Aura Blog Tour

Aura by Rebecca Talley

 

In the fight between good and evil, Light is your only weapon.
Crystal Scott finally feels like a normal teenager. She has a lead in the high school play, a best friend, and a gorgeous boyfriend. With prom only a few days away, Crystal's ordinary life seems perfect.

Endowed with great Light because of her virtuous choices and her inherent gifts, Crystal's aura has become visible to those with the ability to see auras. Unfortunately, her power has also attracted the attention of demons intent on destroying all Light.

When Vincent Crandall, the human host for a powerful demon, discovers that Crystal's Light is strong enough to disrupt the connection between demons and their hosts, he realizes she may be able to sever the connection altogether. Determined to stop her from interfering with his plans to rule the world, he orders operatives to neutralize her.

Crystal is thrust into battle against a demon army she didn't even know existed. With the help of a mysterious young man and his mother, Crystal must learn to use the power within her before the demons kill her parents and Vincent harnesses her Light for himself.

Writing YA and Writing Advice, Oh My!

   Many "experts" insist that writers should stick to one genre and build a readership within that genre. That's probably sound advice, but for me, I have to write the story that burns inside me. The one that is fighting to come out.

   Sometimes that women's fiction and sometimes that's YA. My first book, Heaven Scent, is YA. It's about a girl who's a basketball star and experiences a tragic loss that changes the course of her life. My second book, Altared Plans, isn't technically a YA because the main character is in college, but it's about a girl who's dumped on the day of her wedding and has to learn to rebuild her life and learn to trust in love again. My third book, The Upside of Down, is women's fiction.

   Aura is about a teenage girl who discovers that because of her virtuous choices, she's been endowed with great Light. Because of this Light, she's become a target for a nasty demon and she must learn to use the power within her to stop the demon and save her parents. 

   I think the best advice is to write what you love. It doesn't necessarily have to be what you know, but it does have to be what you love because that passion will show in the writing. Trying to force yourself to write in a certain genre will reflect in your writing. 

  Life is too short, I think, to write what doesn't ignite passion inside me. Writing a novel can take months, even years, so the story has to keep my interest piqued. I have to be excited each time I sit down to write it. I have to be anxious to find time to write the story, and I have to love the story each time I revise it. The moment I'm not loving the story, I put it down and work on something else.

   I don't have much time to write because I have a large family. I have ten kids, seven of them live at home and they tend to demand a lot of my time. Because of my limited writing time, I have to feel passionately about the story. I have to feel like this story MUST be told. I have to feel like if I don't get this story out to the world that the universe will somehow be unbalanced. Well, maybe that's a little exaggerated, but you get the idea. The story has to matter to me because if it doesn't, it won't matter to anyone else.

   Write because you love it. Writing can be lonely and discouraging, but if you believe in your story you can trudge through those times. Very few authors I know make money from writing. We write because we must. We write because it's who we are. We write to live and live to write.

   If you want to pursue writing then hone your craft by reading great books on writing, read articles on the internet on how to write, network with other writers, take classes, attend conferences, read lots of novels in lots of genres. And then practice, practice, practice. Most importantly, though, write because it brings you joy. Because it makes you happy. Because it satisfies something deep inside you.

  And never give up. If writing is your dream, if it's what brings you joy, keep at it. The difference between published and unpublished writers is persistence. Write what you love and never surrender.

Thank you so much, Rebecca! Your guest post was extremely inspiring, and I look forward to reading "Aura"!

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