More News

I know I said I was going to skip News Day this week, but almost immediately after that, I stumbled across or was told about quite a bit of news. So here goes...

About News Day: 

Once a week (usually Tuesdays), I post news bits that I've gleaned from my blog visits or that I've been informed of. The news can be about anything in our writing blogger community, so if you would like me to signal boost anything you'd like to share, please mail me at mishagericke(AT)gmail(DOT)com with News in the subject line.

From the Five Year Project:

Announcement on Friday: Don't forget to come back on Friday for an important announcement!

Thursday Guest Post: Tomorrow I'll be featuring a guest post by Terry W. Ervin II. This is part of my plan to regularly feature writers on Thursdays. I have all my Thursdays open in February, so if you'd like to book one, please mail me at mishagericke(AT)gmail(DOT)com with "Guest Post" in the subject line.

Book Release:

The Outlaw's Prize by Susan Kelly

She didn’t believe in heroes until he kidnapped her.

Infamous smuggler Quin kidnaps Dr. Bess Smith with the best intentions. But a few days in the feisty physician’s presence turns his thoughts in a less honorable direction. Soon he’s figuring out ways to keep her.

Bess isn’t impressed with Quin’s good looks and easy charm until she starts to believe he is sincere in his flirtation. Despite the grim medical emergency they battle together, for the first time in her life, she experiences the thrill of adventure with the handsome smuggler.

Then a terrible betrayal exposes the secrets they’ve kept from one another. Secrets that may cost Quin his life and send Bess back into the isolation of her research laboratory. Can she trust a man she believes only used her own ends? Or is he really the self-sacrificing hero she hopes he is?

Available here

About Bloghops

A to Z Challenge

You probably know about this by now, but sign ups for this year's A to Z Challenge will open on 25 January. 

Insecure Writer's Support Group

The Insecure Writer's Support Group Newsletter will feature articles by industry experts, IWSG members, and administrators. There will also be a dozen links to helpful articles for writers in each edition, as well as a special Member Spotlight. Even if you're not a member of the blogging group, you'll greatly benefit from these FREE monthly newsletters.


The first issue goes out on February 24th.

Sign up here.

The Muse Party Blogfest

The Valentine's Day Muse Party Blogfest will take place on Monday, February 15. Sarah Foster will be hosting the party on her blog and you and your muse can come! On that day you can post on your blog and answer the questions she provided. She'll be answering them, too, and visiting all the other blogs to check out your answers! 

If you don't have a muse or don't want to bring them, feel free to bring a character from one of your books (published or not!). If you came to the first party, you can bring the same muse/character or someone different. Maybe we'll get to see how much we and our muses really love each other...

Sign up form and questions can be found here.

Other: 

Annalisa Crawford got shortlisted for a prestigious competition. 

DL Hammons is looking for help with reading the slush pile for WRITE CLUB 2016. 

That's it for today. Got any news for next week? Want to guest post on my blog? Don't forget to mail me. Anyone else signing up to the Muse Party blogfest?

When it rains it pours...

It's late, but I thought I should stop by and post something here. The plan had been to post on Friday and today, but then on Friday, right before I was going to take the time to write something, my laptop decided to die after five years. (Which I think was an awesome run.)

So today, I bought another laptop (which is basically a souped up, more contemporary version of my previous laptop) and spent the rest of it updating programs etc.

I'm pretty happy with the purchase, especially because for some odd reason, I needed zero time to adjust to my new keyboard. (I mean seriously, this has never happened to me before.)

At any rate, my computer dying has put me seriously behind on a lot of things, so I think that, since 1) no one mailed me any news and 2) I had no chance to find news for myself, I'm going to skip tomorrow's post and post on Wednesday.

Hopefully then I'll be able to sit still for long enough to actually visit people. It would be really nice.

How are you doing?

Yet Another Post About Tumblr

So, a while back, I decided to give Tumblr a try.

And in short, to me, it's a love-hate thing. 

What I love: The lay-out. How easy it is to find the community you're aiming for. 

What I don't love: Well. Said community has this way of picking pet "causes" that they're fighting for, regardless of where the facts truly lie. I wrote about the whole thing that went on about John Green back when Tumblr was still seething with all that nonsense. 

Fortunately, we've seemed to move on from there, but unfortunately that just brings home the fact that the community is 100% pro trade publishing. Or 1000% fanatical about it. 

