The Infamous Month of October

So what makes October special? I feel a list coming on.

1) It marks the golden dawn of autumn, which means, in the States, that trees “go out with a bang” and lose their leaves in a most spectacular manner.

October isn't quite so spectacular in Liberia, unfortunately. It does mark, however, the end of the rainy season. Several days ago we had a storm that came from the inland, the first such storm since June. During the rainy season the storms come in from the sea, so this particular storm signified that the beginning of the end had finally come. The hot African dry season is coming!

2) Most importantly (at least in my eyes) it is my month of birth. That makes it the most awesome month of the year. Falltime is just an added bonus.

3) Almost as importantly, October is the month of preparation for NaNoWriMo.

Yes, sir. NaNoWriMo is on its way – the month that is generally characterized by massive turkey genocides and similar character genocides by thousands of sadistic writers everywhere.

October is the month where you chew your fingernails down to nubs in preparation for losing your fingernails altogether during NaNoWriMo. It is where those of us that plan our novels (myself not included) write outlines and rewrite outlines and write more outlines and delete outlines to foreshadow thirty incredible days of literary abandon.

And yes, I'm going to be doing it. In Africa. I successfully completed NaNoWriMo 2010 and 2011, and I aim to add NaNo 2012 to my list of accomplishments...or bust!

October is also going to be the month that I finish last year's NaNo, The Prophecy of Einarr, and start brainstorming for The Prophecies: Book Three, The Voice of God. (It's been in the back of my mind for six months, but because of my current projects, I've pushed it away until now.) I'm pretty excited about it, but I'm trying to focus on Tornado C until NaNo plans force me to take a break.

Oh, and I'm still working on Will Vullerman. (Coming slowly, sorry. I've got way too much on my plate right now.) That makes, oh, four projects to work on in the month of October. Eurgh. We'll see how much I'll actually get done. I'm not going to be able to finish Tornado C before NaNoWriMo, but I hope to resume my work after November and finish it by January 2013.

So, October. That's just my two cents. Or three cents, rather. But what about you? Do you have any particular thoughts on what makes October, October?

And who out there is doing NaNoWriMo? (Highfive do those who are! We shall conquer! Mwahahahaha!)