Item: The Defender
Author: Gina

The Defender by Larissa Soehn | $15 Giveaway, Excerpt, & Guest Post: How to Write a Book Without Losing Your Mind

A book blog tour from Goddess Fish Promotions.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Marianne & Judy at Goddess Fish for providing me with the information for this tour.

What's in this post!

Book Details

The Defender by Larissa Soehn
Published by Tellwell Talent on 11/13/2021
Genres: Action & Adventure, Fiction, Science Fiction, Time-Travel
Format: eBook, Hardcover, Paperback
Pages: 370

A woman battling depression and anxiety finds herself trapped in her own life, but when an alien device rips her away from Earth, she is forced to fulfill an impossible role and save the galaxies from destruction.

On Earth, Alexia Harmon is a mother and wife, but in a foreign galaxy, she is so much more. Torn away from her family, Alex is in an epic battle to escape from Gatlin and return to Earth. But little does Alex know, Gatlin is on the verge of destruction. The galaxy faces annihilation; a prophetic doom that was set in motion thousands of years ago.

Alex struggles to stay alive as she fights against an alien government that is trying to kill her, a species of genetically engineered creatures that are hell-bent on her destruction, and the demons of her own mind that threaten to overthrow her.

Join Alexia Harmon as she works to fulfill her role as THE DEFENDER.

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Excerpt from The Defender

With Stellie’s last words still hanging in the air, the lights go out and Alex is slammed into darkness. Immediately, her mind begins to race, and she can feel the panic rising in her stomach, starting to choke her throat. Darkness has always been a weak point for her. It’s the moment where she is left alone with only her thoughts to keep her company. With a strangled feeling in her chest, she manages a breath, and then another.

The darkness stretches on for longer than Alex thought possible. There is no noise from the aliens in the crowd; there is only black. The darkness begins to press in on her as if she is being compressed, her breathing becomes more rapid, and she begins to feel sweat bead on her forehead. She can feel a panic attack coming on, something she frequently experiences, but they still have the ability to leave her paralyzed, unable to make decisions or do anything to help herself.

Breathe, Alex, just breathe, she says to herself. She crouches down to place her hands on the ground and puts her head between her knees. She can feel the ground beneath her vibrate lightly, but she knows enough not to trust her senses right now. Panic attacks allow her mind to play tricks on her, altering the way her surroundings look and feel, taking everything that is real and skewing it into something negative, something scary. Her steady breathing starts to return, and the panic attack is narrowly avoided. What is going on? Has something gone wrong with the test? Alex thinks to herself.

Just as the thought enters her mind, a very faint light starts to appear in the far corner of the room. She stares at the light, unsure if her mind is playing tricks on her. As she stares, the light grows brighter, illuminating one of the tables she saw when she first entered the room. With a curiosity that she cannot control, she moves to a standing position and starts to take a tentative step forward.

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Purchase Links for The Defender

Amazon Kobo

AppleBooks/iTunes The Book Depository

Waterstones Smashwords BN

Signed copies and gift sets are available on Etsy!

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The Defender by Larissa Soehn published by Tellwell Talent on November 12, 2021

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I love my Amazon Kindle Unlimited Subscription. So many books, so little time!

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About Larissa Soehn

Larissa Soehn is a budding new author from the cozy city of Red Deer, Alberta, where she lives with her husband, daughter, two cats, and a dog.

She started this journey as a recovery method for severe depression. She found that creative writing helped her process her emotions and work through the struggles of depression.

As a child, Larissa enjoyed writing and telling stories, a passion that has recently reignited inside of her.

Currently, she is working to finalize the Gatlin Series, as well as publish a series of children's books to help families discuss the importance of mental health, amongst other social issues facing children today.

Larissa is an advocate for mental health and uses her personal experiences to help others work through their struggles. She uses social media platforms to help spread her message and give people permission to speak up and speak out.

Facebook | Goodreads | Amazon | Instagram

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Guest Post from Larissa Soehn: How to Write a Book… Without Losing your Mind

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times, writing a book is hard! To write a book takes discipline and dedication, motivation, and inspiration. It’s not something that you just jump into and bang out in two weeks.

Okay, so that’s not entirely true in my case. The Defender started out as one of our Mystery Escape Room games, but as I was writing it, and the story started to unfold, I realized the potential that my characters had. At the time of writing, I was just starting to enter the recovery phase of a major depressive episode. To say that I needed a win, was an understatement. Enter, Alexia Harmon.

But this post isn’t about her, it’s about how I wrote her story, without going insane. When I started writing The Defender, at that point known fondly as ‘book’, I was in a pretty unstable place mentally. But there were some plus sides to where I was at,

I wasn’t working. This meant I had dedicated time for writing
My daughter was in daycare. Again, this gave me the time I needed to sit down and focus
I desperately needed a creative outlet, queue creative writing.

When I started, I found that I could sit for 6-8 hours straight and write. The words just poured from me. Before I knew it, I had an 85,000-word book. But let’s be real, that’s not how it works in the real world. In my ‘normal’ life, I am a mother, employee, student, author, small business owner, and wife. If all those things had overlapped, I would have been slowed down to a snail’s pace. So, when I started writing books two and three, things were different in my life.

Writing switched from full-time focus to an afterthought. So to keep my progress going, I had to set goals. Here are a few of my more successful tips;

Set a time limit. I could only spend about 45-60 minutes a day writing, otherwise, I found myself feeling guilty for missing out or neglecting the other parts of my life. By having a goal, I could carve out the time I needed, and then happily shut my computer when it was over.
Be consistent. I wrote every day for months. It may not have always been for 60 minutes, but I always made time to write at least a page. It kept the creative juices flowing.
Write when passion strikes, or take a break when you hit the wall. This one is tricky. For me, passion could strike in the middle of the night, so I would get up and write for a few hours until I felt tired enough to go back to sleep. On the flip side, I had my fair share of writer’s block and this meant I had to take breaks. Don’t worry, I didn’t break tip number 2, I still wrote every day, but sometimes I would write a page just to come back and delete it the next day. This brings me to my last rule.
There are no mistakes in writing. I never looked at those pages as mistakes. If I had, I may have gotten discouraged and given up writing altogether. Instead, I looked at them as ways to decide what was the best future for the story. “Well, that didn’t work, let’s try another direction”.

Back to the main topic, how do you write a book without losing your mind? Truthfully, no one can tell you exactly what will work for you, but I can tell you that it can be done. Sure, you will hit bumps along the road, but I promise you it will be worth it. If you are consistent and dedicated, anything is possible.

Good luck to all you amazing writers! May you continue to write epic stories that make your soul happy!