See Lee Durfey-Lavoie take over our Twitter account!

This week YA author Lee Durfey-Lavoie took over our Twitter as a part of our weekly Thursday Twitter Takeover. Lee Durfey-Lavoie is the author of JUST ROLL WITH IT. (See YEM’s interview of Lee Durfey-Lavoie here.) See highlights from the takeover below.

And THIS is JUST ROLL WITH IT, our debut graphic novel! #YAauthortakeover pic.twitter.com/6XBrDNCoUc

— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) December 16, 2021

However JUST ROLL WITH IT didn’t always look like this! Maggie and her struggles with OCD and anxiety were pretty clear when @anuanew first thought up the idea for the story back in 2016. But outside of that….#YAauthortakeover

— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) December 16, 2021

From it’s initial run as a mini-comic to its release on 12/14 (this past Tuesday!) JUST ROLL WITH IT, it’s safe to say, expanded- into its current 300+ page form! Doing so required a LOT of help, and a lot of communication. #YAauthortakeover

— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) December 16, 2021

Maggie’s story, about her anxiety and OCD, and over coming it are deeply personal to @anuanew and myself. Our own struggles with mental health, and wanting to bring #MentalHealthAwareness to readers are what inspired us. #YAauthortakeover

— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) December 16, 2021

I thought that because I had made the mini and made an outline it would all just come out on the page. Not so easy actually! I struggled a lot connecting plot point A to plot point B, and also with motivation to actually get it done. #YAauthortakeover

— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) December 16, 2021

2 pages a day, every day, between 11am-2pm. That limit helped me stay on track, and when I wrote 5 or 10 pages a day I felt amazing! And if I couldn’t hit 2 pages I knew the next day I had to hit 4. Still an achievable number. So slowly but surely #YAauthortakeover

— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) December 16, 2021

The easiest part of making JUST ROLL WITH IT, because I had done the work of making the outline, was that I knew what my overall theme was. I knew the story beats I wanted to include. So when I struggled connecting plot points and scenes, I had a foundation…#YAauthortakeover

— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) December 16, 2021

Though it was still a surprise that when we were all done we had a script that was 300+ pages for a debut graphic novel! It was easily the longest thing I’d ever written! What I couldn’t predict through the process of writing it though was….#YAauthortakeover

— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) December 16, 2021

Though of course just because it’s Maggie’s story doesn’t mean she’s all by herself (even if she might feel that way at some points). @anuanew and I wanted to reflect the world as we knew it- filled with vibrant and wonderful people… #YAauthortakeover

— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) December 16, 2021

And speaking of a vibrant world @anuanew did a fantastic job of bringing hope and optimism to the story, even though there’s a lot of heavy topics discussed, through brilliant use of color and color motifs! #YAauthortakeover

— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) December 16, 2021

If you read JUST ROLL WITH IT and liked it the current market of graphic novels are for you! SO many wonderful, talented, and hard working creatives are making some of the best stories you can find in any media form right now. #YAauthortakeover

— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) December 16, 2021

Here are some of my favorite panels as a sneak peak! Featuring one of my favorite characters that Maggie is friends with- Laurel! #YAauthortakeover pic.twitter.com/NEMLWHkUUX

— Young Entertainment Magazine (@YoungEntmag) December 16, 2021