Latest / Voices for Voices® / Leanna Shields turns challenges into creative opportunities through her clean, cozy mysteries. | Episode 207

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Leanna Shields turns challenges into creative opportunities through her clean, cozy mysteries. | Episode 207 · Voices for Voices®

• 0:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: Welcome to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV film podcast.
• 0:07
  Justin Alan Hayes: I'm your host.
• 0:09
  Justin Alan Hayes: Founder and Executive Director of Voices for Voices, justin.
• 0:13
  Leanna Shields: Allen.
• 0:13
  Justin Alan Hayes: Hayes, thank you for joining us today and for tuning in to our well over 205 episode catalog of shows, and we are we're reaching global, over 50 countries, 150 cities.
• 0:32
  Justin Alan Hayes: It really grows by the episode and still can't do this without you.
• 0:37
  Justin Alan Hayes: So thanks for tuning in wherever you're at, whether you're viewing this or whether you're listening on one of the audio platforms as well.
• 0:48
  Justin Alan Hayes: So we're going to go ahead and jump right in to introduce our guest and we're going to, like we always do, have a conversation and share some information that I think some of our viewers and listeners may be interested in and hopefully will help her career in getting back on track due to, as you've seen on other videos, some unfortunate circumstances.
• 1:27
  Justin Alan Hayes: So we want to introduce our guest.
• 1:34
  Justin Alan Hayes: This is a Zoom episode, remote at home, that's why you're seeing a little bit of different in the background than in the studio or from other backgrounds, and so our guest is Leanna Shields.
• 1:49
  Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for joining us today.
• 1:52
  Leanna Shields: Thank you for having me on.
• 1:53
  Leanna Shields: This is a big honor to be on here.
• 2:00
  Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you to have you choose our platform to be able to share your message, awareness and a little bit about who you are and being a successful author.
• 2:16
  Justin Alan Hayes: While also being dyslexic, I myself have quite a few mental challenges, from depression to anxiety, adhd and on the shorter spectrum of autism, with lights and sounds really bother me.
• 2:44
  Justin Alan Hayes: With lights and sounds really, really, really bother me, uh.
• 2:49
  Justin Alan Hayes: So it's good to uh somebody like like yourself who is really living it every day and you're dealing with that on top of whatever publicity good, bad and different it's it's going on, so you maybe share how you became an author.
• 3:05
  Leanna Shields: Oh, I've been writing since well.
• 3:10
  Leanna Shields: Okay, I could go further back and say I've been creating characters since probably the fourth grade.
• 3:15
  Leanna Shields: I was bullied a lot in grade school which what kid?
• 3:21
  Leanna Shields: Usually isn't at that age but I had created for myself around 20 different imaginary characters or imaginary friends, and they weren't like the average.
• 3:39
  Leanna Shields: I just use their quotes for podcast listeners.
• 3:42
  Leanna Shields: Imaginary friends One was like a winged lion that had three cubs let's see flying rams.
• 3:54
  Leanna Shields: There were.
• 3:55
  Leanna Shields: Just they were very unique and I was always interested in mythology and fantasy stuff.
• 4:06
  Leanna Shields: I call myself a mythology nerd.
• 4:09
  Leanna Shields: I like to look around at different cultures and see their mythology and sometimes I get really excited if I find similarities between two different cultures in their mythologies.
• 4:31
  Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, so when you got started, were you nervous, or was this maybe a little bit of an outlet that you were?
• 4:47
  Leanna Shields: it was more of an outlet because I was homeschooled and, while it does not sound like it, writing was my, my recess.
• 4:53
  Leanna Shields: Basically, I was homeschooled in high school.
• 4:55
  Leanna Shields: The public school system was not doing well for me and my mom took me out, decided to quit her job and start her own business to homeschool me best thing that ever happened I actually learned I could learn, because the public school system had not found out I was dyslexic.
• 5:21
  Leanna Shields: Until again the same age I started creating characters fourth grade.
• 5:26
  Leanna Shields: I had lost a lot of crucial learning in that time, so yeah, and I think that's, that's a big big part of what.
• 5:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: How like the optics of on the outside, it's, it's and.
• 5:44
  Justin Alan Hayes: I think it's still like that and in a lot of instances today, where people want to put individuals with a particular challenge and in a silo or in a box and say, if you have this, if you're dyslexic, then you have all these traits and you can't do this and we're not even going to try and we're going to do things kind of the way we always did things, as opposed to actually leaning in and finding out that you know that clearly you have a ton of talent, and not just for your for yourself, but but to be shared with the world.
