Bits and pieces, really...

November, 2024

First, yes, I did NaNoWriMo again, aiming to crunch out a novel, or at least 50,000 words across the month of November. Outcome for me? Yeah. Never made it this time, for many reasons, but I did complete just over 40,000 words of a manuscript, or approximately half of what the novel might eventually be. For now, that project will be shelved. It was fun and important to make a significant start on the project as it is a concept I’ve wrestled with for more than a decade. I will nibble at it for a while.

A burst of excellent news for November is that my friend Richard Miles’ project of collected stories about the South Australian Mounted Police received History Trust funding and approval from various quarters, meaning we can now plough ahead with editing and fine-tuning the content. This project will become a main focus to close out 2024.

I’m also mentoring a couple of writers. Confidentiality ensures I can’t name individuals, or even parse their projects, but it is so rewarding to be bouncing creative ideas around with other people. In fact, one project is really sparking the neurons because its content takes me back into my Oriental philosophy studies as a university student.
 
On a personal level, November has a been a period of recovering from concrete burns on my wrists and knees (they are a thing: https://www.poison.org/articles/cement), a tri-annual colonoscopy check-up (mostly good), visiting my daughter Jaimee in Hobart, and preparing to paint rooms in the house.
 
Next month, Christmas discussions included, I’ll share my writing plans for 2025, including a change to the blogging. Until then…