Halloween seemed to race by this year. It was a lazy day spent with my favorite person, my dear husband. We puttered around the house for most of the day. I made French toast for brunch and he took me out to the local diner for lunch. He had a craving for chili. I’ve never eaten theirs but it does smell of yum.

About 5 in the evening he remembered we needed to do something about our phones. The contract period is over and it’s time to renew and upgrade. So off to the phone store we went. He got the newest basic model with no extras, while I decided to splurge a little bit and got a phone with GPS navigation on it. It was bundled along with web browsing, so now I have that, too. We also removed Son-the-younger’s phone from our account as he went off and got a new service. He’s out of college, gainfully employed and engaged to be married. All-in-all, even with my whizz-bang phone, we’ll save some $ in our monthly billing over our last contract.

NaNoWriMo started at midnight on November 1st. Or maybe it started at 11pm or 1am, I’m not sure since we move the clocks back today. In any case, it is now in full throttle and people all over the world will be trying to complete a first draft of a 50,000 word novel by November 30th. In a way, that novel is why I am up at this before dawn hour on a Sunday morning. My novel, which I have yet to start, was invading my dreams. And since the opening scene is rather dark and intense, I was giving myself nightmares reliving it over and over again in my sleep.

PiBoIdMo also started today. Slightly different challenge, but I accepted that one as well. PiBoIdMo stands for Picture Book Idea Month. The basic premise is to come up with one picture book idea a day for the entire month of November. The reasoning behind this is picture book writers need to be prolific and have a number of books waiting in the wings. I find generating ideas to be harder than taking one I already have and writing about it, so it will be a super challenge for me to make the 30 ideas.

Aside from writing a novel and coming up with 30 picture book ideas, I also will be working on the art for my upcoming book ‘Smoky and the Feast of Mabon.’ Written by the talented Catherynne M. Valente, it’s another Magical Child story. I am very excited to be working on the text from this award winning author.

Of course, now that I have more planned than I can possible accomplish and remain sane, the edits I am waiting on from my agent for the non-fiction book she is repping will probably show up and need to be done in November as well. Plus, somewhere in there I will have to draw the next two coloring pages for the ABC Lesser Know Goddesses series. That would be the letters ‘S’ and ‘T.’ Least I’ll be too busy to get into any trouble. 😀