I'm visiting Beth Fred today.

Hi everyone!

Have a lovely weekend? Mine was nice-ish, but somewhat ruined by the fact that our water-pump blew out.

So... in these harsh, very hot conditions, we have to go to the neighboring farm for water. FORTUNATELY most of our live-stock had been moved to another farm last week, so they were unaffected.

Anyway, today, I'm hanging out at Beth Fred's blog, talking about how I deal with insecurities. It'd be great if you stopped by!

In the meantime, tomorrow will be my first news post for the year, so if you have any interesting tidbits to share (bloghops, awesome posts, book releases etc), please mail me at mishagericke(AT)gmail(DOT)com with NEWS in the subject line.

Have a lovely day!

Misha

T.F. Walsh on Cryptids

Hi everyone! Thanks for stopping by. Today I want to welcome the lovely T.F. Walsh to my blog as part of her tour for the release of her book, Cloaked. Take it away, Tania!

All Things Cryptids with T.F. Walsh

Hi and thanks for having me on your blog today.

CLOAKED is written as a Paranormal Romance, but what is paranormal exactly. Paranormal is anything that is considered to be outside science's ability to explain or measure. Unlike the supernatural, the definition of paranormal doesn't preclude its existence, it just presumes that we don't have enough evidence either way. I love learning about paranormal subjects as much as I enjoy writing about them.

My favorite subject of paranormal are Cryptids. Cryptids are any form of animal or creature that is either extinct or has not had its existence confirmed. Including extinct creatures like dinosaurs alongside creatures like Bigfoots, the Loch Ness Monster and werewolves is a telling definition for me. Just as many people believe that some species of recently extinct animals like Tasmanian Tiger may still be alive in hidden pockets of forest, many others believe that Sasquach may by hiding in remote areas of wilderness.

Ghosts, spirits and demons are another subject of the paranormal that fascinates me. More and more science and pseudo-science is being directed to investigating this area of the paranormal. And increased interest from pop culture has seen more television and other media devoted to these investigations as well. Another subject of paranormal is aliens, and just because there is no evidence doesn't mean that they don't exist. Just that we still haven't found evidence.

What do you believe in that supposedly doesn’t exist?

 

Cloaked Blurb:

Raised by an overly protective wulfkin pack, Daciana leaps at the chance to venture into the human world for her one-year independence ritual. But after someone steals the endangered bear cubs she’s been assigned to protect, she must locate them or lose her job and return home in disgrace. The sexy inspector on the case isn’t making this any easier. He knows nothing of her kind, and wulfkin rules forbid relationships with humans.

Newly divorced Inspector Connell Lonescu trusts no one but himself. He’s convinced relationships are a waste of time and thinks burying himself in work will ease the pain. Yet he’s attracted to the gorgeous and mysterious Daciana, even if there’s something slightly odd about her. Can Connell learn to trust the sexy but secretive woman? 

Cloaked is the prequel to Cloaked in Fur, book 1 in The Wulfkin Legacy Series. Find out how Daciana and Connell fell in love and set in motion the paramount events that forever change their lives and those around them.

Cloaked is only 0.99c

Grab Your Copy: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Google Play | iTunes

Publisher: CrimsonRomance

Coming Soon

Cloaked in Secrecy (Book #2) – March 2016

Cloaked in Blood (Book #3) – May 2016

Sign up here for T.F. Walsh’s newsletter to keep up to date with latest releases, special offers, and exclusive content.

About The Author

T.F. Walsh emigrated from Romania to Australia at the age of eight and now lives in a regional city south of Sydney with her husband. Growing up hearing dark fairytales, she's always had a passion for reading and writing horror, paranormal romance, urban fantasy and young adult stories. She balances all the dark with light fluffy stuff like baking and traveling.

Author Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Goodreads | Amazon

Insecure Writer's Support Group

For those of you who are new to this blogging thing, the Insecure Writer's Support Group is a group (no kidding!) of writers (yes, really!) who share their insecurities on the first Wednesday of the month. The idea is to visit each other and leave encouragements, and also to feel better when we realize we're not alone in our doubts and fears.

