though she’s told them all before, at least ten times by now. I know me as a goth purple loving rainbow enthusiast grandma in a twenty-year old’s body.

Not to toot my own horn, but I published my first book at twenty-one. My upcoming one I will have published when I’m twenty-two. I have won first place a couple of time at my local art competition, coming second and third when I didn’t. I’ve been a teacher’s assistant for five months (quit that to become a fulltime writer). Having said all this, did you know I was a high school dropout at sixteen?

I hated my last six months of high school. The only classes I enjoyed was English and Art (wasn’t that real life foreshadowing, lol). November of 2018, I stopped going to school. In the six months (or if I’m being totally honest, the five years) up to this, due to stress I had constipation, I had almost daily headaches, and the occasional migraine. I was always making the school ring my mum to come pick me up and as soon as I got home, I felt tons better.

This went on until for about a week mum was ringing each morning saying I wasn’t coming in. I’d go to bed fine but wake up feeling ill. Then came the day I will never forget. Mum forced me into the car one morning, adamant I was going to school that day. I cried the whole way up to when we got to the crossroads, ten minutes into the twenty-minute journey to school. Turn left, it would take us there, turn right and we could loop back around back towards home. I could not face going into school and I convinced mum to take us home. She did.

That afternoon I did a little research.

Didaskaleinophobia.

That’s quite an impressive word, isn’t it?

It means the fear of school or of going to school. That is what I had developed. The mere thought of going there had my stomach roiling. Still does even after six years.

I seem to quit schools in December, there’s a definite theme there. I officially left school in middle of December—and four years later I quit working in a school, right before Christmas.

My point of sharing this with you is to say, school isn’t for everyone. I had loved the idea of school; I just didn’t like the people in it. I loved learning too, but I couldn’t stomach the tests and the stress of it all. I left for my physical and mental health, not because I didn’t want to make a life for myself. Sure, it closed a few doors for me, and I got lost for a long while, but I found my passion in the end at the right time. I regret nothing in dropping out, it was the right thing for me. Just like it was the right thing for my best friend to go on and do another five years of extra studies to pursue her dream. We are all different in the way we learn and live in this hectic world.

From middle school onwards, I felt alone, unheard, unseen, and simply not myself. I had put on a mask for so long to get by, to not be bullied or criticised, it took me years to peel that mask off and truly be myself.

Not everyone’s journey is the same, some of us get shortcuts shown to us, while others get lost and lose our footing. I lost mine, and may have landed on my hands and knees, got a few scrapes and a broken heart along the way but I got there. I discovered who I really am and I’m never putting that mask on ever again. I found my passion and people came into my life almost by magic at the right times to give me a hand up.

Keep moving forward, don’t worry about the journey, that’s what makes you unique. Don’t be afraid to tell your story because someone else’s might share a similar chapter, or even just a paragraph.

I found my life’s calling, and I hope you find yours if you haven’t already. Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box or not do what everyone else is doing!

This post came to be while being inspired by this song:

I've cheated and I've lied
I've broke down and I've cried
I've got nothing to hide no more

I've loved and I've hurt
I've broken people down with words
More grace than I deserve, for sure

Known to be crazy, known to be wild
Mama had herself a little devilish child
Ain't no stranger to the troubles at my door

I've been at the wrong place at the wrong time
Chasing all the wrong things most of my life
Been every kind of lost that you can't find
But I got one thing right

One Thing Right by Marshmello and Kane Brown

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Heading Into June!

As May waves goodbye for another year, my next book is one step closer to completion!
As I announced earlier this month, my upcoming novel will be called ‘Ocean of Emotions‘! Can you guess why it’s called that? Let me know if you can figure it out!

I’m excited to share its progress and milestones with you! Here’s a major milestone: I’m already on the second draft of it!
When I was writing the first draft, I skipped all the dialogue and only put down minimal descriptions and actions, the bare bones of this plot’s skeleton. I find writing dialogue difficult when I don’t know where it’s going. I end up staring at the page, expecting it to write itself. Now I’m going in and adding all the details and scenes, making it pretty and gritty! I’ll give you a little teaser: one new scene involves kayaks! I’ve only been kayaking once and loved it, but my main character has a similar, albeit worse experience. Sorry not sorry.
In addition, there’s a reason I call myself an eclectic author. It is very different from my debut novel, ‘Boy Jayck‘. It’s not set in space for a start! ‘Ocean of Emotions‘ has made me delve into my own emotions and has been very therapeutic to write, all in all. My main character’s journey has made me dream, and I have had a lot of fun playing around with his world and the people in it.
Initially, I intended it to be a novella, short and sweet as it were, but now it’s looking to be a fully-fledged novel! How exciting is that!
At the beginning of this year I put my far-in-the-past prequel to ‘Boy Jayck‘, ‘First Faith’, on hold due to burnout. I had just released ‘Boy Jayck‘, I jumped in a little too quickly for my brain to keep up with. That is how ‘Ocean of Emotions‘ came about and why it was meant to be a novella! Funny how things like that can change right under your nose!

