Under Construction!

Thank you for visiting Leah Kate Write! Our website is currently under construction, but please check back on www.leahkatewrite.com for updates soon!

Reflecting on 2015

Is it really the end of 2015 already? It truly feels like it just begun. It seems more and more that the years pass all the quicker, and I’m still fumbling to catch up.

At this time of year, I always feel very reflective. Although New Year’s Resolutions are often looked down upon as trite and useless, I’m a big fan of goal-setting and like to look back on what I’ve accomplished throughout the year.

Although 2015 had its downs, there were also a lot of ups that made this a truly magical year. Here are Leah’s and my Top Five Moments of 2015.

1. Star Wars. Laugh if you want, but Star Wars was such a huge part of our childhood that seeing the premiere of The Force Awakens was a big deal to us—and it did not disappoint. Being able to attend the premiere in costume and enjoy this long-awaited moment with hundreds of other superfans was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and we’re so happy we got to be part of the hype!

2. Enchanted Fables. Who doesn’t want to be a princess when they grow up? It’s not often you get a chance to work your dream childhood job, so Leah and I jumped at the opportunity to work at a wonderful local event company that specializes in quality fairytale entertainment. Not only do we get to become our favourite characters and make children happy, but it’s allowed us to be immersed in our community and different charities.

3. Family Time in Disney World. As you can probably tell from the above two points, our family is pretty obsessed with Disney, and so it was a definitely a highlight of the year when our family got to go to Florida for two weeks! Pool, sunshine, and lots of new things at Disney World made this a wonderful venture—especially because our family was reunited for the first time in a year!

4. Traveling Australia. This was definitely the biggest adventure of my life and a time I will never forget! Traveling up the coast of Australia let me see things I may never see again in my life, made me overcome some of my biggest fears, and ultimately helped me grow as a person. Feeding kangaroos, cuddling koalas, watching the sunset over Uluru, scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef, listening to dingos howl in the night, sleeping under the Milky Way…regardless of the sacrifices I made to have these experiences, I would not give them up for the world.

1. Jane Unwrapped. One of my dreams came true in 2015—our book got published. The fact I can check the hugest box off my bucket list means I will never forget this year. I have never in my life worked so hard for something, and holding the finished book in my hand is a true reminder of why I do what I do.

So that’s it! Let me know in the comments some of the highlights from your year!

Star Wars Release Day!

Happy Star Wars Day!

Today is the release of Star Wars! Kate and I are huge Star Wars fans so of course we are SUPER excited! We went to a pre-screening last night, and NO SPOILERS, it was amazing!

Kate was Leia and I went full R2D2

Kate made our parents wear JAR JAR BINKS shirts!

We made a reaction video about our experience, but if you haven't seen the movie DON'T WATCH, because spoilers!

NaNoWriMo Resources

Hi everyone!

We hope everyone had a great first day of NaNoWriMo! Or maybe you were like us and had pounding headaches and upset stomachs—does NaNo REALLY have to start the day after Halloween?!

But it's the second day, and I'm already back on track, and Leah will be there shortly. NaNo's all about the journey, not the destination, so here are a few resources to help make that journey even smoother!

Vlogs:
Five Tips to WIN NaNoWriMo
Five Ways to Get Ideas for NaNoWriMo

Blogs:
Five Tips to WIN NaNoWriMo
The Five Stages of NaNoWriMo (Star Wars Style)
Five Ways to Generate Writing Ideas
Five Things Writers Can Learn from Game of Thrones

Team Up With Us:
Leah's NaNo
Kate's NaNo

Helpful Sites:
Write or Die - an amazing website that punishes you if you don't make your word count
Novel in 30 - a great app that records your daily word count and let's you write distraction-free
NaNoWriMo Official Website
Internet Blocker for Mac
Internet Blocker for Windows 

Good luck everyone!! 

Get Wicked With Entangled!

Hi welcome to the Get Wicked with Entangled Blog Hop!