• 6:25
  Justin Alan Hayes: So for people on the outside to say, oh well, leanna is this or Justin is this, and I think it's half the battle, and so for you to persevere through that, I think it's huge for listeners and viewers.
• 6:44
  Justin Alan Hayes: Life is obviously going to be rocky.
• 6:49
  Justin Alan Hayes: There's going to be ups and downs, um, and it's harder to maybe at times persevering day at a time, minute at a time's.
• 7:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: Sometimes all we can really do to continue on.
• 7:06
  Justin Alan Hayes: And then, as you did find that outlet, you started to understand more that you're able to learn and you're able to do a lot of things that individuals wanted to put you in a box and say, oh, she can't do this.
• 7:21
  Justin Alan Hayes: So, like when I'm going to offer this particular subject or or this level, because, for whatever reason.
• 7:29
  Justin Alan Hayes: So I want to say thank you for you know, persevering and even getting through that, because we're finding a lot of people that that that kind of holds people up, um, and saying, okay, well, what am I going to do about it?
• 7:44
  Justin Alan Hayes: Who's going to listen to me?
• 7:45
  Justin Alan Hayes: Who's going to be on my side?
• 7:48
  Justin Alan Hayes: And that's part of the organization.
• 7:50
  Justin Alan Hayes: Voices for Voices is to be able to give platform to people like yourself.
• 7:57
  Justin Alan Hayes: That you're completely fine, we all are.
• 8:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: Every human being has some thing going on, and whether it's diagnosed or not, so thank you for that.
• 8:14
  Justin Alan Hayes: So that's, I think, a big thing to have persevered and kept that confidence with you to this day.
• 8:26
  Leanna Shields: Yeah, and when it comes to even the dyslexia, it has.
• 8:35
  Leanna Shields: Actually, I don't.
• 8:37
  Leanna Shields: One thing that's helped me is finding great editors.
• 8:41
  Leanna Shields: With writing is finding editors who actually love your characters and can see the the life in them.
• 8:53
  Leanna Shields: Shall we say, when I first started writing uh, my series mystic ranch mysteries which I love writing, by the way, it's one of my favorite things I ever wrote I I started with sci-fi and that was fun, but I am not well versed in the sci-fi world, shall we say.
• 9:22
  Justin Alan Hayes: I am more versed in the fantasy world, um, but actually Mystic Ranch was one of my scariest projects, for decided to write a Native American character because I don't see those very often in fiction right, agree, and you wanted to be, you wanted to have representation of your, your heritage, your background, and I think that's that that probably made things a little bit easier from that, because there's certain things you might not have to research as much because you have that innate knowledge of that oh, it was still a lot of research, because I was not as fully raised in it as as you might expect.
• 10:32
  Leanna Shields: Um, for, like my third book, I had to research.
• 10:37
  Leanna Shields: And don't get me wrong when I say research, it wasn't boring research, it wasn't slogging through.
• 10:43
  Leanna Shields: For me it was just like, oh, input, input, input, and I had to research, uh, the wedding customs for the chakta, like they they're used.
• 11:01
  Leanna Shields: They used to have a special wedding dance that was fascinating to research yeah, and I think what you just explained there where it's work.
• 11:18
  Justin Alan Hayes: But it was interesting work so it didn't as much feel it didn't feel as much like work where it's just looking into something that you have no idea about, that you're not interested in, and so by having that interest, I think that is.
• 11:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: That is helpful, and I think some of our viewers and listeners can really just listen and watch and they don't always have to go super one way or another.
• 11:56
  Justin Alan Hayes: There might be things that they're already doing, that they're a part of that they can do.
• 12:02
  Justin Alan Hayes: That they can do.
• 12:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: Maybe they don't have to have as much education or certificates or whatever those things may be.
• 12:10
  Justin Alan Hayes: They might not have to have, and so that's great You're able to do that.
• 12:17
  Justin Alan Hayes: And is that book available by chance, phil?
• 12:21
  Leanna Shields: Oh yes, all of the Mystic Ranch Mysteries, uh, book one through three, are currently available on amazon.
• 12:29
  Leanna Shields: Uh, book one is sparks of suspicion, book two is stock show stalker, and book three is curses and vows and how?
• 12:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: about how?
• 12:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: Many pages, just for um ball.