Anyone is welcome to join, so if you'd like more information, please click here.

So what am I insecure about? Well.... Lots.

See, in October last year already, I had this genius idea to push myself to be more productive. It was a good idea. It still is a good idea. In theory.

In theory, I shouldn't have any problems of devoting about two hours per day on editing or writing. The idea is to write 60k words or edit for 60 hours every month (or some combination of the two.)

The thing is, this should have been easy, since I've just come off my lovely, month-long writing break.

Except.

It's so hot here that I can barely sit in my room (it's been 40degC almost every day for the past week, and it will remain this way until next Tuesday). Which means that even if I have a quiet moment to sit and write in, my brain is feeling like someone soaked some cotton in boiling water before stuffing it into my head.

On top of that, I haven't been without visitors since Christmas. Which means that now my writing time is curtailed. And WHILE my cousin and her boyfriend is visiting, I have to go on a business trip that'll take up all hours of my day from tomorrow (this is Monday. Yes, I have now resorted to scheduling posts.) until Friday. So my life is pretty much double booked at the moment. Triple booked if you count the pool time I'm taking to... you know, not die of the heat.

As if that's not more than enough, I'm worrying about one of my cats, because he went off on the day after my birthday (29 December) and as of this writing (4 January, almost midnight), he still hasn't returned.

Then, there's just this... realization of the scope of what I'm trying to do with my writing goal. Not only do I want to meet and beat the NaNoWriMo goal by 10k words, I want to do it every month. It's a HUGE undertaking. Especially when I'm struggling to find time.

So yeah... if you pray, please do me a favor and ask that my cat finds his way home safely. In the  meantime, I'll be here, trying to juggle my writing goals with my insane life.

What about you? Set any huge goals that you're wondering about now? What has you feeling insecure this month? 

Before you go, I'm looking for news items and guest bloggers starting next week, so if you're interested, please click here for more information. 

Hello from the new year!

I can't believe it, but this is my first post for the year 2016. Which, in a sense means that this is really the first day of my new year too.

As such, I've decided to start rough drafting again. Good idea in theory. Except it turned out that the heat and lack of use of my fountain pen resulted in it totally clogging up. Which means I'm currently sitting with a jug of water next to my laptop, submersing the pen's tip to unclog it. It'll probably take a few more hours before I'll be able to use it again. But hey, at least in this heat (fourth day in a row where temperatures were higher than 40 degrees Celsius), the tip will dry quickly. 

In the meantime, I decided that it's time to update my blog a bit. I actually made the back-ground myself, and maybe I'm biased, but it's giving me the warm-and-fuzzies to look at. It just feels so clean and light and different. 

Then, I also decided I'm going to bring back two regular features on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 

On Tuesdays (possibly starting next week), I'll be sharing news snippets. This'll be everything from cool posts, to blogfests/hops, books being released etc. So if you have a piece of news you'd like for me to share, please mail me at mishagericke(AT)gmail(DOT)com with News in the subject line. This is especially important if you want to make sure your news is shared here, because with the amount of blogs I visit, I might not spot your particular piece of news on a given day. Also, you can let me know someone else's good news if you don't think I know about it yet.

On Thursdays I'd like to host other bloggers. You don't HAVE to have a book to sell. You can just advertise your blog this way if you want. (Also, please note that if you're trying to arrange a blog-tour you don't have to post on Thursdays. This is just a nice open day for everyone to use regardless of publishing status.) For more information or to book a guest post date (all Thursdays are currently open), please mail me at mishagericke(AT)gmail(DOT)com with Guest Post in the subject line. Please note that this offer is not open to copywriters looking to write samples. 

Other that, I'll basically be writing about writing and my experiences as a writer. (As always.)

To 2016! Charge!

Have you changed anything to your blog for the new year? Any news to share? Feel like signing up for a guest post? 

