November 2020

Whew! What a month November has been so far!

NaNoWriMo. The annual online writing event, National Novel Writing Month, is held in November. I have attempted and failed to write 50k new words during November three out of three times. Gotta love consistency. But this year it’s been tougher than usual to focus.

Publishing. My personal publishing schedule dictated that the second Detective McGregor mystery would move from the self-editing to the copyediting stage on November 1. Due to unavoidable circumstances, my manuscript didn’t make the leap on schedule. So, while I lined up another copyeditor, I had additional time to self-edit.

Writing Classes. Online Sisters in Crime (SinC) Guppy classes opened for registration, and there were so many Guppies trying to register, the site crashed. I was able to get the 2021 classes I wanted.

Election. Yup, that happened.

Pandemic. I cancelled my annual Thanksgiving weekend Bluegrass Turkey Jam. I had hosted it for 20 consecutive years, and I was going through Turkey Jam withdrawals. My son sent me this YouTube video to help me make it through until next year.

Genre Experimentation

I’ve been dipping my toe into different genres lately.

Detective McGregor’s first and second stories (The Disappearance of Millicent Hart – 2018 and Murder Goes on Vacation – Dec 2020) are police detective mysteries. The third story (Forever After – expected 2021) is a thriller. The fourth story (Publish or Perish – ??) is a cozy with McGregor’s girlfriend taking the lead in solving the case because McGregor has a conflict of interest. The rest of the McGregor series arc is plotted as detective mysteries.

A children’s picture book (Emma’s Best Friend is a Robot) was published last fall. A second children’s book is with the artist.

Last month, I sketched out a premise for a science fiction story about a computer virus. Definitely an example of current life influencing art.

I’ve even tried a bit of fantasy. A short fantasy piece about a slug rodeo and riding competition was published in an anthology last year. Earlier this year, I attempted a fantasy novel. But by the time I created the cover image and title, there wasn’t anything left to say. Because, after all, it was just a fantasy.