• 12:45
  Leanna Shields: They run around 150 to 200 pages.
• 12:48
  Leanna Shields: Okay, sparks of Suspicion is the longest, because, well, it's the first book and has the most to say and the most to introduce, right yeah.
• 12:59
  Justin Alan Hayes: Right yeah, and by allowing us to be able to talk to you and speak with you and get your experience and what you love and what you like to do, and let people know about the work that you have done and then the work that you're you're still doing, because there's, as as we know, um, some publicity, some press that's out there and in in the space where, uh, where you're currently uh a little bit, and so we want to definitely wrap our arms around you to be able to highlight these types of things because your books are clean, they are for age appropriate, which is part of what the publicity and that's been with what our listeners and viewers have probably seen the last couple weeks heavily.
• 14:09
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so yeah so Leanna's books, they're clean, they're age-appropriate, so whatever ages she says they're for, that's where the content is.
• 14:21
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so children, whatever those ages may be, and you can maybe explain a little bit of that um and and why it's so important to you to have well, I write cozy mysteries.
• 14:37
  Leanna Shields: Um, well, I write cozy mysteries and I I love them because they are as you said.
• 14:49
  Leanna Shields: They're clean, they um.
• 14:52
  Leanna Shields: A cozy mystery has a very set set of rules there.
• 14:56
  Leanna Shields: There's no sex on the page uh, keeping cussing to him too mild.
• 15:06
  Leanna Shields: If there is any, um, being murder itself is not seen on screen.
• 15:11
  Leanna Shields: Um, they're a very good way to just escape and you get a sense of a little community and getting to know the characters through their day-to-day and there just happens to be a little mystery that the main character has to solve.
• 15:36
  Leanna Shields: They're good for, I'd say, junior high strong reader to up.
• 15:50
  Justin Alan Hayes: Okay, yeah.
• 15:52
  Leanna Shields: And I only say strong reader, because I tend to get a little wordy sometimes.
• 15:56
  Leanna Shields: Oh, I do.
• 16:00
  Justin Alan Hayes: It's like condense, you don't need to.
• 16:04
  Leanna Shields: You can do it a different way.
• 16:05
  Justin Alan Hayes: So, yeah, I totally grasp that Junior high reader and above, and I think that's just so important to have good, plain written stories that actually align with what what age is and where they're at in school.
• 16:31
  Justin Alan Hayes: Um, you know, we see advertisements on tv or youtube and everything's made to look the absolute best possible but then when you go to buy it it's like wait, that cheeseburger is not that big, or the fries or the car doesn't look as fine when I go to the dealer or what have you.
• 16:50
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so there's a little bit of I think a little bit of bait there's.
• 16:54
  Justin Alan Hayes: I understand more than you and David that fall into that boat.
• 17:13
  Justin Alan Hayes: They're like, hey, we're writing good, clean stories and we don't want to be kind of caught up in what's happening, which is a little bit of the fruit of how this interview came about.
• 17:33
  Justin Alan Hayes: And again, thank you for allowing us to be able to just talk to you and get your feedback, good experiences, and then definitely be able to share, if there's other books, other stories, how people can get in touch with you, how they can get in touch with your work where they can find it, because we want to uplift people, we want to take people down.
• 18:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: We want to uplift people, and somebody like yourself that is putting your hard-earned time, attention, resources into the work that you do deserves to have a fair shake on things.
• 18:17
  Justin Alan Hayes: So yeah, other stories, other things that maybe are in the works.
• 18:26
  Justin Alan Hayes: People can look out for just kind of plug, whatever you want.
• 18:36
  Leanna Shields: Well, I have a lot of irons in the fire.
• 18:39
  Leanna Shields: Let's say say, um, I not only write, but I also run a podcast called cappy's cozy chair where I interview you all authors, in the cozy genre, which it goes beyond the mysteries that I write.
• 18:57
  Leanna Shields: Um, there's hey, if anyone out there writes cozy sci-fi, cozy romance, cozy spy fiction which I just learned is a thing please reach out to me through.
• 19:12
  Leanna Shields: I need to update my website for the show because I recently changed the name of the show from the cozy the sleuth to cappy's cozy cat, the cozy sleuthcom, and I will get back to you.
• 19:27
  Leanna Shields: Yeah, um, also, I'm.
• 19:34
  Leanna Shields: I've got tons of other stories out there.
