Okay—I'm actually going to keep things brief today.
First thing: apologies that this is coming a day late! Sarah and I hosted Hallow-weekend activities & a dear friend over the weekend, so I've been distracted (in a good way)!
Most important thing: I have some good/bad news. The good half is that I've really hit my stride on the revision of Project Curses. The writing is going as well as it ever has. All the difficult groundwork of the revision has been laid. The story is flowing.
The bad half is that because I'm in such a good rhythm, and because I have a good bit going on outside of writing (i.e., submitting MFA applications, filling out endless job applications, holidays, etc.), I'm going to take a short break from Coffee Chats, as I have in the past.
Here's a quick, idealized timeline of what that means for the next couple months:
I'm going to skip the second newsletter of November, which would've been sent on 11/16. Since November has five Sundays this year, that means you won't hear from me for at least five weeks!
If I reach my word count goal by the end of the month, then in place of a proper newsletter on the first Sunday of December (12/7), I'll send out a call for Beta Readers. This will most likely take the form of a short explanation and a survey link to collect information.
Per our annual tradition, I'll send Coffee Chats Wrapped (a recap of my writing milestones and favorite media from the year) on 12/21.
And then, in January, I'll return to the regular newsletter schedule (and hopefully send Beta Readers the first section of the novel)!
I hope this makes sense, and I appreciate your understanding. Please let me know if you have any questions—and as always, thank you for your support!
Sending you lots of love and warmth as the weather turns chilly 🫶
☕ Project Curses
I'm well over a third of the way through the revision, even after updating my calculations and realizing that the new draft is going to be significantly longer than planned. That's okay though—the new words are making the story better.
I'm planning to do a mini-NaNoWriMo over the coming weeks (i.e., National Novel Writing Month, in which people challenge themselves to write ~50,000 words during the month of November), and finish the entire second act of the novel. This equates to about 40,000 words, or a bit over 1,300 words a day. If I can hit that target, I'll be on track to finish the new draft by the end of the year. Wish me luck!
Novel Progress Bar
% revised
♟️ Project Rift
Project Rift is on the back burner while both my co-writer and I focus on other projects—but we're still making progress, bit by bit, and getting ready for when we can dive back in toward the end of the year!
Novel Progress Bar
% drafted
📚 Reading
What We Can Know by Ian McEwan | I wish I had time to dive into all my thoughts about this book today, but for now I'll boil them down to: read it. McEwan, always brilliant, uses the clever device of writing the book from the point of view of a historian in the year 2119 to provide commentary on the world of today, and it works so well. The prose and the story itself are also excellent, of course.
Meltby Not for Radio | María Zardoya, of The Marías, put out this solo project a few weeks ago, which I've had on repeat since first hearing it. I enjoy a good bit of the band's music, but I've taken to this dreamy, dark, atmospheric album in a different way. Another good one for spooky season and/or moodily staring out the window.
Oblivion by Alice Phoebe Lou | The ever-talented Alice Phoebe Lou released this most recent album last week, and, as with all of her music, I find myself incredibly charmed by it. It feels closer, smaller, and more intimate than many of the songs she's best know for, but still sweeps you up in its sound. If nothing else, I recommend listening to "Mind Reader", which has been living in my mind rent-free.
🍿 Watching
Donnie Darko| Our family in town hosted a spooky movie series at their place throughout October, which culminated with Donnie Darko. As is usually the case, I hadn't seen the film until now, which is a shame. I loved it, unsurprisingly, from the subject matter to the over-the-top writing to the excellent soundtrack; if I'd seen it years ago, watching it would've become an annual spooky season tradition—as it will now be!
In the frame: Sarah and I were Anxiety and Ennui for Halloween, which sums up our feelings for the year pretty well.
I'm flipping today's Show & Tell on its head: I'd love for you to show or tell me something cool! Hit the button below (or just reply to this email) and shoot me a message with something you enjoyed recently—a book, movie, game, show, album, joke, fun fact, or whatever else might strike your fancy. No, this isn't because I'm being lazy—I just like cool stuff, okay??
Hello! Hope you've had a fun and spooOOooky Halloweekend! (We certainly did—check out the Share section for another terrific costume from Sarah and I.) Now, on to the real scary news. As I mentioned in the previous newsletter, today marks the first day of my NaNoWriMo challenge: writing 50,000 words over the 30 days of November, or about 1,700 words each day. Long-time readers will remember that I did something similar while revising Project Curses last year—but that was for fewer words on a...
Hope you're doing well today! We had our first freeze last night. Looking out the window at the still, frosted, fog-smeared vista right now is oddly calming; but then, there's always been something magical about the changing of the seasons to me. It's why fall and spring are, in particular, my favorites—though fall has to win out. There's something subtle and divine in the cooling nights and the resulting blaze of colors; something heady and stirring in the obscene liminality of this time....
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