Looking Back and Looking Forward

And here we are. As of writing this sentence, it's quarter to eleven at night of 31 December, 2015. I thought I'd steal a few moments to think about 2015 as well as what I'd like to achieve in 2016. 

I'm doing this as part of my Big Dreams/Crazy Goals bloghop, which you're also welcome to join. For more information, please click here, but I'm just going to launch into the post proper, since I've got quite a lot of ground to cover.

Looking back at 2015

At the end of 2014, I had been determined to have a better year in 2015, and I think that I've achieved that. Unfortunately, though, 2014 has been harder to shake off than one would think, which meant that a lot of things I set out to do in 2015 simply weren't possible. 

That said, I've managed to get the following done this year: 

1) Shaken off the worst of the emotional effects wrought by 2014.

2) Published two books and a short story. 

3) Wrote 260k words. 

4) Edited for 200k hours. 

5) Found a new home. 

6) Sorted out our (my and my mom's) business. (For the day-job.)

7) Read 50 books. 

This is, of course, nowhere near what I had wanted to do, but, given the lack of resources available to me for most of the year, I think those count as some major achievements. I'm proud of everything I've managed for the year so far. 

In the end, this is what my writing/editing year looked like for 2015. 

Goals for 2016

As you may recall, I set a big goal a few years ago, where I want to make $7500 per month from royalties in a year, and of the first five years I'd set as the deadline for this goal, we are now entering the third. 

This is really exciting and scary for me, because this is the year where everything I've set up for the past two years basically comes together, setting me up for a whole lot of publishing activities until end 2018. 

I don't only have writing goals, though, so once again for this year, I'll be splitting my goals up. This time my categories will be Writing (which actually includes all aspects to publishing books), Reading, Networking and Marketing (which includes Social Networks) and Life (which is pretty much everything that does not include the above activities.)

In actuality, I don't necessarily prioritize everything in this order, but I do so for the purposes of this blog, since it focuses on writing. 

So, without further ado....

Writing: 

I'm just going to give you a visual. Writing, editing and publishing wise, this is what my ideal 2016 would look like: 

For those of you wondering, the colored each represent me doing something in the corresponding month. Light green is research or figuring out a concept, dark green is rough drafts, blue is prepping for the rewrite, turquoise is for rewrites. Purple and yellow are for edits and orange is for publishing. Reds are submissions. As you can see, I have eight projects lined up for publishing, although I might be able to work in a few more, depending on my year. The bottom two are for short story anthologies. 

As the year progresses, I do keep moving projects around in order to compensate for the curve balls life throws my way. The goal here is to see how close to this image I can keep my timeline as the year progresses. (Although, moving any blocks to the left means I'm going faster, so that's even better.) 

No matter which way you look at it, though, this is a huge amount of work, which will require at least twice the amount of time and word-counts I managed this year. 

So. This year, I will have a recurring goal that I will be striving towards. 

As per my tradition, I'm upping the ante and making the goal a bit.... loony. 

I am aiming to write 60,000 words or edit for 60 hours EVERY MONTH, or some combination of that. 

To maintain my sanity, I just want to set a few rules and boundaries: 

1) Any combination of 60k words written or 60 hours of edits are permitted.

2) I am only counting words/hours toward my publishing activities. I.E. Blog posts and critiques for other writers don't count toward the 60k/60 hour total. 

3) I am allowed to work on an average. Which means that I get a win as long as my totals add up to 720k words (with one edit hour = 1k words.) In short, this year will be NaNoWriMo on steroids for me. With one big exception: 

4) Adjustments can be made in months requiring a rest. In other words, if I feel like I'm not going to be able to chase 60k in any given month, I will scrap that goal for that month. The idea here is to up overall productivity to levels I believe I can maintain, but not at the cost of my health/lifestyle. 

Since my writing goals will be huge this year, I'm going to keep things a bit simpler when it comes to my other goals. Although I assume I'll be setting more goals as I settle into a routine. Networking and marketing I'll set on a month by month basis.

