Category: Writing

What Now?

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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.

My Life As Death on Wattpad

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Hey Guys! I know many of you read My Life As Death here as I was writing it, but for those who haven’t read it, or those wanting an easy way to read it again, I have put it up on Wattpad here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/255746411-my-life-as-death-a-grim-beginning.

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.

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.

New Opportunities

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Amazon really created the whole e-book and indie-author revolution. And they’ve been the best choice for many, many authors since 2007. I was a little late to the party, publishing my first book in 2013, but they were still the biggest and best option for me. I experimented with trying other platforms over the years, but staying exclusive with Amazon always proved to be the right choice, until now.

I am happy to announce, that each of my books is now available on every e-book platform, as well as paperback. Additionally, hardback editions will be coming in the near future. I’m not sure what direction I will be going with future books, but right now I want to make sure my books are available to the largest audience, so you can find links to them on your favorite platforms including Apple, Kobo, Scribd, and more at:

23 hours – https://books2read.com/u/4AYNdo

The Consciousness Puzzle – https://books2read.com/u/baz1pv

The Dark Genesis of Daniel James – https://books2read.com/u/mVBdBZ

And from now until the end of March you can get each of them for only $0.99 everywhere except for Amazon!

Looking for Direction

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I’ve been bouncing around between a few writing projects lately and want to decide on one to focus on, so I reached out to the two people who have been supporting my writing from the beginning, my brother and sister. One suggested working on the sequel to The Consciousness Puzzle while the other was emphatic about me continuing on with the sequel to My Life As Death. Since I got no resolution from turning to them, I’m now turning to the readers of this blog. Please let me know what you think:

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.

Writing Excuses

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I started writing my first novel on March 4th 2011. By that time I already had a general plot and several characters in mind. I’d even researched how to write a novel, and used many of the suggestions to document the characters and plot. I was 10,000 words into it before I realized it was terrible. All the preparation and research I’d done did not help that story at all, but I did take some of the character attributes and the character arcs, and use them in the first novel I managed to complete. That one was The Dark Genesis of Daniel James.

After completing Dark Genesis and self publishing it, I kind of stopped actively learning how to write better. I’d completed one book, and most experts agreed that the best thing you could do to continue getting better at writing is to actually write, so that’s what I did. I wrote a few more books and published two more through KDP. I wrote the books that I wanted to write and enjoyed doing so, but because at some point I would like to actually have a full time writing career, I realized I needed to get back to actively trying to learn how to be a better writer. Thankfully, in this day and age, there are quite a few resources for this. One of most helpful to me lately has been the Writing Excuses podcast (https://writingexcuses.com/).

Each episode of the podcast is 15-20 minutes long (because you’re in a hurry and we’re not that smart), and provides a ton of insight from a group of successful writers, often times featuring other extremely successful authors as guests. They’re also hilarious. I started back at season 1 episode 1, and I’ve made it up to season 6 episode 20. I’ve already learned so much, and I still have 11 more seasons to go until I’m caught up to their current episode. I can’t wait to see how much more I learn from this group. So for anyone looking for an easy way to learn from great authors, I highly recommend checking them out.

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