Between bits of freelance work here and there, blogging, my own writing, and life, I’ve been pretty busy. When I check off one thing from my to-do list, five more things seem to get added.

I’ve talked about it this before. In fact, I’m sure I’ve talked about it a couple times. I’m trying to create a steady schedule and routine for myself for all the work I need/want to do.

Some months are easier than others, but, like I said, my to-do list grows faster than it shrinks.

I’ve created deadlines for everything I want to do – some I’m going to end up missing. Which is okay. I can’t do everything all at once.

A big problem I have is that I focus a lot more on my blog than I do my writing – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, my blog needs a lot of attention. However, I’m barely getting any writing done, despite my blog posts talking about all these projects I’m working on. I need a better balance to give my characters the spotlight they’ve been craving for so long.

So, that’s why this update is strictly for my writing.

My Schedule

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know I create monthly goals. Since I’ve been working on multiple novels, I try to spend each month working on different stages of each novel – outlining, writing, editing, rewriting. It’s a lot, but it’s actually been working for me, as crazy as it is.

My biggest problem is time. I’ll tell myself I can work on a couple projects on certain days and then things in real life will happen or something will happen with the blog that I’ll need to take care of. So this is something I need to account for. I won’t get to everything on my daily to-do list – again, which is fine since I can’t do everything at once – but I don’t think I work on the “high priority” stuff first.

Wattpad

I had a few novella ideas for Wattpad. I had planned on publishing 4 stories, each of them being three months apart. Two have been published and are completed – The Scribe and Take Over – feel free to check them out if you haven’t already.

Currently, I’m working on Brave, which I had originally planned on publishing in July. I outlined the story in April and was supposed to write the first draft in May and only ended up writing the prologue. I’m supposed to edit it in June but obviously, I can’t edit what I haven’t written. I’m not sure if I’ll try to have it done by the end of July or push everything back a month. This isn’t something I want to rush.

After Brave, I’ll be working on Silhouettes, which is supposed to be published in October, which might end up being November depending on how Brave goes.

I’ve already decided for 2019 that I think I’ll only publish 2-3 stories on Wattpad. I have a good schedule going, but with my other projects, I think it was too much. I still want to try to get Brave and Silhouettes out this year though.

So, long story short, I’m still working on Brave. It’ll just be later than originally planned.

Self-Publishing

When I started writing I always thought I’d go traditional. I’d get an agent and a book deal with a publishing company. I’ve even queried to agents – and some publishers – before. However, the more I write and the more research I do, I’ve realized self-publishing is the way to go for me (which I may explain in a later blog post).

I’ve been researching self-publishing and learning a lot about it as well as creating a timeline for the book(s) I plan on publishing.

Perplexed

This is a collection of mystery short stories that I’ve been working on since January. I was hoping to self-publish it in 2019 but I don’t have many short stories. It’s a lot harder to create mystery shorts than I thought. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but all the ideas I create star George and Lilah. I’ve thought about creating a collection of short stories featuring them, but not until after a few books from their series have come out.

So, Perplexed is going a lot slower than I thought. I’m still working on it, but I’m not giving myself a solid deadline anymore. I want to see what comes of it as inspiration hits. Though I still plan on working on it fairly regularly.

George Florence and the Perfect Alibi

Yes! I have finally come up with a title for the first book of the George Florence series that I have been working on since 2011!

But anyway, I plan on self-publishing this. I’ve gone through many drafts and have edited it a ton. It’s definitely time I kick George and Lilah out of the nest.

There’s still plenty of work to do, of course, but I’m planning on a 2019 release.

Other Projects

I have many novels I’m working on, but there’s one I’m working on monthly. It’s called Unwritten and I’ve been sending it to my writer’s group each month. I plan on giving it a deep edit in July (since my group won’t be meeting that month) so they’ll have a brand new draft to look at come August. And then, hopefully, I can edit the book each month after we meet to keep up polished… like I had planned to do originally and never did.

There’s also The Lost Girl, a book I had planned to start editing this summer, though I don’t think I’m going to get around to it. I feel like I have too many other projects to work on, so I’ll be putting it on the backburner.

For More Writing Updates

If you want to stay up to date with my writing, there are a few ways to do it.

Each month (unless I accidentally skip it like I did this month) I publish a WIP Wednesday post. It’s usually the second or third Wednesday of the month where I discuss what I’m currently working on and such.

You can check out the My Books page. I update it pretty regularly. It’s just a list of what I’m working on and what stage each project is in.

You can subscribe to my newsletter. It’s free and while I’m still playing around with what I want to do with it, it’s a great place for resources for yourself as well as updates from me and more.

