Wow, it's November, and...

It's National Novel Write Month (NaNoWriMo).

It's been a really tough month for me at work, and I really worry about the viability of my employer. Others in the industry aren't doing real well. This is distracting me quite a bit, and I'm afraid I'm not going to get 50,000 words of the proto-novel Ilse done in November. I do have 13,000 and a few thousand of another novel underway, though. I'll work on it when I can.

SP4 Sparks will be my entry into the new Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, coming up on Feb 2nd. I'll have made it into a three-act plotline, and I'll have to cut a bunch of words in order to fit some words from the sequel in. It won't be super-hard to do - I have enough time. I think this (the new ABNA) was what I was holding out for (subconsciously) with this story. Wish me luck!

It's November, and at least one of the organizations I race with has promoted me to Expert (I expect a letter in the mail from the other sometime this week). This is really cool, since all my writing needs is another distraction ;). Seriously, I need to have the bike repaired and painted by Jan 3rd, my first race as an Expert, at Fontana, California (AutoClub Speedway).

All the parts are ordered for the bike, I need to get some mechanical repair done (a broken frame slider bolt extracted, and a broken swingarm spool lug ground off and a new one TiG welded on).

Then I need to get busy with fiberglass, filler, and, ultimately, new paint.

And I get to order a new helmet and leathers - the leathers not due to crash damage, but to me losing over 80 lbs since January last. This is the scary thing for me - I have the cash, but I'd rather KEEP the cash in this environment. See what I said above about employment...

Buy a novel, ye Agents who lurk. Sparks is a good one.