October has been an exciting month for me, with fun writing projects coming to fruition and lots of planning for the months ahead.

I started off, rather ambitiously, tackling three bookstagram photo challenges. I was overlapping the photo prompts and lasted a few weeks. I gave up (for reasons I’ll go into below) but took some photos I’m really proud of.

A week or so into October I was struck by a story idea I had back in early high school. I’d started writing the story way back when and had flopped after the first chapter.

But this story idea just wouldn’t leave me alone. (Hence why I had to give up the bookstagram challenges!)

I think the ideas that follow us for years are the ones we’re destined to tell. It’s inevitable. And so I decided to sign up for NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo stands for ‘National Novel Writing Month’ where participants aim to write 50,000 words of a novel draft in the month of November. It’s a worldwide event and huge in the writing community.

So I’ve spent much of October plotting out the story (which came to me easily and fell into place beautifully) and developing the characters and settings.

The working title (for now, at least) is The Crossing and it’s book one in a series (duology, or possibly trilogy) called The King-Cutter Series. Of course, all this is likely to change as I start writing.

The story itself is fantasy with a splash of sci-fi/steampunk-esque stuff: multiple worlds, magic, firearms, sexual tension… You know how it goes 😉

If you’re doing NaNoWriMo this year, feel free to add me as a buddy! You can find my profile here.

In preparation for NaNoWriMo (and also just for fun) the Writer’s Edit team have started doing ‘wordsprints’ on Twitter. We all get together and chat, then write non-stop for half and hour, then chat some more.

We use the hashtag #WEsprint to find each other, and I’ve found it an amazing way to meet new writers, catch-up with writer friends you haven’t talked to in a while, and just WRITE!

We’ve had some huge word counts so far, with people writing up to 1000 words in just half an hour. I’m super proud that we’re doing #WEsprint and that we’ll carry them on through November!

Amidst all that NaNoPrep, I also had a short story published by Spineless Wonders. It’s in digital format and is available to download for just $1.99 through Tomely.

‘Buzzing’ is about adolescence and violence and identity and electricity, set in a small town and inspired by my old high school. I’m really proud of this one, so please have a read and let me know what you think of it 🙂

October has been lovely but November is going to kick my butt. It’s like the calm before the storm.

NaNoWriMo starts in just a few days, and in the middle of the month we’re launching our final Kindling anthology by Writer’s Edit Press. Exciting stuff!

Don’t forget to subscribe to this blog to see next month’s recap and find out whether I really did manage to write my first book (or at least a 50,000 word draft of one)!