Monday, October 29, 2012

What happened to October?

There's this month.  It's called October.  I don't know if any of you have seen it, but I certainly missed it.  What happened to all the goals I was going to accomplish?  The days flew by, and I'm wondering what the heck happened to October.

Just to clarify it to myself, here's the story of October:

Last weekend I joined the army of the undead.  That's right.  My husband and I did the Run for Your Lives race.  No, not as runners.  Never as runners - are you kidding me?  I couldn't run to save my life.  But I can stumble around and scare the living daylights out of people.  We signed up to be zombies during the race, and as you can see, our makeup was... delicious.  Highly recommended for any zombie fans.  It's a lot of fun being dressed up in goop with good people by your side.

This weekend, we got lost in a corn maze.  By lost, I mean I kept peeking at the map so we wouldn't get lost because I hate getting lost.  My accomplishment was peeking less this year than last year.  Next year's goal is to stick the map in my purse and forget it exists.

We carved our pumpkins for the holiday.  I almost thought it wasn't going to happen this year, because like I said, the month of October disappeared.  Mine's the one with the moon and the cat.  Last year it was an owl, this year it was a cat.  I'm going to attempt to carve Jack Skellington at work tomorrow - we'll see how that goes.

Other than that... I did some critique partnering.  I've been reading a lot of 2nd and 3rd books in a series for the "Let's Finish What We Started" Challenge by the MA-YA group on goodreads.  On the fifth book now, Promised by Caragh O'Brien, and I still love the series even though that amazon review ruined the ending for me.  (Thanks person who wrote a huge spoiler in the title of your review.  You rock.)

My beta readers got me back Terrance so now I have to sit down and actually edit his story.  It shouldn't be that hard, sitting at only 15k to edit, but editing is always taxing.  I have one more person to send it to, but I want it to be polished to receive some final, last-minute insight - just in case I missed something huge.

NaNoWriMo is creeping up around the corner.  I'm not ready for you yet, November!  Stay over there!

Though, I must say, I've been outlining Anthony's story this week, and I love his character again.  Everything that felt trite the first time around is getting knocked out.  The biggest conflict is better than ever (his own self-consciousness) and the people in the story now accentuate it, instead of derailing it into another plot line entirely.  Oh, and my husband likes the new developments.  These all bode well, and I'm excited to get my hands moving across the keys again...  But I still hope I can finish Terrance by the weekend, else I might not be able to finish him in time for Thanksgiving my absolute deadline.

How about you guys?  NaNoing?  Ready for it?  Was October just as busy for you, or did you manage to find a weekend to breathe?