This was a story I dreamt up one lonely day in March during remote school. In a way, quarantine was pure bliss for me: I locked myself in my room and read, ordered books off of amazon, read some more, listened to music, traversed the depths of Wattpad, tried my hand at fanfiction, and repeated the cycle. In other ways, however, it was less-than-idea. With everyone in the house home, it was loud and hard to focus on menial schoolwork that was clearly given by teachers who were just as confused as the rest of the world. One of these assignments stuck out to me, however. It was a set of paired passages, the first being an excerpt of the 1954 short story "All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury, and the second being a nonfiction article about the possibilities of space colonization. As my eyes scanned the pages, finally interested in reading material for school in what seemed like ages, ideas took flight in my mind. I had just finished reading Veronica Roth's Divergent and was almost done with Veronica Rossi's fascinating Under the Never Sky, and my head was spinning with tales of a boy and a girl raised in protected, technology-run cities stumbling across unknown lands ravaged by monsters, environmental problems, and danger, meeting both friends and foe along the way. In the Midnight Blue has since been rewritten, re-outlined, revised, and revamped, but this initial concept remains roughly the same.

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ITMB is currently undergoing what I know will be its final first draft The story began as a trilogy, then spiraled out of control from December 2021 through November 2022 into a nine-book series with multiple spin-offs, casts of characters, and settings. The complex, epic monster that this project became during that time period was fun to dream about, and certainly had a hand in improving my worldbuilding skills, but it became far too much to work with. In fall of 2022, I lost all motivation, and even considered giving up. I couldn't, though. This book and its characters have been with me through everything over the past three years. A day hasn't gone by where I fail to think about this story and the characters who became so much more than my best friends. 

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And so, I took a break. I worked on other wips. Improved my craft. Called off all deadlines. Slowly, as December came and went, and 2022 melted into 2023, I started keeping an ITMB journal. I wrote out ideas and plots, some of which seemed to work, and others that didn't, or I simply had no passion for them. This continued until some time in October of 2023, when I finally had a good idea for what I truly wanted this story to be. My ultimate goal is to finish this final first draft by May or June of 2024, edit, and open up applications for early/beta readers in mid-July.

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Essentially, In the Midnight Blue is a young adult fantasy novel set among the stars. Magic is hunted by a ruthless government, rebel uprisings are brewing behind the scenes, and there's a magical training academy run by rebels.

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I have plans to make the main series a trilogy, and have a few shorter spin-offs diving into the povs and backstories of other characters featured in the main series! The first book is strictly from Lizzie and Gale's povs, though there may be additional pov chapters in the future books. This is of course subject to change, however.

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Anyway, wish me luck! If you have any questions, make sure to follow me on my Instagram account, @leigh_crescentbooks

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Note: This page of the website will expand to include basic world information and character profiles for In the Midnight Blue, though those pages are still under construction and therefore not visible to the public yet. Check back for more later!