L.R. Johnson's Blog

Time has flew by, it’s weird even to say it but I have finally accomplished one of my major goals in life and became and Indie Author! The name of my book is Slice and no it’s not the first book I have written but it is the first book that I have poured my soul into! So let’s lay it all out there.

First thing first… Editing is by far the most difficult part of the process. You have to write this beautiful master piece and then once you go back through and read it you think… oh dear God what have I written? That was the initial thought of my first draft. I think back and even wonder why I let so many people read it. For future advice to myself and other indies… don’t let anyone besides you read the first draft. The first draft for me was a display of words scrambled onto paper in mass quantities. It was garbage. I took a week break and dived back into her and the second draft made more sense. But editing is never done. I mean NEVER DONE! When you have your final draft done I guarantee you will see a few errors that you want to slap yourself for. Editing took all of two months then there are about six hundred more things to do.

I published my book through Createspace. And I can honestly say it is one of the easiest platforms to work on for beginners. They lead you step by step and  most importantly they do answer any questions. Choosing this platform helped me with very concept of what it takes to publish. Once I found my book acceptable enough to be in book format I decided it was time to develop a proof.

There is no better joy than receiving the first proof in your hand. I almost cried. It seems unreal. Writing is a passion for me, so it was overwhelming almost. I just wanted everything to be right. A proof copy doesn’t necessarily have to be a printed copy of the book. It could have been on paper in a three ring binder but I made three proofs over six books. They all had different covers and they all were different sizes and paper. Finding the perfect look for your book is important. Obviously… JK  Rowling, Maya Banks and a few others have even changed their covers of their books. Had I known what I know now I would have stopped being cheap and had hired a designer for the cover at first. I designed three covers for my book and the final one stuck with me… until I found the perfect stock photo! Then I changed the eBook cover.

 

The first one was created by me… but things I have learned about covers are that they must stand out. It’s not even a choice. You must not chose a white background. The white knocks your book into the background in sites like Kindle and even Facebook. The second was not done by me, but it looks better and has actually increased my internet sales. FACES draw people in.

Then there is the marketing. My novel has been successful locally. I have sold over 100 copies in the first complete month but there is so much to learn when it comes to this business. In general, this process for me was a learning experience but I loved every minute of it. And I am using every lesson to help with book two of the series: Havoc. Please stay tuned! I plan to be a little more active with this BLOG and trust me, you will be seeing more of me! Until Next time people… HAPPY READING!

Is this book a Monstrosity or Perfection?

I have read so many bashing reviews of this book and to be honest they aren’t deserved. This girl, excuse my language, wrote the hell out of this book. Of course it will forever be known as a Harry Styles Fanfiction… Well for starters Harry Styles is a nice looking guy. I don’t care if he is a member or One Direction, let’s face it they are grown men now! So I have decided to give my honest review of the book. It’s so large that I had to reread it to make sure that I left nothing out. So let’s hash it out.

Ladies and Gentleman I present… the characters! (MAINLY THE HEADLINERS)

Tess: (Some Blonde Chick… Who cares?)

Hardin: Harry Styles (DUH)

Landon: Niall Horan

Zed: Zayn Malik (Duh Again)

For some great reason all young adult novels have a setting in Washington. Twilight, Thoughtless… Hell I’ll mention it again… Fifty Shades of Grey. Magic happens in this state people. Something great is happening there and all of us single women are missing out on it. There in Washington resides some sexy ass guys and I’m rather pissed I am just now figuring this out. The novel is based here at a local University. 18-year-old Teresa is the epitome of small town girl. I mean when she was described Don’t Stop Believing blared through my mind. She wore awful clothing and more importantly she was so sheltered. She was sheltered to the point of I almost making me want to slap her. Don’t be alarmed, I like to mentally beat the hell out of a lot of my book friends. Her roommate in her dorm is Stephanie and from the introduction it is immediately obvious she is a badass.

Teresa, who will from now on be known as Tess, meets Hardin returning from a shower. He’s in her dorm room apparently waiting on Steph and this guy is rude. But for some odd reason I found his rudeness to be extremely sexy. Yes, you are right how dumb? But everyone loves a bad boy. Plus, this bad boy had an accent that made hearts melt. He took an interest in her, simply put but he is a damaged soul. He fights it the entire book and he is so day and night. One moment he wants to take her on a date the next he wants her locked away far from him and is insulting her. I wanted to shake him into reality a few times. I felt like Tessa should have at least slapped the hell out of him once.

