November will be busy. I’m on the road for almost half the month, so things’ll be light around here in the goal department, other than having fun on tour.

• Have fun on tour. World Fantasy Con is on deck and I always have a blast there, but first I’m doing a reading at Bakka Phoenix! I haven’t seen the new (to me, not so new to everyone else) location yet, and I can’t wait. I’m reading at some other venues for the first time this tour too, so thanks, Bakka Phoenix, Owl’s Nest, and Variant Edition for welcoming me, and thanks as always, Audreys, for your continued support.
• Finish the current draft of my novel work-in-progress (I am close, and this might be unrealistic with two weeks on the road, but I’m gonna try).
• Keep my short fiction out on submission.

And what about October, you ask?

Here’s how it went:

• Two more chapters locked on the WiP
• Keep my short fiction out on submission.
• More blogs to write!
• Get that unsubmitted short story I’ve been plugging away at out the door.
• My annual reread of Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October, one chapter a night, for the thirty-one nights of October. I started this personal tradition last year, and it’s a great excuse to revisit an old favourite.

Nice. Glad I got everything done.

October was pretty intense, but my new writing routine of words before work seems to be working. It was my best month for new words since May. In addition to new words, I managed to lock four chapters, rather than two, in the WiP, which is why I’ve made the big November goal of finishing the current draft of the book. Really starting to get a head of steam up on this one near the end of the draft, so I hope I can maintain that, despite being on the road for two weeks.

It’s a lot easier to keep the short fiction on submission when make it a routine. All my stories that were available to submit in October are back out in the world. AND: I finally added another story to the pile. Godspeed you weird little Mennonite Magical Realism yarn! I also got another short story revised in time to make an anthology deadline. It’s another Thunder Road yarn, pretty much all new characters, but a familiar venue, and a couple nods to book one. I really like the heroine, so I hope readers will too.

I wrote some blogs. I would’ve liked to blog more, but with the fence done various other things around the house chimed in saying: Fix me. Replace me. So…I’m just gonna cross this one off the list, and back away slowly.

Every time I reread A Night in the Lonesome October (pretty much every time I read any Zelazny, really), I find something new, or something I’ve forgotten. I wonder if that’s a nature of taking a leisurely month to reread what is otherwise a short novel. Maybe next year, I’ll glut myself on the book in one day (Halloween, natch) and see how that changes the experience.

Write on!