• 19:36
  Leanna Shields: Uh well, not tons, but I do have my first ever science fiction book that I wrote when I was just getting out of college, and it's called the illustrious chronicles slaves redeemed.
• 19:56
  Leanna Shields: Um, that was a fun one to write.
• 19:59
  Leanna Shields: That was my first ever sci-fi.
• 20:01
  Leanna Shields: I also have a steampunk that was fun to write called the Clockwork Golem, and a steampunk mystery set in the 1920s called the Art of Facts.
• 20:15
  Leanna Shields: Kind of think Indiana Jones meets.
• 20:23
  Leanna Shields: I'm trying to think of something that A really good example of steampunk, but basically the main character is a black woman who's an archaeologist in the 1920s a steampunk, sci-fi 1920s and that one was a lot of fun to write.
• 20:43
  Leanna Shields: She goes to Australia to look at a mysterious cave and whole lots of adventures with that.
• 20:54
  Leanna Shields: I'm also currently working on I haven't named it yet, but the main character is a kind of a werecat who runs a music and ice cream parlor in a small corner of it's going to be another mystery, so I got a lot of stuff going on yeah, and it keeps you.
• 21:24
  Justin Alan Hayes: I bet it keeps you busy that well, maybe there's a holding pattern on one project.
• 21:31
  Justin Alan Hayes: Because you're working on you know that we can only really truly focus on one thing at a time where it's good.
• 21:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: And I find, like even with myself, if there's multiple episodes that I'm editing and getting ready, that I can be at a different point where, oh well, I have the, I have the watermark, or I have certain with GoPro cameras and others, where they actually put up a 30 minute show into usually three or four smaller segments, and so it's that whole.
• 22:06
  Justin Alan Hayes: You got to merge all that together and it, and so there's just there's things that not everybody thinks about.
• 22:13
  Justin Alan Hayes: They think they see, you know they see us and listen to us and and think they're like, oh yeah, like a podcast, a tv show, and you know, there there's not much to it and it's good to have that look, because that means we're doing something right.
• 22:29
  Justin Alan Hayes: But there is still other things, as as with with with writing and creating characters that you have to have a character name and there has to be, I'm sure, like a I don't want to call like a card, but like a little profile, and you know, as you're doing things, so it's not as easy as like, oh okay.
• 22:49
  Justin Alan Hayes: Well, that would have been easy to write.
• 22:51
  Justin Alan Hayes: It's a little bit more, a little bit more in depth than that absolutely, um, the way I write is.
• 23:02
  Leanna Shields: I found a quote once that I love for describing the way I write.
• 23:07
  Leanna Shields: I create the character and then from then on, I take dictation.
• 23:11
  Leanna Shields: So a character will come like, say, my current character that I'm working on Leorna McSell is is her name and she comes, tells me your name.
• 23:26
  Leanna Shields: The rest of it is just basically me following her and it's like okay, I see what funny, because, oh yeah, editing goes with it.
• 23:51
  Leanna Shields: So much I often say it's amazing that my editors aren't just shaking their fists at the screen cursing my name, because I am horrible with punctuation.
• 24:04
  Leanna Shields: I second that for me, I like to say, when it comes to my punctuation, I am ancient Greek.
• 24:16
  Leanna Shields: There is no punctuation.
• 24:19
  Leanna Shields: That's accurate.
• 24:28
  Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, and I think that's good for others to watch and listen to.
• 24:30
  Justin Alan Hayes: You don't have to be an expert on every single aspect that you know if your car's not working, you want to take it to a mechanic and the like the things that we're good at we try to do ourselves and things that we're good at we try to do ourselves, and things that we may need a little bit of help.
• 24:50
  Justin Alan Hayes: But it's not a bad thing If we need help.
• 24:53
  Justin Alan Hayes: Obviously a book needs editing.
• 24:59
  Justin Alan Hayes: So it's kind of like, okay, you're going to do it or ask for that help, and being able to streamline those types of like okay, are you going to do it or ask for that help and being able to streamline those types of things at this point in your career, those are probably things you don't have to think about as much Because you know when you get to a certain milestone, you know that, okay, at this point, here's who I have to reach out to, here's what I need to do, whereas when you got started in the early years, you're still feeling that out.
• 25:34
  Justin Alan Hayes: I think that's important, no matter what it is.
• 25:37
  Justin Alan Hayes: If it's writing a book, if it's mental health, asking for help is not a bad thing.
• 25:51
  Leanna Shields: Absolutely.