Don’t Panic Lavaria fans! I will be returning to my Galaxy soon! In fact, I already have! I have been drafting up a ‘Boy Jayck‘ spin-off short story for my writing group. It feels great to be back in that spatial world! This project has been a good break between the first and second drafts of ‘Ocean of Emotions‘. However, that project will have to stay quiet for a while longer now, as I have to wait for my fellow writing group members to write their own stories. Keep your eyes out for that!

Back to ‘Ocean of Emotions‘, my hopeful goal is to have it out by the end of August or early September! We’ll have to see if I actually achieve that! When I was writing ‘Boy Jayck,’ I had very naive expectations for when I would release it. It seems I still haven’t learned that lesson just yet. A girl can dream!

I also revealed my two main characters for ‘Ocean of Emotions‘, Connor and Iain, in a YouTube video this week.
I haven’t received many reactions to it yet, so if you would like to support me, please subscribe to my channel, like, and comment on the video! I’m working hard to release more videos/reels now, and your encouragement would mean the world to me!

Heading into June, I am very eager to jump right into it! Not only is it Pride month, but it’s also my birthday month!
I have a lot planned, already all my weekends have been scheduled with little events and meet-ups! I’ll try to share them with you!

I may also be going to my first-ever pride event!! I live in the middle of nowhere in France, so finding these types of events is rare. I was thrilled to find out that one is going to happen just forty-five minutes away! I’ll be sure to share if I manage to go and see it!! It’s a little tricky because it’s the same day as my writing group meeting, so I’m hoping we can find a solution!

As far as goals for this coming month, I simply want to continue as I have, “Work smarter not harder”. I want to keep growing, meet more amazing people, and share more of my projects and progress with them!
Thank you for reading and I will see you all in June!

Are you new to my blog? Visit the rest of my website to find out more about me and my books! I have free short stories to read if you are interested!

Boy Jayck’s Journey

Boy Jayck’s Journey

How has it been two months since the launch of my debut novel!? It feels like only yesterday and years ago at the same time! And I cannot thank everyone enough for the amazing comments and reviews I’ve had from it and am looking forward to future ones!

A fellow online writer friend recently asked me; “Did you use beta readers, ARC readers, or both? And what was the timeline you had them on? (How many weeks did you give them to read it?),” and it got me thinking. During the drafting and editing of Boy Jayck, I hadn’t grasped social media marketing yet, nor teasers or updates on my writing, so the journey it took me to publish Boy Jayck is a bit of a mystery to the outside world. I’m an open book, I love to share my experiences with all things in life. So, this question got my brain ticking, and I want to share the journey it took me from writing a fanfiction one day to finding my mentor to self-publishing a book.

Where it all began was, as I mentioned earlier, a fanfiction. My actual writing journey started six months previously after I had quit my job, but Boy Jayck started in May 2022. There was an idea for a long fanfiction brewing in my head at the time. I wrote the first chapter of it and posted it on Archive of Our Own, but it didn’t kick off.

The original RIVA Writing Group Member (Vicky, me, Ruth, and Titi!)

Then a week or so later, I went to my second RIVA Writing Group meeting. After that meeting, I was so inspired. I went home and I took down the fanfiction and wrote seven thousand words and decided Boy Jack (as it was called then) was going to be a book and my first-ever novel! It wasn’t the book I planned to start my writing career with, but it was the book I needed to get out of me, the book I would have read if someone else had written it.

Additionally, at those meetings, I got to know a wonderful writer who was also an editor and ghostwriter, Vicky of Positive Points Editorial Services. She from then on became my mentor, and eight months later she became my editor. She was the person behind the whip driving me forward to finishing my book!

At first, Boy Jayck was going to be two novellas, mostly because I didn’t know what the end was and felt it was the best way for me to start, but with a little encouragement and brainstorming, it was decided it was going to be a novel. I wrote my first outline and new characters were coming into it and stirring up trouble! I loved it! It was so much fun organising the chapters and the points of view changes. Admittedly, it was also a headache, trying to solve my own mysteries and finding solutions to plot holes, but was all par for the course. I was full steam ahead… until December happened.

On Christmas day, 2022, my grandad passed away in his sleep. Me and my mum lived with him, well next door but it was all one house. Despite what you might think, it didn’t stop me writing.

Writing has always been a form of therapy for me, an escape, like writing in a diary. In my writings, you’ll find little pieces of me scattered about. Have you spotted any in Boy Jayck?
It was an escape when I hated my job that was making me cry, I would come home, sit down with a cup of tea, and lose myself in fanfiction, either reading one or writing one. It was the same with this. I wrote a poem for my grandad, my way of saying goodbye but never to forget. If you have a copy of Boy Jayck, you’ll know I dedicated my debut novel to him, and the day of Boy Jayck’s release was also my grandad’s birthday. He was a massive supporter of all the things I did. He never got to see Boy Jayck finished but I’m sure he’ll be reading it wherever he is now.

January and February were slow going for me, but with Vicky and my mum behind me, I managed to finish writing my first complete draft of Boy Jayck a few days before my twenty-first birthday, 29th of June 2023. If I remember correctly, I made it to eighty-two thousand words! Then I handed it over to Vicky for her skilful eyes to dissect. Boy Jayck was done being edited by mid-September and was at the word count you now know, around seventy-seven thousand words. By Halloween, the proofing copies arrived!

