Some October and November Highlights

This time of year is flying along so fast that my attention is really only going to the essentials. In Melbourne we have recently emerged from stage #4 lockdown with all its limitations. Our household continues to adjust and be savvy with time, space, energy and so on….especially energy. It’s not the time to be wasting time on unproductive pursuits, whatever they may be. And from this writers’ viewpoint, that means being really certain about time going into projects and submissions that may be over-consuming of my precious time and energy.

💕💜💕 Key statement: Is it really worth it? 💕💜💕

These three are part of the Black Hare Press Lockdown series for paranormal romance. They are all available on Amazon and have a beautiful look. My stories ‘The Jewel’, ‘Closure Ritual’ and ‘Ode to Cleo and Ant’ are included. Lovely covers, don’t you think?

Not much to speak of for this month so far, other than it’s NaNoWriMo time being November and many writers, myself included, are squeezing out thousands of extra words this month, including starting novellas and novels. I’m finding it a great time to complete a range of short stories for several calls I got my eye on. So it’s day 5 today and I’m up to 5k words which makes me happy and feeling productive. The plan is to do 1k words daily for the month, finish the works in progress and set up a trait of writing longer and more often. Sounds good to me.

A couple of other recent achievements are publication of a poem about boredom called “The Dreaded Blue-Grey” thanks to Dagmara at Spillwords, publication of the book, “Nation” from Jesu at Barrio Blues Press; microfiction and a short story, “Halloween Spirit” and “The Wedding” being published by Paper Djinn Press, thanks to Umair editor-in-chief. Iron Faerie Publishing also released “Hexed” this month, and accepted my future work, “The Queen Mother Saw” for their Hawthorn and Ash anthology coming later this year; an acceptance for my essay about being a writer to Sweetycat Press, “To Be or Not To Be a Writer” collection, thanks to the prolific writer and publisher, Steven Lester Carr.