I know, I was hoping I’d finish this post much earlier, but I worked my last night shoot yesterday which ended in the morning, so my bodily functions have reversed yet again. (Not to mention that I binge-watched yet another Japanese drama–and cried buckets.)

So, today, we’ll be having a firefly tea…

As it’s Halloween, we’ll be out in the garden where there are candles lit inside jack o’lanterns, twinkling lights hung across from the balcony, kettles full of apple cider, and the likes. Now, I don’t traditionally celebrate Halloween, but it’s impossible to ignore my neighbours blasting rocket fireworks into the indigo sky, so why not? There’s also helpings of kabocha-pumpkin pies, tarts, cupcakes, and my favourite–chestnut and sweet potato Mont Blancs!

All right, are you ready? Here we go…

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Bibliotheca 

I finished my Goodreads challenge of 120 books! *inserts cheers and fanfares* This month, I took reading leisurely like I did in September, so I didn’t read as much as I was going to, but given everything that happened with my life, I think that was a good call. 

October Books

1. Girl, Wash Your Face…Rachel Hollis
2. The Theban Plays of Sophocles…Sophocles/David R. Slavitt
3. The Path Between Us: An Enneagram Journey to Healthy Relationships…Suzanne Stabile
4. The Bullet Journal Method…Ryder Carroll
5. Archenemies…Marissa Meyer
6. Supernova…Marissa Meyer
7. Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard 1: The Sword of Summer…Rick Riordan
8. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich…Alexander Solzhenitsyn/H. T. Willetts
9. Max…Sarah Cohen-Scali/Penny Hueston
10. Dust…Kara Swanson
11. Webデザイン良質見本帳…久保田涼子 (Web Design Sample Chart)
12. Emily of New Moon…L. M. Montgomery
13. Tess of the Road…Rachel Hartman

Overall, I think I read more nonfiction than usual which had been my goal, so that was good. I could also read a few books I’ve been meaning to read (the Renegades trilogy, Magnus Chase) and re-read my favourite…Emily of New Moon. The most interesting read of the month was Tess of the Road. It’s not for everyone, but I think that was quite singular. 

Academics 

I got two jobs: One as a background performer, and the other as a medical interpreter trainee. At the end of the month, I’m rather sorry to say both are over for me (as of current), but believe they were a valuable experience. 

In backgrounding, I had night shoots, which meant I was coming back home at 5 am-ish. As a morning person, it was quite challenging. (In fact, I’m still kind of groggy right now…) Yet at the same time, I could meet many people on the set and forged valuable connections I greatly think of as a blessing. 

In medical interpreter training, I was pushed more than before in my interpreting skills. I usually think it’s pretty fun to translate, since I do those things mostly for volunteers and for church, but doing it as an actual job was another experience. Because I couldn’t attend the last day of training, I didn’t get the job, but I loved how present I would be in every situation and how I could still maybe pursue a path in medicine. We’ll see how all this leads, to…

Writing 

Got your second cup of apple cider? (I know, I can’t promote apple cider enough.) Perhaps a bite of Mont Blanc? 

Okay, now that we’re settled, let’s dive into what my writing looked like for this month. 

As I mentioned in my Academics section, since I got my job I couldn’t focus as much as I wanted on my writing side of life. I was going to try to cram in Elijacomb Alexei Fleur the 17th before my Meno-WriMo thing, but stopped around 10K in because I realised I should focus a bit more on prep. Which is a pity, since I love Elijacomb. It’s one of those really light-hearted projects you can sit down to and start pounding away.

Anyhow, I was thinking I would revenge-write Elektriem since if any of you remember last year, that was the project that really broke me. I was journaling, outlining, and defining character sketches. I got to a point I felt comfortable to start tackling the project on November 1st. (Which is like tomorrow.)

And yet. 

I started re-reading Woodstone Abbey, my Camp NaNoWriMo project this year. I was writing it from April to June, the word count is around 98K, and I’d only gotten over the inciting event. Now, when you’ve written almost a 100K and your story just started, you usually have a problem of some sort. I spent the summer break trying to figure out what was wrong, tried to cut down the word count (and characters, might I say with a bleeding heart), and nothing was working. At last, I abandoned it to rot on my shelf thinking it was my worst work yet. 

Then, I re-read the entire thing this week. 

I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I was suddenly seized with the urgent desire to read Woodstone. And like most  authors out there would know, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Of course, there’s still some parts I could probably cut down and fix. But now, I’m really motivated to write Woodstone just to see what would happen. 

So that, my friends, is my Meno-WriMo project of the year. 

Life + Updates

Whew. That was a lot. But then again, a lot had happened this month. I wasn’t expecting October to be so…intense. 

Then there’s November. 

Yes, that’s right. November is the month us writers must brace ourselves for. 

And that’s why I’m going to be taking a short hitout. I know, it feels like I just took hitouts for the entire summer, and now I’m going to disappear again. But don’t worry, only for the month of November. I’ll be back on the last Saturday of November to the tea and also how my Meno-WriMo went. Which, by the way, is a bit of a nerve-wracking prospect, but hey, I trust in my future self. I’ll hopefully have a blast writing, even if sometimes it could get excruciating. 

And that’s that.

Thanks for reading! That’s it for today. How was October for you? Did you have anything new you started? What will November look like for you? Let me know in the comments below; I’d love to chat with you!