Which isn't a bad thing in itself. I personally have PLENTY of issues with trade publishing as it stands at the moment, but other people don't, so I try to only throw out my two cents when I feel like there are too much bad information out there without someone bothering to understand what's going on.

And Tumblr has this in spades. Which is to say they swallow the trade publishing line on self publishing without a second thought and makes Amazon out to be this monster out to exploit writers. (Ha. Hahahahaha. Ha.)

I just find this incredibly frustrating, because the Tumblr-ites are single-minded in believing what they're told, and if they get told anything else, it simply does not compute.

And this, simply put, is making me wonder if Tumblr is really worth my time. I mean, if they're going to ignore my book simply by dint of me refusing to be screwed over by publishing houses, without actually bothering to listen to reason, I can only assume that there's not much left to do or say, is there?

On the other hand, I'm not only on social media to market my books. In fact, the marketing aspect mostly comes second. But if being active on a platform does both (marketing and meeting new people), why should I bust my butt trying to get in on one where the community can be downright punitive toward people with different opinions?

Are you on Tumblr? How do you find it? 

News Day

Hey everyone! Welcome to our first News Day Post of the year. For those of you who've missed this piece of information, News Day will be a weekly feature where I share information from around the blogosphere. This can be anything from cover reveals (although the space will be shared with other news bits), book releases, competitions, bloghops to anything else we think people might want to know. I'll be trying my best to gather news, but I'd love if you'd please mail me any bits you'd like to share. Contact me at mishagericke(AT)gmail(DOT)com with NEWS in the subject line.

Heads-up from my blog:

Next week, I'll be making a big announcement, so please don't forget to keep an eye out.

Guest Feature on Thursdays: 

I'll be opening up Thursdays as a regular guest post feature for people in our writing blogger community to visit my blog. It's open to anyone, regardless of where they are on their publishing road. Also, I won't only be doing guest posts on Thursdays. I just thought it would be nice to have a regular posting day for all my blogging peeps to get some exposure. If you're interested, please mail me at mishagericke(AT)gmail(DOT)com with Guest Post in the subject line.

Book Releases:

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.

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

Book Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Google Play | iTunes

Blog Fests:

Lost and Found:  Valentine's Edition - February 1st!

Do you remember  that special feeling of love found?   And who hasn't experienced the emotion of love lost?  Some of you might have even lost a love only to find that person later for another go around.

This challenge asks you to tell your fictional/non-fictional story about love -- lost or found -- in the first special Valentine's blogfest for the month of February.  

Your post can be a short fiction, an essay, poetry, or even a song--let your imagination run free.   Any genre is fair game, be it romance, historical fiction, memoir, fantasy or science fiction.   After all there are no limitations when it comes to love. There's no word limit, but common sense shows that short and sweet is the go!

Don't be left out!   Sign up to participate by adding your link to the list here or on any of the bloggers' sites mentioned above!

WEP - February Challenge: February 17th to the 19th

Most of you are familiar with WEP (Write...Edit...Publish). Yolanda Renee and Denise Covey have got it together for February and are saluting, you guessed it, Valentine's Day. 

Now some of us love Valentine's, others hate it. Our blogfest gives you a chance to write about this 'romantic' day in whichever way you wish. 

Some ideas to get your creative juices going...maybe the angst of young love waiting for a Valentine's card from a school yard crush...the outsider who misses out and sees all her/his friends getting loads of cards (not that she's/he's worried about that)...the nasty boyfriend who texted her on Valentine's Day to break up with her...or, the husband who surprises his wife with a secret Valentine's Day trip to the place of her dreams...etc etc.

Endless possibilities.

The WEP linky will go up soon on the WEP website, as well as further information for this challenge. Posts are on the third Wednesday of the challenge month. This time it's February 17 - 19. Please consider joining us for our first challenge of 2016. There is an Amazon Gift Card of $10 for the winner. Judge will be Francine Howarth, intrepid Regency Romance author.

Special Mentions:

Yesterday, I did a guest post on Beth Fred's Blog, but we got attacked by gremlins, so the post went live late. So I'd LOVE if you guys could please go give it some love. It's about how I deal with insecurities, which seems like a good subject for this time of year. 

That's it for today! Do you have any news to share for next week? Let me know!

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!