Category: Guitars

I’m Still Here

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5 months. That’s how long it’s been since I’ve posted here, so I’m long overdue for an update. School has been kicking my butt but thankfully my accelerated class finished last week, so now I’m only taking two classes each week and they’re both done by 8:30 at night, usually sooner. It also means that my homework is pretty much cut in half too, so I’m finally going to have a little free time to work on other things, I think.

Even though school has been taking up most of my free time, I have continued working on guitars. I went from building and selling a couple each month, to not even finishing one each month. I hate not being able to work on them, and continuing to build the business, but I know it’s only a temporary slow down.

There’s also been a temporary slow down in my writing, but I’m continuing to work on it as I can, as-well. The sequel to My Life As Death is currently over 14,000 words, and if you enjoyed the first one (still not available anywhere but this website… yet :)), then you’re definitely going to enjoy this one. Nate and Weed are maturing… a little… and having a blast with a lot of new experiences, while trying to navigate this thing called life…and death. I have no idea when it’ll be done, or when I’ll even share a little of it with you guys, but I can’t wait. I’ve already realized that this will be a trilogy, and I know how it ends, so I’m excited to fins out everything that happens in-between.

I’ve got a few other writing projects in the works, and I’ll share those details eventually as-well, but for now I’m keeping them to myself. One thing I will share with you, and I’ve literally shared this with only two other people so far, is the fact that I will most likely be starting a new job. When I left work today, I had a voicemail about a new position I’d interviewed for a couple weeks ago. Nothing is official yet, but I was told they’re working through the process with HR and I should be receiving an offer next week. This could throw a wrench into everything, because the position is one that will require a whole lot of learning and effort on my part, but I’m up for any new adventure.

So, there’s the long over-due update. Hopefully it won’t be another 5 months before the next one.

An Ideal Day – Almost

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For some reason I woke up early yesterday, even after going to bed much later than usual. Based on this, I really didn’t have high expectations for the day but I was pleasantly surprised. After finishing my coffee, I headed to my laptop and got some writing done. The sequel to The Consciousness Puzzle has been almost done for quite a while, but I wasn’t completed happy with a couple parts, though I didn’t know why. Listening to the Writing Excuses podcast has helped me identify what I need to do to help the story, so I decided to work on it and I made some nice progress.

When I got to a good stopping point on the writing, I moved in to my school work and managed to get that done. Afterwards, I wanted to do some guitar work, but the weather here in my part of Ohio made standing out in an uninsulated shed sound less appealing, so instead I stayed on the laptop, but switched over worked on a couple new guitar designs.

After working on the guitar designs, I actually got a great workout. I used to workout routinely, but the past year and a half has conspired against me and my workouts, so I was really happy with how well I did and how my body responded. Work, school and all my extracurricular activities will still make it difficult to get back into it as much as I would like, but I’ll be happy if I can get this type of workout twice a week.

Even with shoveling, showering and cooking dinner, I still had plenty of time to actual read for fun. I don’t spend nearly enough time reading, so it has taken way to long to get through even the second book of the Maze Runner series, but I’m enjoying it, even at this slow pace.

So all-in-all, Sunday was just about an ideal day for me. The only way it could have been better was if it was 70-75 degrees and I could have gotten on the motorcycle and out in my shed. I hope your Sunday was as good as mine.

Looking for an Agent

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Today I received my second rejection letter. It was once again a courteous one, but it was also quite evidently a form letter so I didn’t get any direct feedback. One thing I was able to gather from it is that I might need to tweak my description. It’s a little hard to say for sure, though, because the only explanation was “Unfortunately, the project you describe does not suit our list at this time.” Maybe I’m not describing it well enough to catch their attention or maybe they just aren’t looking for a YA novel about a teen protagonist who has to kill people. It’s really hard say. One thing I do know, is that with each subsequent submission I have continued to make slight adjustments to my pitch, which I hope has improved it.

This rejection came from a submission I made two weeks ago, so I am cautiously optimistic that this two week turn around might be the norm, rather than the exception, though most of the places I’ve submitted to have stated turn around times of six weeks to six months, so maybe it is just rejections that have the quicker turn around. All I really know, is that I will continue submitting to agents and publishing houses and eventually, My Life As Death will be picked up. In the mean-time, I’ll keep writing and building guitars like this one I just finished today:

I’ve got a little more setup to do (mainly intonation and adding the serial number tag and strap buttons) but even though a customer said one of my previous builds “almost plays itself”, from a playability standpoint, this is probably the best guitar I’ve made. It plays so easily but I’m not 100% sure why. I do have a few ideas though, so hopefully I can keep that going with all my future builds.

A Productive Holiday Break

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It’s the last day of the holiday break which means tomorrow I have to return to my day job. I really don’t mind it going to work but I know I’m not going to have as much time as I want to continue working on all the projects I’ve got going. Thankfully, even though it started off with me not feeling well, I did end up having a pretty productive break. I’ve managed to complete some guitars and even sold this RG9 (serial number 0006) minutes after it went up online:

I also managed to query a few literary agents, which was a huge project on my to-do list. I think My Life As Death has a great shot at commercial success, so I decided long ago that it would be the one I use to get an agent. So far I’ve only received one rejection, and it was a very nice one, so I’m not discouraged yet. I also plan on continuing to query more agents, especially as others start to open up to submissions now that the New Year has started.

And probably just as important to my the well-being of my writing career, I’ve finally been able to get more writing done. School will be starting back up soon, so I know my time will become even more limited, but the writing is flowing nicely, so I expect to continue making progress on a couple of the books I have in the works. I don’t know if I will be sharing any of them on this site, but I will definitely keep you up-to-date with how they’re coming. And I’ll do the same with the guitars as well.

Feeling Better

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So, after about a month of dealing with this bug I’m finally starting to feel like myself again which means that I want to jump right in and start working on everything I haven’t been able to touch for the past several weeks. The weather isn’t cooperating completely, which does limit a little of what I can do, but I’ve already gone for a couple (extremely disappointing) runs, gotten some writing done and made some progress on a couple guitar builds that have been collecting dust for way too long. I’ve also queried a couple more agents for My Life As Death and will try to submit to at least one more today. All in all, it’s been a pretty productive couple of days, and I still have a few more before I have to return to work.

And now that I’m feeling better, I hope to update this blog a little more often. And hopefully I’ll have something to report in regards to an agent before too long. In the meantime, feel free to check out my completed guitars for sale: https://www.etsy.com/shop/RileyCustomGuitars