October Wrap-Up & November Goals

Happy Halloween! I’m traveling tomorrow, so getting a jump on my monthly round-up post today. Please enjoy this picture of a vampire writer in her natural habitat from a Halloween party I attended this weekend. Apparently Waldo has gone to the dark side. Tonight I’ll be packing for my trip and giving out candy to the kids in my neighborhood. What are your Halloween plans, and what did you dress up as? Pictures encouraged!

Overall, I consider October a success! I ended up adding a weekend retreat with some awesome writer friends to my trip out of town to Seattle, but still managed to have a productive writing month. Let’s see where things fell, shall we?

October Wrap-Up

• I did not catch up on September’s writing deficit, but I did meet my back-up goal of reaching 55k words in the first draft of Steel Shadows this month, for a total of 13.5k words written in October.
• I had a fantastic time visiting Seattle for a conference related to the day job, but got to catch dinner with a friend from high school as an added bonus!

October Book Reviews

• The Bronze Skies by Catherine Asaro (5 stars)
• Patterns of Interference (Star Trek Enterprise: Rise of the Federation #5) by Christopher L. Bennett (4 stars)
• The Lawrence Browne Affair (Turner Series #2) by Cat Sebastian (5 stars)
• Midnight Crossroad (Midnight, Texas #1) by Charlaine Harris (4 stars)
• Day Shift (Midnight, Texas #2) by Charlaine Harris (4 stars)
• While the Black Stars Burn by Lucy A. Snyder (5 stars)

October Speculative Chic Contributions

• Sound Off! Blade Runner 2049
• Roundtable: Our Scary Stories
• Sound Off! Geostorm

November Goals

1. I won’t be participating officially in NaNoWriMo this year, but I am looking forward to joining my local chapter for many of the evening write-ins! My goal this month is another 15k words on Steel Shadows, for an end goal of 70k words of the first draft completed.
2. As I mentioned above, I’m going to out of town again tomorrow for a set of workshops for the day job. Don’t feel too sorry for me, though — this conference is at a Disney World resort, and I planned a free day to visit the new attractions at Animal Kingdom while I’m there!
3. Later in the month, I’ll be a returning panelist at a local SF/F literary convention, ChessieCon, which takes place in Timonium, MD, the weekend after Thanksgiving. I’ll be sure to post my schedule soon. Will I see any of you there?

I have to wrap this up, because my husband is anxiously awaiting me to get back to our binge-watch of Stranger Things season 2. In the meantime, here’s a great shot of RDSP authors tackling an escape room together, which was easily one of the highlights of my month!