You can check out my Patreon and Ko-fi pages where I post regular updates.

Thanks for reading this whole post if you made it this far. I didn’t think it’d turn out this long. I hope you’re just as excited as I am for self-publishing and all my projects!

How is your writing going? Let me know in the comments below. If you liked this post, please share it around.

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the-aqueous-transmission

Title: The Aqueous Transmission
Author: Mike Eye
Published: December 2016 by Fastpencil Publishing
Genre: Science-fiction (visionary and metaphysical fiction)
How I got the book: I received a free digital copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Summary:

IN A DYING WORLD NOT UNLIKE OUR OWN, two elemental forces are controlling two avatar demigods who seek to perpetuate the planet’s existence by reshaping a new world in a certain way after it has finally fallen to a post-apocalyptic state. On the One side we have Mother Magdalena, a strong and fierce pregnant Hankerhawk woman of the Earthen Bry Dellows who will be faced with the challenge of reviving humanity in a changed, desolate, dark world with no living creature in sight. On the other side we have Al Rodnam, a wise, old Sirian guru mystic who has much love for the dying world of Earth and is the last of his kind, the Godheds, who had helped Mother Magdalena restart civilization One age prior. Both personas will cross paths and have to help each other meet the commands of their elemental forces.

Meanwhile, throughout it all, Magdalena is continuously haunted by the shade of a mysterious man she somehow feels fiercely attracted to and also reminds her of someone important she had met Once, someone she had Once loved… Upon giving birth to her child, Magdalena feels compelled to search for this man, wherever his real person may be, fully believing the man to not only still be alive, but to in fact be the Last Godhed of whom she had been searching for for a long, long time. However, we come to find that the shade of this familiar man, although not in fact the Last Godhed, is indeed the Last Godhed’s fully manifest Shadow Identity toying with the Mother. Once the prerequisites for Magdalena and her High sisters are met, Al Rodnam must use his High powers to help beckon the Mother to his Shadow. But first, there must be a divine transformation through a magical pond located at a secret, special spot upon the ruins of the destroyed Earth, a spot that’ll help shift the gears of the story up a couple of notches in an extremely powerful and enchanting way, but not consciously quite exactly the way in which either avatar was ever expecting…

My Review:

rp-first-thoughts

When the author contacted to review his debut science-fiction novel, I’ll admit I was hesitant. The novel sounded intriguing, but I don’t typically read science-fiction. However, it’s always good to try something new and that’s what I did.

rp-plot

We get a great sense of the what the world is like the moment the story begins. Magdelena is trying to figure out what is going on as she experiences some memory loss and notices the world around her is dark and empty.

I felt as though the plot took a little while to get started as Magdelena was alone. There was a lot of narrative and it was well written, but the longer it went on, the more it became redundant. When the plot was finally in motion, it was executed well and moved at a steady pace.

rp-characters

I wasn’t a huge fan of the protagonist, Magdelena. It’s hard to read through a book when you can’t enjoy the main character. She was very arrogant so full of herself. I understand that’s who she is as a Hankerhawk and that’s her personality, but I just couldn’t get into it.

The other characters in the story were well written and I do wish we got to see more of them as we mostly followed Magdelena in her third-POV.

rp-writing-style

Overall, I found this book to be well written. The narrative was spot-on and while I felt as though the dialogue could have used a bit more work, but this is an epic read, so it evens out.

The author hid different meanings and messages within the text which was clever. Certain words were always capitalized within the sentences. This isn’t a bad idea, but it got confusing and jarred me out of the story. A lot.

I’m not saying this wasn’t a good idea on the author’s part, I think for the genre it was a clever idea. But as someone who doesn’t typically read science fiction, I just didn’t get it. It went over my head. I might not have fully understood the plot well enough to get the different interpretations, but because of that, it kept distracting me from the overall story.

rp-overall

This book is not for everyone. As I’ve said, I don’t typically read science fiction because I rarely understand it, so take this review with a grain of salt. It’s well written, the characters were developed throughout and each one had their own point to the plot, but if you don’t get science fiction then you may not fully understand this book.

That’s why I’m giving this book three stars because it was just an okay read for me.

The Aqueous Transmission by Mike Eye gets…
3-stars 3 out of 5 stars

Favorite Quote:

“Trying to remain calm, focusing her force inward, the woman subconsciously sensed a dark reflection of the heavy smoke in the deep black swirls emanating from her Heart.” –Mike Eye, The Aqueous Transmission

Buy the book:

Amazon | Fastpencil | Barnes and Noble

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