Reading: 

Read 75 books as per the Goodreads Challenge. 

Life: 

Eat healthily (I.E. the minimum refined carbs.) 

Pick up an active hobby such as a sport or dancing. 

GET BACK TO SINGING.

Finish one painting. 

Have a successful year at the day-job. (Whatever this might entail.) 

Still with me? Wow. Well done. Almost to the end. 

Goals for January: 

Writing: 

1) 60k (as explained above.) 

2) Finish the Wo6C3 rewrite. 

3) Submit "Turning Points" Short Story by 31 January. 

4) Finish Untethered Realms Anthology rough draft. 

5) Finish BvB1 print-out proofread and formatting. 

6) Revise ES1.

7) Rough draft BvB2. 

8) Prep DM1 rewrite.

9) Research CdW. 

Reading: 

Read six books.

Networking and Marketing: 

1) Set publishing date for BvB1.

2) Arrange blog tours, reviewers etc.

3) Get into a regular posting schedule for main social networks. 

Life: 

1) Fall into a regular schedule between work, writing etc as fast as possible. 

2) Commence refined carb cut-back. 

3) Start singing lessons. 

4) Start new dance/sporting activity. 

Wish for 2016

That's it for now, but before I go, I just want to say thank you to everyone who've been with me on this journey so far, and to say welcome to all my new friends. I pray that God blesses and keeps every single one of you as well as your loved ones, and that 2016 will be such a great year for us that it defies belief. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Recharging...

As I mentioned on Wednesday, I'm currently trying to stave-off a burn-out by resting a bit more than I'm usually writing.

It does, however, also prove to me how addicted I am to this whole writing thing. Yes, I'm tired. Yes, I can hardly string two words together without it feeling like I'm pulling teeth. (Blog posts and the like are luckily not too bad.)

But can I stay away from writing? No. But that's okay. I'm following some of the advice that a lot of you (thanks for those comments, by the way!) gave me, and I'm taking it as I feel. If I feel the urge to write, I write. If not, I'll just crack open a book and read. (Which is fun too, and is in fact making me feel much better already.)

In the meantime, I'm already feeling a lot better.

How are you all doing?

Insecure Writer's Support Group

That's right, after more than a year of not taking part, I thought it's time to sign up again.

For those of you wondering what this bloghop is about:

On the first Wednesday of every month, a (very large) group of us writers get together to share our insecurities and encouragements with other writers.

If you'd like more information or if you want to join, please click here.

What could I be insecure about? you might ask.

Well. Lots.

At the moment, I'm struggling with exhaustion. I don't mean this in a medical sense or anything like that (I don't think), but ever since the rough year I had in 2014, I've been trying my best to stay positive, stay strong and keep moving forward.

For the most part, I have to say I've done that, and I'm incredibly proud about that fact. But half way through the month, I've signed a contract for a new job which, although full-time, has flexible hours depending on the amount of work I need to do to meet my objectives.

Which means that, for all intents and purposes, I should have a great year in 2016.

But almost as soon as I was able to take my first real breath that didn't feel like I'd get sucked under at any second, the exhaustion hit. I guess I've been so busy being tough and strong or whatever that the moment I didn't have to be anymore, my energy gave out.

So although I'm used to setting huge goals every month, I decided to give myself a little break until January. You know, to rest and recover.

My muse has other ideas. I keep feeling these urges to get back to writing, but every time I finally get to the point where I can sit down and write, that exhaustion is back. And that means I'm constantly swinging between not wanting to write and wanting to write, while fearing that forcing myself to write will just end up pushing me into a full blown writer's burn out.

(If you haven't experienced burn out, you're lucky. But let's just say it's a six month long writer's block on steroids.)

I honestly have no idea about what I should do to rest myself out enough to start writing again. Or even if I should disregard my exhaustion and write anyway.

And now it's 9:15 pm and it's probably a good idea to just turn in and sleep.

