Waiting for summer to wrap up

When you work as a staff writer in an area where the population doubles in the warmer months, summers are a hectic time filled with festivals, special tabs or assignments for special events, and just hectic deadlines that seem impossible to meet — yet somehow you manage them. We are just entering the last hurrah with the last of the special tabs — fall farm tab and marching band — being due next week. The next stressful deadlines won’t be until around Christmas tab time. So while I love summer, I’m finding myself looking forward to its wrap-up so that I no longer feel like a rat on a sinking ship, barely keeping its head above the icy water.

This fall and winter I hope to put together a structured schedule for my writing. One day designated for work on SciFi novel — Katya and her crew continue to etch out a living on the lam — another day to begin work on Passage‘s sequel, Order, where an terrorist-like group threatens the stability of two kingdoms. Finally, a day for work on short stories, because I really want to build up my creative writing resume, and possibly earn enough money to go toward a new printer — mine is printing words with shadows behind them — and a larger monitor screen to make it easier to compare main documents to critiques. And of course, a few days would be set up for free write to work on whatever project I need or want to focus on at that time.

I haven’t quite determined how much time I will spend on writing on these days, perhaps an hour to an hour and a half. But one thing is certain I want to have a lot of writing going on with many projects being submitted to various platforms.

I’ve also decided, after a two-year gap, I believe, to commit to NaNoWriMo 2014, which will be an odd month of balancing Heritage Lost, aka Sci-Fi Novel, and Order, plus maybe a few other writing projects. The goal is for November to be a writing binge, hopefully filled with fun and excitement of that first year I competed in NaNoWriMo. I’m even kind of hoping to get local NaNoWriMo-ers, who don’t want to drive all the way to South Bend, to have the opportunity to meet in Kosciusko County. We’ll see how that goes, but I’m hoping to maybe get fellow novelists to my local library or to area coffee shops.

Also participating in NaNoWriMo? Reach out to me at nanowrimo.org! My username is Pans-Pen. Pan is not to be confused with Peter Pan; it is actually the diminutive form of one of my character’s name, which is Pantheras, an old Roman name. He is one of my favorites, even though I’m kind of exceptionally cruel to him in the books, but perhaps that is why I connect to him very closely.

I really encourage those interested in NaNoWriMo a try; after all, you have nothing to loss and words to be gained! I wish all luck who want to participate.

Also be sure to wish me luck: this weekend I send out Before I Rest, a short fantasy tale, to another literary magazine.