I have read reviews about Hardin being an abuser. Forgive me but I don’t see an abuser. I see a teenager who has daddy issues. He wants to be loved and it is more than obvious. I liked his back and forth and I felt that she shouldn’t have allowed him to come back if she didn’t like him. Both parties are equally dumb. I don’t want to give away everything about this book. There are so many parts to be honest I doubt that I could remember. But this is a good tale of how college can sometimes go. The ending is jaw dropping. You might want to burn the book just to get some peace, but don’t do it!  You bought it in paperback or on your kindle! Though the say the Kindle in indestructible I doubt they would survive a fire. Plus if you are a bookworm like myself you can’t live without your kindle or your lot of books. If you want to go on an emotional rollercoaster with some young adults who don’t have their shit together, you have chosen the right book. Hardin is a pain in the ass and Tess is the damsel in distress some many times I wanted to save her myself then lock her ass up.

Don’t judge a book by a review. Yes, people love to be heard and seen. I do. It’s why I have this blog. But I don’t want to discourage you from someone’s hard work. Every writer dedicated a ton of time and effort into giving you a book to read. Anna Todd, congrats girl! You had the guts to do what many writers can’t. You laid your dream characters faces and bodies out right along with their names. I love that. Every writer is stealing a face from somewhere, I don’t care if it’s a no name model or a next door neighbor… most fictional novels are fan fictions. So the fact that she just called hers out is downright awesome. Not to mention her fans are the best, I include myself in this group. Anna, You Rock. One day I’ll grow some balls and throw mine out there. Until then it’s googling popular names on the internet. J

I hope this post wasn’t to random lol I just really wanted to get that off of my chest. Read her book and then look for mine on shelves! It’s time for me to go to bed now. I have to work in the morning and then write in the night time! (Consistency is Key) #NeverGiveUp

**Happy Reading and Writing Loves**

The Perfect 3 Playlist.

I am in no way a perfectionist. I procrastinate, I curse, I make mistakes and most of the time don’t care. I doubt there is no perfect being on this earth, well… rather than Charlie Hunnam or Henry Cavill, but that’s for a different post. I wanted to talk to you today about the importance of the Perfect Music Playlist when reading or writing, primarily writing for me.

I have been writing since I knew how to form a sentence. It is sincerely one of the most precious things in life to me. The freedom to express whatever messed up thoughts that are in my head is extremely important to me, especially when it’s coming from a personality I myself have created. Over the years I have developed a sort of a ritual that I used every time I sit down to write. I must develop the perfect playlist; I mean what good would a movie be without the music that makes it perfect.

Examples of recent movies with excellent soundtracks that made me love it more: The Fault in Our Stars, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug and some others. What good would Mr. Grey’s sex scenes been without the enchanting melodies of Beyoncé? How sad would Augustus Water’s story would have been without the mournful cries of Birdy or Kodaline? Better yet how would chills be developed, when Smaug demolished Laketown without the haunting chants of Ed Sheeran in the background? Music my friend, is important.

Every time I sit down to write I have some music playing, music that can determine my mood or more than likely the mood of my character. Some artists are so talented they can make you feel and these are usually the artist that I chose. I want to give you a few artists that I would love for you to try, I don’t care what genre you listen to… they will move you. Here is my Perfect 3 Playlist for the month give them a try, I hope it inspires you to pick up a book or better yet WRITE YOUR OWN!

Monsters- Mumford and Sons : “So we come to the place of no return, yours is the face which makes my body burn. And here is the name that our sons will learn. Catch the Beauty. Catch the Queen. Catch the beauty leave me…”  There are few tales of true heartbreak in songs. Mumford and Son’s latest album entitled: Wilder Mind is an incredible masterpiece. Normally I am not that into them, they tend to overdo it, in a beautiful way but this track right here made me feel something. I felt grief, I felt relief and I felt like it was real. Take a listen yourselves and tell me that melodic beat doesn’t lull you and that the lyrics don’t pull you in.
Tee-Shirt- Birdy: “In the morning when you wake up I like to believe you are thinking of me. When the sun comes through your window I like to believe you’ve been dreaming of me.”  Aww the woes of young love, simple things like a Tee shirt can send you into an array of thoughts and day dreaming. This song has a melody that makes you feel happy. Well it made me feel happy and happy is good. Not too many songs these days have a real meaning and this one I found to be simple yet sweet.
Nude-Radiohead: “You paint yourself white and fill up with noise but there’ll be something missing” This summer I made a friend. He was different from anyone I had ever met and he put this song on and I felt something I had never really felt with music… Nostalgia but it made me mourn. I wanted to go somewhere I had never been but listening to the music I could have sworn that I had been there before. It was a weird longing and Radiohead took me there. I had to look up the lyrics because their voices are extremely different and at times hard to understand. But all in all, it’s really good song.

