A lot

I'm taking two weeks away from my next book, and I'm taking this week—this past week—off up until Tuesday not focusing on any of my novels.

However, the week hasn't been boring. I began writing articles again, making sure to that I'm scheduling articles to be posted regularly on Medium. I've also submitted a few different types of article proposals to different publications. Hopefully all works out well for the future.

I have also decided that I am going to remove my podcast from the world. I'll keep what I have posted on YouTube available, but I won't be adding any episodes to the channel. I'll be going a different route with my nonfiction writing. I am going to publish nonfiction books alongside my romance novels.

Yes, books plural. I figure this will give me a way to set an outline for different topics for each book that I'll be writing, and each book will focus on different types of unsolved mysteries and extreme weather. Four are planned so far, and I will publish them as I am publishing my romance novels, however, I will be using a slight variation on my penname, simply to not confuse my readers in the future. AJ Hotz will still be publishing only romance novels.

There are a few reasons for removing my podcast: posting content regularly for a podcast seems wonderful. Unfortunately, I take a lot of time to research the topics that I cover. A lot. And a lot of the time it takes me a lot longer than one week to research a topic, especially when I'm also trying to keep up a word count with my active novels, consistent posting on social media, and my 9 to 5. Being consistent with a podcast is simply not going to happen, but I can absolutely put all of this information into a novel. Not to mention, I love writing the scripts for my podcast a lot more than narrating. Speaking isn't difficult for me to do in public in the right setting, but I am my worst critic when listening to my own voice. It just never turns out the way that I hope it will.

Reading Recommendations

Two books this week:

If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin & Hayseed by Vera Valentine. I finally finished If He Had Been With Me, and wow, it was wonderful. I already knew what was going to happen at the end before I began reading the book—I just didn’t know how it would happen. And wow… I actually believe that knowing the ending made the book even better, because it really allowed me to see all of the foreshadowing early. It was everywhere, and it was subtle. Really well-written, and I can’t wait to read the next book, which from my understanding is the same storyline, same timeline, however it is told from three different perspectives. I’m sure that one of them is Finny, I believe another is his best friend Jack, and I’m pretty sure that the third POV has to be Sylvia.

Hayseed… well, if you’ve ever read a Vera Valentine book, then you probably know how this goes. It’s short, it’s sweet, and it’s usually about a woman who falls in love with a man that used to be an inanimate object. The story is great, and the ending was absolute perfection. Couldn’t have done it better.

My Current Read

I’m a dual-reader, so I always read more than one book at a time. I’m still in the process rereading Savage Hearts by Eva Ashwood, but I just finished Hayseed yesterday. I haven’t yet decided what exactly my next book is going to be, but most likely be Demi by Patricia Carrigan or Breathing Underwater by Alex Flinn.

Breathing Underwater will be a reread for me, and I’ve talked about it on my Tiktok account before. I’ll give a short explanation: I’m a very visual reader, so I am really good at remembering every single book I have ever read. Even if I can’t tell you all of the character’s names, I’ll be able to tell you the storyline and almost everything that happens in the book. Breathing Underwater is the only exception to this. For some reason, I can’t remember much about it, only the very basic premise. Can’t remember how it begins or ends or even any character’s names.

However, I rated this book 4/5 stars on Good Reads when I read it five years ago. I only found it again last year, because I began setting up my floating bookshelves on my wall, and I found it in a box with all of my other books. Apparently, I thought it was good enough that I bought a copy of it, and it isn’t often that I buy a book for my shelves. A book has to be worthy enough in my eyes to go on my shelves, and/or I have to like the author enough to want to support their writings.

Recent Finds Unrelated to Reading

I don’t know if this is considered a recent find, but I’m putting it here anyway. I have a new 9 to 5 now that is allowing me to focus more on my writing and creativity, which… yeah, I needed that. I would not have finished my next book in time had I not left my previous 9 to 5.

Recent Movies/TV Shows

I’m sure most of you won’t be surprised—based on my last blog—that I added a few more TV shows to the list that I’m watching this season. Doctor Odessey is excellent, and Crime Scene Kitchen is back for its third season.

But I have to tell you the movie that I just saw! A Quiet Place: Day One. Readers, friends, supporters… this movie… when I tell you this movie was better than the first one, that’s difficult to achieve. The second movie was not at all as good as the first movie, and I can hardly remember anything about the second movie. (If you don’t follow me on social media, you might not know this, but even though I remember books extremely well, I have a horrible time remembering anything about movies unless it was 10/10 and I’ll be watching it again or if I’ve seen it multiple times).

This movie… it was so amazing. It was intense, emotional, sweet—this movie made me cry at the end. I felt like I knew exactly what was going to happen at the end, but when that actually did happen, I was not prepared for how well it was going to be done. It was beautiful, and I will be buying a physical copy of this movie in the future, and you bet your sweet peach that I’ll be watching it again.