November 2021 Wrap-Up
This month has been kind of crazy. It’s been a roller coaster as far as my mental health and productivity are concerned, which has left me feeling like I’ve gotten nothing done until I look back and realize I actually worked on some big projects this month. It’s a strange mix. But into the specifics.
Writing
My biggest project at the beginning of this month was National Indie Author Day. I ran four giveaways and an Instagram challenge and somehow managed to largely keep up with both. It was so much fun to work with the authors involved and I’m so excited to be sending indie books into the hands of new readers.
NaNoWriMo was pretty much a no-go for me this year, but I did consider rethinking that when toward the beginning of the month I ended up diving into plans for a novel concept that’s been sitting on my list since 2019. When I wrote about 4,500 of a draft and then other projects and the inconsistency of my motivation took me away from it, though, I didn’t push myself to do more than I could handle, so that project has returned to the back burner.
Calligraphy Guild is back from the editor! I got it back a couple of weeks ago and it took me about a week to mull over and process the edits before I made my final list of the edits I need to make. The book is in need of a lot more structural edits than I was expecting (or hoping), so I have a lot of work to do in the next few weeks to get it ready for its final proofread. The next step is to brainstorm solutions to all the problems I have to fix, which I’m hoping to finish today, and then the plan is to accomplish the actual edits by Christmas.
I’ve been trying to get another blog-related/newsletter-related project done, but it’s fallen by the wayside as I try to keep up with other things. I’m really hoping to have it done sometime this week!
Blogging
One thing I’m super excited about from this month is that I’m now published on Kingdom Pen! I’ve been wanting to write for KP for years and just never sat down to do it, but they’re running a contest that’s based on guest posting and each month has a category and topic suggestions, so I’ve been able to write several posts for them. This month’s theme was “writing doubts,” and I submitted three articles:
How to Take Feedback as Encouragement, Not Discouragement
I’ve submitted three more posts for next month and I plan to continue writing for the remainder of the challenge, but we’ll see which posts get accepted for publication in future months!
KP’s editor, Kathleen, has been great to work with, and I’ve really enjoyed polishing my articles with the help of her insight! If you’re ever interested in guest posting for a writing site, I definitely recommend putting Kingdom Pen on your list of places to submit.
And, of course, I’ve been posting here and on Within the Static. A recap of this month’s S&A posts:
Sanderson’s Third Law: When Should You Create a New World?
A Word on Productivity & Comparison
How to Care for Your Plot Bunnies (Without Neglecting Your Book Rabbits)
Building an Authentic Character Voice
(Should I bring back blog recaps as a routine part of monthly updates? Let me know in the comments if you find them helpful or extraneous.)
Reading
Currently reading
- The Aeneid by Virgil
- On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson (reread)
Finished
- Archenemies by Marissa Meyer
- Supernova by Marissa Meyer
- The Tolkien Reader
- Phantastes by George MacDonald
What’s Next?
Surviving is my highest priority for next month. XD I believe I have some level of seasonal depression each fall/winter, and that’s been cropping up especially in the latter half of this month. So the aim is to get done everything on my project list (mostly Calligraphy Guild and my blogs), do Christmas shopping (yes, I’m a last-minute Christmas shopper; it’s a flaw), and not go crazy in the process, which should be plenty to keep me busy for the month. I also expect I’ll be starting my new job sometime this month, which will add some much-needed structure to my time but still allow me to get work done on my projects since there’s a high level of down-time.
How about you? How was this month for you? What are you most proud of or thankful for this month? If you participated in NaNoWriMo, how did it go? What are you most excited about next month? Do you have any big Christmas plans?