Happy Listening Loves!!

Rating: 2/5 stars

This novella is an easy quick read that any female can dive into. Now as far as smut it is not the most romantic. Let’s first give you a run down. The book is about a girl named Jessie Callahan and she is the main character of the novella. She is a waitress a bar. There are two cops Rick and Truitt. They are detectives and they are working on a serial killer, that basically likes to game hunt  women. The serial killer sets the female free in the woods and lets them run for there life. Then once the serial killer has captured the female,  kills them and calls the cops with where the body can be found. These guys are tired from dealing with the serial killer and they end up at the same bar that they always go to. Jessie is there and the guys, Rick and Truitt  apparently have been working on her for a while about a threesome. She has declined each and every time. But one particular night she gets fired by her boss, who is described as lazy for skimming off of the register. She decided that this will be the night that she goes ahead and has the threesome wit the guys. Now I like my SMUT books but this was weird and highly unrealistic.  She goes home wih fthe guys after she hurts her injured knee. Rick and Truitt live together and they have this bachelor and this is the place that they have decided that they were going to have the the threesome in.

They have the threesome and in the morning Jessie decides to leave the house and go plead for her job with the boss. The boss allows her to have her job back claiming that she had found who actually done the stealing. She goes back to the house with Rick and Truitt and cooks breakfast. Now while she was out the guys have basically declared their love for her and how they both were not willing to let her go and that it had to be more than a one night thing. (I found this highly unreal even for smut.) They eat breakfast and then they report to work. They find out that Jessie is suspect in the murder of her boss. She was murdered right after Jessie left. Instead of believing her they basically blow her off accepting the story that the detectives had played out. She used the cops as an alibi so that she could kill her boss without being questioned. Her names gets smeared in the news and she is devastated. She goes to her best friend, crying, broke and alone and she stays there until the charges are dropped right after her name has been smeared in the news ruining the chances that she will ever have a real job. Now she is in school, homeless broke… (SAVE HER… lol) Well Rick and Truitt come back and apologize to her. She is so drunk when she sees them and this part was rather amusing. She insisted that they grovel. During all of this news and drama Rick and Truitt receive an interesting call from the serial killer, he or she has found their new victim. This is out of pattern for the serial killer so they in my opinion blow it off. Well we all know who the serial killer is after, he woman who has been smeared in the papers… Jesse. Jesse gets kidnapped and guess what you guys the killer seems to be the co-worker of Truitt and Rick, A COP!!! The beats her up and then sets her free, well she has one good leg. She ends up living the cop is killed and all is great after rehab and everything Jesse is home sweet home with both of her men. THE END

THE REVIEW:

This book was a quick read. But it was not one of my favorite books by Maya Banks. I have read several novels from her and generally they have a good driving story plot and the characters falling in love seems almost methodically. There are several characters that I could use to provide an example for people that have read her such as Gabe Hamilton or Jace Crestwell, when they fall in love with there women it is nice and  It was easy to see the love withe the characters grow and all. But this book I would have to say it was rather hard and not catchy. I kept waiting for the butterflies to form so I would like the characters but they never came. So that was not good. It was just not real. My favorite part of this book had to be the drive of the serial killer. I felt like I was in an episode of Law and Order SVU. That part of plot was GREAT. The only character that  I liked was Jessie and I liked her some of the time. Sometimes she was rather stupid. So all and all I would have to say that this was an OKAY read for someone if they are bored and they can’t find anything else on thier shelf. I am sorry Maya Banks you didn’t impress me with this one.

Hello, my name is Laketa and I am an avid reader. Ha, this is my favorite thing to do besides write books myself and listen to music!! So there have been alot of people who have asked me what books are good and what they should read. There are so many books out there and each person is different to what they like. So I decided to make a site about books and some music and possibly some movies. I will review some things give you some insight about what I read. I will also do some reviews bout movies. They might not be too recent lol. I don’t watch to many that are out in theater so it could potentially turn into a thing about TV shows and older movies that have me hanging on.  It’s my first post so please stay tuned and pass this along to the other readers!! I am here for your entertainment!! See you soon!!