My Grim Life is now available in paperback and on Kindle! I want to send a big THANKS! to everyone who pre-ordered, and who has ordered since. Unfortunately, the signed copies are not quite live yet, because I have yet to receive the paperback copies to actually sign. Right now they are scheduled for delivery on the 9th, and I hope to have them setup for sale on the Keyboard Monkey store ASAP. In the mean time, My Grim Life has taken over the Riley Custom Guitar shop, with (3) book inspired 3-string guitars available. The Perfectly Punk RG13 guitar sports the Keyboard Monkey logo, the Totally Punked Out RG10 has the My Grim Life lettering on the front and the skull logo on the back, and the Grunge Gunner ammo can guitar has the Lettering and logo. Each guitar will ship with a signed copy of the book as well. Future plans include a hardcover version of the book as well as a special guitar giveaway. I hope to have both of these ready in time for Christmas.
My Life As Death was the working title from the moment I started writing the book. I loved the juxtaposition of Life and Death, but the title never really rolled off your tongue like I wanted. As one person stated, “You have to think about it”. That’s not always a bad thing, but I was just never quite satisfied with it. Then, a few weeks ago, a google search showed another book by that name. Now, a lot of books share names, and there’s nothing wrong with it. And the other book is a novella that shares nothing in common with my book, but from a marketing perspective it really was best to change it. So let me introduce the new cover, sporting the new title. What do you think?
And the guitar? Well, the black, “Totally Punked Up” RG10 3-string guitar is the first in a series of guitars for the book, and for the beginning of Keyboard Monkey Publishing. More details will be released in the near future about all the guitars, the book and how you can purchase them, so stay tuned.
After getting kicked out of high school, I never thought I’d go to college. Ten years later I convinced myself to pursue a degree in Computer Application Development in order to have a career that would better provide for my family. The funny thing is, that by the time I completed that degree my career took off in a completely different direction, focusing on graphic, color and material, and CAD design. I worked with a lot of great people and had a lot of great experiences, but after 20 years with that company, I felt a need to change direction, so in 2018 I left, unsure of what was next. Freelancing provided time for me to pick a direction, but Covid really was the catalyst that made me decide to go back to school and pursue a second degree, this time focusing on Mechanical Engineering Technologies. And I am pleased to say that Monday night was my final class for this degree. The final grades haven’t been posted yet, but for all intents and purposes, I am done. In a funny twist of fate, my career decided to take a little different direction about six months ago, and even though I am in an engineering position, my main projects are more focused on Computer Application Development then on Engineering Technologies, but I love the job and the company, so it all worked out. The only question is, “Now what?” For the last couple years I have structured my life around school, so now that I’m done, I will have to decide what projects I want to focus on the most (besides the projects directed by the wife). The guitar building is still going strong so I know I will continue working on them, but I don’t think I’m going to dedicate a whole lot of additional time to that pursuit. I enjoy it, but I feel I’ve been spending the right amount of time on it. What I have not been spending enough time on is my writing. MLAD has been done for quite a while, but I really haven’t done anything with it yet. It’s time to get it out in the world. And while I have been working on the sequel, it’s only about half done, and I plan on having it completed this year. I also plan on finishing the sequel to The Consciousness Puzzle soon. In order to do this, I’m going to have to spend a lot more time with my butt in the chair, pounding on the keyboard, so I guess that’s my plan going forward…Butt in chair, hands on keyboard. I’m sure I’ll come up with plenty of other, creative projects to fill my time, but I really want to have at least two books out this year, and preferably three. It’s going to be a huge undertaking but I have a lot me free time now, so stick around to see how it turns out.
I am still pursuing publishing options for MLAD, but in the mean time, I want to make sure anyone who wants to read it, can. I love this story so I want to make sure it stays available for anyone and everyone. I am also continuing to work on the sequel, but I will not be serializing the continuing adventures of Nate and Weed here, or elsewhere. I’ve got many projects going on so I cannot guarantee I will be able to complete a chapter each week. But I’m starting my final class for my engineering degree, and my career has stabilized, so I do plan on posting a new entry on this blog each week, so stay tuned for updates on MLAD, its sequel, and the other novels I’m currently working on, as well as descriptions of the new guitars I’m building as well.
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.
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.
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.
So I managed to finish the fall semester of school just before getting hit with some sort of bug that kicked my ass. Thankfully, I was able to submit my first proposal for My Life As Death to an agent before I ended up sick and unproductive for a couple weeks. Unfortunately, she didn’t feel the project was right for her. So I’m still looking for an agent, but I’m also starting to recover from whatever this is so I’ve already started submitting elsewhere.
I’m also feeling good enough to start working on other projects again so today I plan on getting some writing done, I just haven’t decided which book I’ll be working on. The sequel to My Life As Death is definitely one of my priorities, but several months ago I completely plotted out an action/adventure/mystery/sci-fi story that keeps popping back into my head. And one thing I’ve learned over the years is to listen when my inner voice is trying to tell me something, so I have a feeling that is the direction I will be going, at least for a little while.
The weather is also pretty decent for December here in Ohio, so I will probably try to do some work outside before the weather changes. I know I won’t get everything done that I want to, but bouncing between those few projects should make for an enjoyable week.
Hello! There’s been so much going on but I want to keep this kind of brief, so I won’t go into too much detail over each project in this post.
First off, the guitar I shared in my last post was RG13-0002. I love how it turned out with a split humbucker, but I didn’t get to enjoy it too long because I had a customer waiting for it before it was even done. Here’s the finished product:
I also finished a 3-string license plate guitar but I haven’t got it put up online yet:
Additionally, I’ve got 6 other guitars I’m currently working on, so that’s where most of my free time has gone lately, not that I have a lot of free time between work and school.
Speaking of work, I’m now 3 months into my new job, and I still love it. The company I work for, and the people I work with are great. And while I probably won’t stay in the same position once I complete my schooling, I’m very happy doing it now and I have plenty of opportunities with this company once I get my engineering degree.
As for writing, I’ve been doing some, but not nearly as much as I want to. When I do take the time to write, I have been continuing to work on the sequel to My Life As Death. It feels like it’s starting off a little darker this time, but I’m also so early into it that I can’t say that for sure.
I’ve also been spending a lot of time getting my packet ready to submit to an agent. I found the agent I plan on submitting to first so I’m working on making sure I have everything to meet her requirements. Thankfully what she is asking for is pretty standard for the industry, so a week or two after I submit to her I will start researching other agents and I can pretty much use the same submission package for them as well. I know a lot of people suggest submitting to multiple agents at once, but she is the one I really want to go with, so I figure I’ll give her a week or two headstart.
So that’s a quick recap of all the projects keeping me from updating this blog as often as I should. I plan on updating a little more often, but now that MLAD is done, I will probably start sharing more posts on my guitar making processes. Every guitar is a little different but the various processes are generally similar for each.
Now that My Life As Death is done and the last chapter has been posted, I had to decide what’s next. Last week I tried moving on to several other books that I’d been working on. A couple of them are really close to being finished, and I made a little progress on each, but none of them really took off. So eventually I gave in and listened to what my creative mind was telling me. That means, I started working on the sequel to MLAD.
Unfortunately, the fall semester starts tomorrow, and between working full time and going to school full time, I don’t think I’ll be getting as much writing done as I like, so I won’t be serializing this one on my blog. Sorry, to those of you looking forward to the next chapter in Nate’s adventure.
I’ve also been selling more guitars, and having to build new ones to replace them, so I have no idea how long it will take for me to finish the next book, but I will be posting updates on this blog, and on facebook.
For now, though, here’s a picture of my latest guitar build:
Keyboard Monkeys 