Oh, wait, I was going to draw you a landsquid for today. Uhhh…hold on.
Okay! Here we go!
Hooray! It’s fall, it’s October, my FAVORITE, as I no doubt mention every year (August was the 10th anniversary of the blog, can you believe that?). Time for sweaters and warm drinks (like I don’t drink warm drinks all year) and boots and pretty trees and everything wonderful.
But it almost means Nano is coming, and while September is really too early for Nano anything, October is prime prepping time, especially if one is trying out a new genre, one that requires a bit more planning than normal.
We’re most of the way through 2020, so if you’ve somehow missed me mentioning my word for the year, education, well, I don’t know what to tell you. As a recap, the education goal comes along with:
- Two prompt responses a month to just write (as opposed to writing for publication)
- An art class or book or stretch project
- A writing book or class
I’ve completed these goals every month so far. But now that we’ve hit October, I’m starting to see some issues moving forward.
On the prompt responses, well, the prompt responses have been getting done, but other, larger projects (*coughChangelingnovelcough*) have not been getting done. I would very much like to have the first draft of the Changeling story done before November. Which may mean that I need to refocus my writing time, which means the prompts may not get done.
And, well, I’m not 100% on Nano (which will greatly depend on whether or not schools are open), but if I do it, then the prompts will, again, need to take a back seat.
Art! Hooray! (My next ArtSnacks is on its way and I’m super excited!) I was taking SkillShare classes, but my membership expired and I probably won’t renew it til the new year at the earliest. Last month I went through one of the drawing books I got from my mom (my mom is a book hoarder, which, well, is genetic I guess. But at least when she cleans out her writing/art books I get free, useful books) which was very interesting, but it’s hard to get through a whole book in a month. Every page or so I wanted to stop and try something out.
So for this month, and potentially the rest of the year, I could pick a book and go through it slower so I can practice more techniques. Or I could just free-draw, using the techniques I’ve learned earlier. Not sure yet.
Which brings us to the writing books/classes. This month is good. I’m reading a book about how to write mysteries. Not sure what to do about next month, though. I think Writer’s Digest has some short tutorials about mysteries. Since I’ll be working on a mystery, I think I want to focus there as opposed to reading a book on another writing subject. But it also seems like you have to do a lot of the work pre-writing for a mystery, so it may not make sense to learn more about mysteries at that point.
Maybe I’ll just take the month off.
Thoughts, squiders? Excited for fall? I’m hoping we get some moisture and everything stops being on fire.