Sigh.

How are you doing? What do you do when you're exhausted beyond belief? Do you still write, or do you recharge those batteries? If the latter, how?

Happy Book Birthday M Pax!

Hi everyone! Yesterday was another crazy one at work, which is why I've been a bit quiet lately. (But I will be stopping by to visit some blogs today.) In the meantime, I just wanted to give a shout-out to writing buddy and Untethered Realms Co-Conspirator, M Pax, whose new book is out today.

With the rift closed for the season and no more monsters to fight, Daelin Long gets bored as librarian in the podunk town of Settler, Oregon. A job interview and her brother’s arrival present a tempting opportunity to escape, until her brother and her best friend, a ghost, disappear.

While Daelin searches for them, more mysteries pile up: dead people coming back to life, portraits of the town founders replaced with strange white trees, and people on the other side of the rift returning. It’s impossible. The portal that allows monsters from other universes to come to Earth is sealed until next summer.

The Rifters, a secret group protecting our world, believe the troubles are nothing more than the tantrums of an offended ghost. Daelin disagrees. If she’s right, the evil hell-bent on destroying Earth has new technology making the rift more deadly.

Before the monster summons the next apocalypse, Daelin must find it and destroy it.

Book 3 in the Rifter series.

Now available at:

Amazon

AmazonUK / AUS / CA / DE / FR / ES / IT / NL / JP / BR / MX / IN

Bookcessories

iBook / Nook / GooglePlay / Kobo / Smashwords / inktera / Scribd

Need to catch up? 

You can read books 1 & 2 in the Rifter series for free by becoming an M. Pax Reader. ENTER THE M PAX DIMENSION

About M Pax

M. Pax is author of the space adventure series The Backworlds, plus other novels and short stories. Fantasy, science fiction, and the weird beckon to her, and she blames Oregon, a source of endless inspiration. She docents at Pine Mountain Observatory in the summers as a star guide and has a cat with a crush on Mr. Spock. Learn more at mpaxauthor.com.

Update Day Leftovers Edition

Hi everyone! Today is Updated Day for my Big Dreams/Crazy Goals bloghop. But before I get to that, I want to let you know that my short story Hanna’s Gift is now on Lightning Quick Reads, if you would like to check it out.

Right. For those of you who aren’t clear on what I’m doing today, the Big Dreams/Crazy Goals bloghop was my and Beth’s brainchild, which was aimed at allowing ourselves to think big, while encouraging us to figure out ways in which to at least try to get there. It’s also great for accountability (no one wants to be the person who keeps updating with no news all year) and encouragement.

The bloghop is open for anyone to join. If you’d like more information, please click here.

Now that’s done, let me get to that update.

Well. The long and short of it is that I didn’t actually manage to finish anything I set out to do this month. I mentioned my new job last time, and although I’m really happy with it, I think the adjustment was just one last straw that kicked me over into emotional exhaustion territory.

I’ve had a stressful year that can only be called an improvement on the last because 2014 set the bar so low, and I’ve been fighting all year to keep writing.

This month, I came to the point where I just couldn’t. (Which in itself deserves to have a post written about it.) The thing is, I know myself. I’ve been pushing through stress and writer’s block because I wanted to write. Then, I just got this… lethargic feeling even when I have deadlines looming.

Tried taking a few days off (and have been writing little bits), but overall, I’m just not in the place where I want to be.

And the thing is, I have a huge year planned for 2016. I can’t burn myself out. I can’t afford it. Now when I have actual, living and breathing fans who want more books.

SO.

I’m going to break the pattern (and pace) I’ve set since January. Instead of looking at my progress for November and setting goals for December, I’m going to set one goal: Work on Wo6C3. How much work will depend on how I’m feeling. Anything else I do will depend on how I’m feeling.

Then, I’ll update on the entire year’s progress and announcing my goals for 2016. In between, I’m hoping to get a LOT of reading done.

What about you? How are your goals going? Are you also starting to feel tired after 2015?