• 25:51
  Leanna Shields: People say writing is a solitary venture.
• 25:54
  Leanna Shields: I find it's absolutely the opposite.
• 25:57
  Leanna Shields: Just like anything, you need your community around you.
• 26:09
  Leanna Shields: You need those who are experts in punctuation in something that you're not an expert in.
• 26:12
  Leanna Shields: Like.
• 26:13
  Leanna Shields: At one time, I needed my character to ride through a certain kind of rodeo event.
• 26:18
  Leanna Shields: Well, I had a friend who raises horses and did rodeo events.
• 26:23
  Leanna Shields: I gave her that scene and it's like is this uh realistic?
• 26:33
  Leanna Shields: Is this accurate?
• 26:41
  Justin Alan Hayes: yeah, no, it's excellent.
• 26:42
  Justin Alan Hayes: Um, and so we're coming to the close of our time.
• 26:46
  Justin Alan Hayes: Can you reiterate your podcast?
• 26:50
  Justin Alan Hayes: The books where they can be found and where to maybe get a?
• 26:55
  Justin Alan Hayes: They're able to follow you if you want to share social media or whatever you would prefer.
• 27:13
  Leanna Shields: Of course, my show is Cappy's Cozy Chair.
• 27:19
  Leanna Shields: Um, my books are the Mystic Ranch Mysteries, all available on Amazon, and most of my books will come up.
• 27:34
  Leanna Shields: You can also follow me on my website, leannashieldsauthorcom.
• 27:43
  Leanna Shields: And oh, that's another thing I need to update and get a real hitch on on.
• 27:53
  Leanna Shields: But yeah, you're good you will get news about what's going on with my books all that yeah, I'm pretty easy to find and talk to on social media.
• 28:04
  Leanna Shields: I'm, I'm there and just find me yeah, and, and you write it's gonna.
• 28:13
  Justin Alan Hayes: You write under your name, uh, right, so I mean Leanna Shields is where people are gonna be able to find you, like ghost writing it is.
• 28:22
  Justin Alan Hayes: Is that something that you have done or you?
• 28:27
  Justin Alan Hayes: You prefer to have your, your name?
• 28:29
  Leanna Shields: I've never ghostwritten.
• 28:30
  Leanna Shields: I always write my.
• 28:31
  Leanna Shields: I always write my main books under my name.
• 28:34
  Leanna Shields: I did write a couple children's books um curly pugsley, curly and pugsley's big adventure and curly and Pugsley's Big Adventure and Curly and Pugsley's Christmas Adventure under a pen named Anna Lee Shields, to sound more children's book friendly, yeah.
• 28:56
  Justin Alan Hayes: No no great.
• 28:58
  Leanna Shields: Do we miss?
• 28:58
  Justin Alan Hayes: anything that you were trying to share and get the word out.
• 29:04
  Leanna Shields: No, I think we covered everything no.
• 29:07
  Justin Alan Hayes: I think we covered everything Okay.
• 29:08
  Leanna Shields: I think we covered everything.
• 29:10
  Justin Alan Hayes: Okay, well, thank you so much, leanna, for stepping out and talking.
• 29:17
  Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, it's just a huge thing, no matter what, wherever somebody's at is, to come forward and to talk about the work, because there are good authors, there are good people that have books and content available that not everybody is in a different boat that there are.
• 30:08
  Justin Alan Hayes: There's good people, and so that's why we wanted to have you on because you're you're a good person and thank you again for being on well.
• 30:26
  Leanna Shields: Thank you for the opportunity.
• 30:28
  Leanna Shields: It's been great, and I don't get to be on this side of the microphone very often right, yeah, you're opposite, so, yeah, well, great.
• 30:37
  Justin Alan Hayes: Well, leanna shield has been our guest today.
• 30:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, whether you're watching, listening thanks again for for tuning in whether this is your first episode or you've been with us for the whole ride Check out Leanna Shields' work, help her.
• 30:57
  Justin Alan Hayes: Check out her books.
• 31:00
  Justin Alan Hayes: If you're able to make a purchase or two, uh, you'll please do clean books written for age appropriate, uh, age appropriate people and individuals.
• 31:12
  Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, check out her podcast and and, uh, if you're, if you're interested, definitely, uh, follow her.
• 31:20
  Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, check out her website and more to come on that.
• 31:25
  Justin Alan Hayes: So more is going to be added, and so next time, until next time.
• 31:30
  Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for joining us and please be a voice for you or somebody in need.