A hazy November

Wow,

November has come and gone. I kind of let things get away from me there. It was a pretty busy month. Many on my LJ friends list are today celebrating a great victory in completing NaNoWriMo. To all of them: congrats. To those who tried, but fell short: good for you for even trying. For those who write, but don't participate in the November Madness: good for you, for knowing yourself, and not engaging the madness just to follow a trend.

For the record, I decided early in the month that it just wasn't going to be a NaNo year for me. I had two big marks against it: one I ran over on my previous novel. Which is to say, I didn't finish that one up before the end of October as I'd planned, and I had pushed myself for about the week prior to try to get it wrapped up in time to start Nano. Which meant that I'd already done a good 8K words in November, even before trying to take on a new novel, and coming off a finish like that, walking cold into a new novel, new idea, new everything with a two sentence idea what I was planning, I could tell after about three days that was going to be a flop if I pushed it too hard. So I stuck with my normal pace. All told, I still came out of the month with a good number of words: 26900 for the month, which leaves me with an average of just shy of 900 words a day. No complaints there.

I attended PhilCon this year, and introduced my nephew to Conventions. I had a good time, especially seeing many of my fellow GSHW gang, and he enjoyed getting to see and meet some artists. I'm hoping to drag him along to another few conventions when he has the free time. Listened in on some good panels. Met a few interesting new folks. Bought a few good books. Spent some time in the dealers area, helping to support the GSHW table. Didn't seem to get many folks interested in stopping by while I was there, but there were a few, I hope that it means we might find a few new faces come the new year.

I was also quite happy that the latest issue of Space and Time Magazine got out in time for the convention. Mine arrived literally just as we were packing up the car to leave.

Mostly, it was a good, if busy month. I did manage to take a little time off work, and with the holidays, I got a little more. I'm quite happy about that. I enjoy the day job, but sometimes you need to be able to let things go completely for a while, especially when you are on call virtually all the time as I am.

I'm reading, when I have some time, the latest Robert Jordan book (with Brandon Sanderson) and am enjoying it. As a fan of the series, I'm satisfied with it, and if the next two hold up to this standard, I'll be pleased. Kudos to Team Jordan for pulling it off (so far.)

At the moment, I've been fighting off something, cold, flu, I don't know. It's been making me terribly tired, and it was a good thing I had a lot of time off for the holiday as it allowed me to get some more sleep than normal. Otherwise, I'd be dead on my feet.

It's not December, and as the end of the year rolls in, I expect things to get more hectic rather than less. I hope to maintain my current writing pace through the end of the year. I've got a few story ideas kicking around the head that need to get out, because deadlines for some short story submissions are looming. Going to have to see this month if I really can manage to work on short and long works interchangeably, or if I'm going to have to set aside the novel while I work on some time sensitive shorts. We'll see how it goes.

A hazy November

Wow,

November has come and gone. I kind of let things get away from me there. It was a pretty busy month. Many on my LJ friends list are today celebrating a great victory in completing NaNoWriMo. To all of them: congrats. To those who tried, but fell short: good for you for even trying. For those who write, but don't participate in the November Madness: good for you, for knowing yourself, and not engaging the madness just to follow a trend.

For the record, I decided early in the month that it just wasn't going to be a NaNo year for me. I had two big marks against it: one I ran over on my previous novel. Which is to say, I didn't finish that one up before the end of October as I'd planned, and I had pushed myself for about the week prior to try to get it wrapped up in time to start Nano. Which meant that I'd already done a good 8K words in November, even before trying to take on a new novel, and coming off a finish like that, walking cold into a new novel, new idea, new everything with a two sentence idea what I was planning, I could tell after about three days that was going to be a flop if I pushed it too hard. So I stuck with my normal pace. All told, I still came out of the month with a good number of words: 26900 for the month, which leaves me with an average of just shy of 900 words a day. No complaints there.

I attended PhilCon this year, and introduced my nephew to Conventions. I had a good time, especially seeing many of my fellow GSHW gang, and he enjoyed getting to see and meet some artists. I'm hoping to drag him along to another few conventions when he has the free time. Listened in on some good panels. Met a few interesting new folks. Bought a few good books. Spent some time in the dealers area, helping to support the GSHW table. Didn't seem to get many folks interested in stopping by while I was there, but there were a few, I hope that it means we might find a few new faces come the new year.

I was also quite happy that the latest issue of Space and Time Magazine got out in time for the convention. Mine arrived literally just as we were packing up the car to leave.

Mostly, it was a good, if busy month. I did manage to take a little time off work, and with the holidays, I got a little more. I'm quite happy about that. I enjoy the day job, but sometimes you need to be able to let things go completely for a while, especially when you are on call virtually all the time as I am.

I'm reading, when I have some time, the latest Robert Jordan book (with Brandon Sanderson) and am enjoying it. As a fan of the series, I'm satisfied with it, and if the next two hold up to this standard, I'll be pleased. Kudos to Team Jordan for pulling it off (so far.)

At the moment, I've been fighting off something, cold, flu, I don't know. It's been making me terribly tired, and it was a good thing I had a lot of time off for the holiday as it allowed me to get some more sleep than normal. Otherwise, I'd be dead on my feet.

It's not December, and as the end of the year rolls in, I expect things to get more hectic rather than less. I hope to maintain my current writing pace through the end of the year. I've got a few story ideas kicking around the head that need to get out, because deadlines for some short story submissions are looming. Going to have to see this month if I really can manage to work on short and long works interchangeably, or if I'm going to have to set aside the novel while I work on some time sensitive shorts. We'll see how it goes.