Hi everyone! Thanks for joining us for Entangled’s Blog Hop! We’re very excited to be joining such a large host of lovely authors and offering up some fun tricks-and-treats wink emoticon
For our blog, we thought we’d give you a deleted scene from Jane Unwrapped, our young adult mythological fantasy from Entangled Teen’s new paranormal line, Crave.
Jane Unwrapped tells the story of a teen scientist named Jane who dies and wakes up in the Egyptian underworld. She discovers the only way to move on to paradise is to steal the heart of King Tutankhamen.
In our original draft, Jane and Tut actually fell in love, and Tutankhamen was the main love interest! In this scene, Tut helps Jane overcome a fear and they finally admit their feelings for each other. Ah, it was a sweet love for Tut until another hero took over in later drafts…if you’d like to find out who, check out Jane Unwrapped here!
We’d also like to offer one free digital copy of Jane Unwrapped and one free digital copy of Brenda Drake’s Touching Fate (which you can read all about here!), both out from Entangled Teen Crave! Just enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below.
Don’t forget to check out all the other blogs for more surprises and chances to win awesome goodies! Have an awesome Halloween!

Starlight Deleted Scene

When I awake, it is still dark. I have the eerie feeling someone is in the room with me. I sit up and rub my eyes.

The door creaks open and I hear someone leaving.

"Hello?"

They stop frozen.

"Who are you?" The person turns around, and the moonlight shines upon his golden skin. "Tutankhamen...what are you doing here?"

He looks down, opens his mouth to speak, then turns to leave.

"Wait!" I jump up and cross the room to him. He's standing awkwardly in the middle of the doorway. "Stay."

Tutankhamen moves inside the room. "I'm sorry...I just...I wanted to see you...I couldn't sleep, but then I thought that maybe I should go...I didn't want to wake you."

"Well, I am awake now." Strange warmth flutters in my belly as I look at him. This is my Tut, not the court’s, and I don't want to let him go. "Why are you here?”

"I wanted to make sure you were still here. You weren't just a mirage I dreamt up in the desert and then haunted me at home."

"I can't leave yet," I whisper and know it to be truth.

His eyes narrow. "Come with me."

He drags me from my chambers in nothing but my white bed linens - he's wearing the same, his face clean of makeup, his face boyish without the heavy crown. We duck behind a column, him caging me in his arms the way Anubis had at the ball. Except I don't feel helpless or small – I feel powerful.

"Shush," he says as a guard passes by us. "Ay doesn't like me out at night."

Then he grabs my wrist again and we're off dashing through the palace, hiding behind bushes and columns and walls. I don’t want to think about Ankhesenamun or Aten or Anubis or even my life at home. My only purpose is to keep up with this wild-eyed boy darting through the dark corridors of a palace in Thebes.

"Here," he says, as we face a large marble gateway. "We're almost free." The way he says the word - it has a new meaning, one I desperately want to know. Freedom. Does it mean for him what it means to me?

He snatches me around the waist and boosts me up. Awkwardly, I clamber to the top, and hold out a hand for him. Then we're jumping down and running down the hill away from the palace.

"This is so irrational," I call to him, bursting with laughter. He darts away from the path that leads to the heart of the city, and follows a grassy hill towards the Nile.

"I have to show you something!"

I hesitate, seeing he means to take me to the river. "Not there."

He’s beside me, my head is his hands, his lips on my jaw. "Remember my promise?"

"I will always protect you." I'm surprised he remembers it.

"Always." The breath of a word that lingers in my mind, as he snatches my hands and drags me forward.

We're running through rushes of papyrus now. The air is warmer than usual and I look up to see the night sky splashed with light. I can't see Sirius right now, but the flood is coming so I know he's there.

Tut pulls me in his arms as he rolls to the ground, and we tumble down the hill, through the rushes. I can't breathe but I'm laughing and gasping as I can feel his body tangle in mine.

We stop with a jolt. He's on top of me, body pressing against my own.

I swear I can feel my heart beating.

He reaches a hand down to me, and I take it. We face the Nile.

