And lo and behold! This year November doesn’t take me by surprise – at least, not entirely. This is the time of the year when, as a rule, I discover that oh, there is such a thing as a November, and other, wiser people set down to write first drafts, while I bemoan my inability to do the same, and end up doing… something else.

Well, you know what?

No sudden discoveries, this year – and no bemoaning. Just the something else. I have this play I’m writing on spec… well, I’ve hinted at it a few times with Nina, and she still has to veto the idea, so perhaps, rather than entirely on spec, I’m writing it on some hope. Anyway, I have a completed first draft, and half a notebook’s worth of notes for a second…

I’ve been rereading through the draft, these past few days, and taking more notes, and making a general plan – so I’d say I’m reasonably ready. Then again, one doesn’t begin new drafts on November the First, around here – or on November the Second, either – because it is a couple of family-intensive days. But after that, I’m plunging in – for all that I have an opening night looming very large (and more on that next week). But it is good to have a clear plan to close the writing year – and in the end, I realise that my perpetual NotNaNoWriMo has become just that: one last concentrated effort before December comes. Could be worse.

Or so I thought until last evening – when an entirely new idea hit me square in the forehead, and – because I lack the sense God gave small green apples – I set up a new Scrivener project for it, and spent Halloween night taking notes and notes and notes, half in a faint hope that, if I did that, then the New Idea would leave me alone until I’ve dealt with the second draft; and half… oh, really: do you really have what it takes to resist the lures of a new, exciting, all shiny idea, making puppy eyes at you? If you do, then you are made of sterner stuff.

Ah well. Back to minding the family – and if I can squeeze in some notebook-time, it will be all icing on the cake. As to notes about what… oh, don’t ask, will you?

And what about you? Doing anything this November?