By this time, time was running a little short as you can imagine as we’d already set the date of release to be the 6th of December! So, to answer my friend’s question of did I use beta readers, ARC readers, or both, well I only had beta readers: two friends, another was me, another my mum, and Vicky. By the time we were setting up the KDP page for Boy Jayck we were all cutting it a little thin. The night before Boy Jayck’s manuscript wasn’t allowed to be touched or we wouldn’t be able to get the author copies for my launch party we were still finding errors and little mistakes! To say I was stressing was an understatement, but we did it! (Though there are a few little typos that still managed to get through unseen under our watchful gaze!)

Boy Jayck was pre-order ready; the author copies were on their way; it was all coming together. Then the author copies arrived…

Around two or three days before my launch party the books arrived in a big box. I had ordered thirty books as I’d estimated I’d sell twenty to friends at the party and I wanted some left over. The box however was not in good quality!

It looked as if it had been opened and stuck back together with tape, the books were without any form of protection, no plastic wrapping or bubble wrap or even that brown paper stuff. They were all loose in the box. The tape was visible from the inside and had stuck to three books, ruining them! Only ten in all I would consider sellable, the rest I had to stack, put a plank of wood over and weigh them down with a typewriter so they wouldn’t be so bent! It was gut-wrenching. There I was, seeing the post van, getting really excited to see my book baby in its final stage at last, and for that to happen… Not the best.

My launch party made up for it! Around twenty-plus friends showed up and I sold seventeen books, all signed. Two friends came all the way from England to see me for my launch! (If you don’t know I live in the middle of France.) It was a fabulous evening and one I won’t forget, the amount of support and love that night was intoxicating!

And that was the journey Boy Jayck took me on to get it published! One rollercoaster of a ride!

Thank you for reading up until this point, if you have, please do drop a comment down below! I hope this was an interesting insight into the life of an indie author who is living out her eleven-year-old self’s dream of becoming an author! Thank you so much and I’ll see you next time! See you in the comments!

💖 Red White & Royal Blue 💙 5⭐

~What happens when America’s First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?~
Instant NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestseller
GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD WINNER for BEST DEBUT and BEST ROMANCE of 2019
BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR for VOGUE, NPR, VANITY FAIR, and more!

5
Why did I pick this book in 2023 to read? Truth be told, I had barely stepped foot into the Bookstragm world at the time. I knew some books blew up and became trends, but I didn’t know this was one such book. I was bored one day, saw this as an audiobook and thought, why not? Little did I know Red White & Royal Blue would create a snowball effect I will never regret. It got me back into loving books and reading!

QOTD: If you have, why did you decide to start reading or listening to Red White & Royal Blue?

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Hey Space Opera fans!

Hey Space Opera fans! I’m excited to share with you all my debut novel as an indie author, “Boy Jayck“!
It’s a space opera m/m romance that takes you on a journey to the far reaches of space in a universe of my own making. The story is packed with action, danger, and forbidden love that will hopefully keep you turning to the next page.
The Lavaria Galaxy Collection is a unique universe that I’ve created, and I can’t wait for you all to explore it. The book is now launched and ready for release, and I’m thrilled to share it with the world finally.
If you’re a fan of space operas, LGBT romance, and angsty adventure, then “Boy Jayck” is the perfect book for you. You can order your Kindle or Paperback copy today and get ready to be transported to a world of secrecy, danger, and forbidden love. Don’t miss out on this unforgettable reading experience!

Please do reach out to me, I’d love to hear what you think of “Boy Jayck”!

Boy Jayck is now available on Kindle and in Paperback on Amazon!

Boy Jayck Launch Party

There are no words strong enough to express the gratitude I feel for the overwhelming support I received on the launch day of my debut novel, both online and offline. Your kind words and encouragement have truly touched my heart, and I feel so lucky to have such amazing people in my life who believe in me and my work. I couldn’t have done it without you! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It means the world to me that some of you even bought my book – I hope you enjoy reading it and don’t get too traumatized!

Once again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for all the love and support you’ve shown me. You guys are the best!

With the highs come the low, low, lows.

Posted on Lily’s Facebook 02/12/23: Today it seemed fate stepped in and then rained on my parade. It started with me having a social battery crash from the amazing day before, it made me stay home to recuperate, cancelling my plans to accompany my mum to a Christmas Market she and friends were exhibiting in. I had wanted to go but my body just said no. Then, at around midday, when we usually receive the post, the dogs started grumbling and I looked out the window – a sign someone and/or a car had arrived. I looked out my bedroom window and saw a robin on the fence. He was so fluffy and cute. And the post arrived with a package! I started to shake with excitement; it was my order of thirty author copies of my debut novel! But my brain was already clocking something was wrong with the box; it was wrapped in tape, and one corner was rounded… But I was excited and couldn’t wait to open it. To say I had another mental crash was an understatement. Seven of the books are not resaleable and the others all have some sort of damage – damage I’m hoping spending some days under a typewriter (an impromptu book press) will iron out.