The presence of the river causes that horrible clenching in my throat, but then Tutankhamen is in front of me, hiding the view. He takes both of my hands and whispers: "Promise."

He leads me to the edge of the river. The moon shines as a giant spotlight as Tut enters the water. It's slow - barely rushing, like the soft trickle of tears down a cheek.

Tut lets go of my hand and enters until he's waist-deep, spinning in the moonlight, then comes back to me. "You chased my fears away," he whispers. "Let me banish yours."

I take his hand and trust a promise. The water welcomes me, but Tutankhamen has me fully supported. The water has been warmed by the sun: nothing like the icy waters of Skutz Falls. I imagine how much my heart would be racing right now, but I don’t have one so I close my eyes, and fall into Tut’s arms.

Tut moves his hand to my thigh, slowly wrapping it around himself. Then he does the same with the other. His hand is strong on my leg, and my hands are wrapped around his neck so tightly I can't tell where my body ends and his begins.

He pushes off from the bank, until we're in the reflection of the moon. It glitters all around us, bathing us in white-light.

“Do you feel it?” I whisper.

“Feel what?”

“Starlight.” I take my hands from his neck and lean back, resting my body on the water, gazing up at the moon. Even in this world it never changes. My legs release from his body, and I'm floating through the stars.

Tut swims up to me, on his back as well, staring up at the sky. He takes my hand, and we float through the heavens together, the stars and moon our constant companions.

I am not afraid.     

I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and sink into the river. Opening my eyes, I see the shape of his body beside mine. The water does not fight me, or maybe I do not fight it, but I follow its lingering course as long as my lungs can hold. For once, I do not want to come up for air.

I burst through the surface of the water, scattering twinkling droplets. Tutankhamen pulls me into his arms and I'm dizzy and breathless. His face is so close, his mouth open like a question and I am the answer.

His lips touch mine, ever so gently. His mouth is wet and soft and his lips perfectly shape over mine. And it is more than a dream, more than a fact, it’s a feeling.

My body moulds to his, and his hands are everywhere, from my face, to my hair, to my back, and I can only concentrate on holding on because I feel like I'm leaving this world and becoming starlight itself.

Finally, he pulls away and all I want to do is pull him back to me.

"Jane Ezrael," he whispers, "stay with me."

"It's a promise," I reply and cannot make myself believe it is a lie.

Bonus Giveaway!

As a bonus, we're giving away a digital copy of our novel, Jane Unwrapped, and Entangled Teen Crave's other book, Touching Fate by Brenda Drake!

  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Keep on the hop!

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party

Happy Halloween!!

Halloween is only TWELVE days away! TWELVE DAYS!! How exciting is that?! Halloween is one of my favourite holidays. Not only do you get lots and lots of chocolate, but there’s an excuse to dress up.

Kate and I recently got back from Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney World. It is so much fun. If you don’t know, MNSSHP is a special event on certain nights at the Magic Kingdom. Everyone is allowed to dress up (even adults!) and there are loads of fun Halloween activities to do, even trick or treating!
I have gone three times and it’s been amazing every year. If you’re around the Disney parks in October, we definitely recommend you check it out!

Here are some memories from our days at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party!

2009

Kate and I went as Belle and Aurora. Even our parents got in on the action as Gaston and Merryweather!

2013

I went as Belle, and my boyfriend at the time went as the Beast. It was pretty awesome because we got reservations at the Be Our Guest restaurant before the party! It was pretty awesome dining dressed as Belle in the Beast's castle! I even got to dance with the real Beast.

2015

Kate and I went as, of course, Anna and Elsa. It was so amazing walking around! We felt like celebrities as kids kept calling out, "Anna! Elsa!" We had so so so much fun! 

We’ve put together some tips if you plan to go, and if you’d like to watch Anna and Elsa run around Magic Kingdom, check out the videos below!

  Have a spooky scary Halloween everyone!

IT'S RELEASE DAY

Friends, today is a BIG, BIG DAY!

It’s RELEASE DAY!

Wow. It feels really weird to say that. It’s TODAY?

Honestly, it doesn’t even feel real.

Although a lot of times I have OHMYGOD I’M SO OLD WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE AAAAH thoughts, the truth is I’m only twenty-three years old, and so I can say with quite a bit of certainty, today is the most important day of my life.

Sure, Jane may never be a New York Time’s Bestseller or have a movie made out of her or be added to Fanfiction.net so people can write weird slash stories about the characters (wait, what, those aren’t all aspiring author’s dreams?) but writing JANE UNWRAPPED has given me more than I could ever ask for. So being that it’s Canada’s Thanksgiving today, here are five reasons why I’m thankful for Jane Unwrapped:

1. Jane taught me perseverance. Writing a book is not easy. Editing one is even harder, and getting people to take a chance on your work? Near impossible. I always refer to Jane as a labour of love, because she was indeed a labour. So many times I would have preferred to just watch television or gone to bed or hung out with friends, but Jane was waiting and she came first. Jane has turned me into a master prioritizer and multi-tasker, and although there’s no end in sight, I am so thankful for the ability to achieve all of my goals through the perseverance Jane taught me.

2. Jane taught me patience and persistence. There’s a whole lot of hurry up and wait in the writing game. Waiting for query responses, waiting for revisions, waiting for responses from agents and editors and publicists and reviewers. And a lot of time, what you’re waiting for does not turn out to be good news. Throughout the three-year journey with Jane, we held our breath only to be disappointed a lot of times. But she taught me that the good news is definitely worth the wait and all the “nos” in the world can’t begin to overcome the feeling of one “yes”.

3. Jane connected me with so many amazing people. The writing community is infinitely large and yet very tiny all at once, and Jane gave Leah and I a chance to be a part of it. From the amazing writer friends we’ve made, to the incredibly kind Booktube and book blogger community, to the immensely talented people we’ve had a chance to work with, Jane has given us an opportunity to meet some of the absolute best people in the world.

4. Jane is the first chapter of a long book. There is absolutely nothing I love more than writing and shaping a story. My dream is that one day I can make a living living in imaginary worlds. And I know that a writing career is not built on one book (unless you’re very lucky!), so Jane is the very first step in building my dream life.

5. Jane crossed off a big bucket list item. I do believe you should write for the love of writing, for the story within you that desperately needs to be told. But still, Leah and I wanted to get published. We wanted others to laugh at Jane’s quirkiness, and Tut’s arrogance, and Anubis’s awkwardness. We wanted someone else to feel what Jane felt. And thanks to a lot of hard work, a dash of luck, the amazing people at Entangled, and of course, to the readers, we accomplished something we had only dreamed about.

To be honest, when I started writing this post, I thought it would be quite whimsical and excited and goofy. Instead, I almost feel a bit nostalgic, for all the times it was just Leah, I, and Jane. It’s a little scary sending her off into the big-bad world. And yet, I could not be more grateful for this journey, and ultimately, this ending.

And, of course, because it is release day, here is everything JANE UNWRAPPED!

Some tombs should never be opened… 

Fluorine uranium carbon potassium. Jane’s experiment really went wrong this time. After a fatal accident, teen scientist Jane becomes the first modern-day…mummy. Waking up in the Egyptian underworld without a heart certainly isn’t the best—especially when it means Anubis, god of embalming, has to devour her soul. Yuck. But when Jane meets the drop-dead gorgeous god, suddenly she’s thinking this might not be the worst thing to happen. And then she is pushed to do the impossible—just time-travel and kill King Tut. Well, every experiment has variables which can end in disaster… Jane just wishes she could decide whether she wants to strangle Anubis or kiss him.

Purchase JANE UNWRAPPED here 
Purchase Paperback copy here

Connect with Leah and Kate here

Thanks for reading, friends! So, because it is Thanksgiving after all, what are you thankful for?

Goodreads reviews for Jane Unwrapped

Reviews from Goodreads.com