Spooky greetings, everyone! I hope all goes well.
October proved to be massively eventful for me, which I’m super grateful for. Hell, I’m still not quite over the Halloween spirit, hence the intro. From a handful of excellent shows to an extravagant New York Comic-Con weekend (be sure to check out my full recap blog), Spooky Month offered quite a lot to enjoy, including the day of Halloween itself.
Even with all the other more obviously exciting shenanigans going on, I was most thrilled to just get back into a proper writing groove. I recently sort of let myself fall into…not a rut, per say, but a lull in productivity; I put myself in an overly extensive “vacation” mindset between August and September, essentially. Thankfully, I was able to pull myself back into a steadier writing rhythm in October, and so many good things came from it.
Unfortunately, I can’t offer up too much new information regarding the big project I’ve got going on at the moment, that being my latest Blood Sisters story. I can, however, give you the title (because as far as I’m aware, I haven’t actually done that yet). The tale of the fourth Blood Sister is “The Mirror.” You’ll get to learn all about her when her story goes live on my site on December 20th. Get pumped!
In other writing news, I’ve also been lucky enough to find several more magazines to submit my story “Soul Survivor” to. You know, that zombie story I wouldn’t stop talking about a long while back. But yes, the struggle to get it published continues. I told myself this would be the year to finally get myself published professionally, but alas, it’s looking less and less likely as we near the end of 2023. And even if a magazine does pick up my story at this point, the publication wouldn’t actually happen until sometime next year, so…
Nevertheless, I keep on trying because that’s the name of the game. And honestly, the amusement of the whole submission process is starting to grow on me. There’s something enjoyable about the task of finding cool literary magazines, reading interesting work from other writers, determining if a magazine might be a good fit for my work, and then actually submitting—that last bit is especially gratifying. So, yeah, even if that publishing goal has to get pushed to next year, I don’t necessarily mind at this point. Besides, my OCD will certainly love it if I get published in 2024 rather than 2023—even numbers and all that nonsense.
Otherwise, October went about as well as you might except, with spooky vibes galore and a whole lot me. Aside from Comic-Con, I think the highlight for me was Halloween weekend, primarily because of that Saturday’s concert. Motionless in White, a band well-known for their spooky aesthetic, have been on an absolute roll lately, and their latest headlining tour was something of a spectacle. For weeks, they were touting this tour as their best production to date, and goddamn were they right. Joined by Knocked Loose, After the Burial, and Alpha Wolf, this was a show I’ll not soon forget, especially since I got to enjoy it in good company.
Speaking of music, there were also so many good album drops during October, including Of Mice & Men’s Tether, Beartooth’s The Surface, Knuckle Puck’s Losing What We Love, and, of course, Blink-182’s One More Time. And hey, while we’re on the topic of epic releases, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the oh-so epic video game that is Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2. Holy shit, what a game.
To close out Spooky Month, of course, was Halloween itself. Since it fell on a Tuesday this year, that meant working. Yes, that definitely sucks, but at least I got to go into the office in my Last Stand Spider-Man suit. If you’ve seen my socials, you probably already saw how that went. I thought it was hilarious, needless to say.
All in all, October has left me feeling good, moving into the closing weeks of 2023. As we’re already several days into November, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has already kicked off, and I’m going about as strong as I can with it. Fifty thousand words in one month is…probably not going to happen, but this will nevertheless give me every good excuse to continue working on “The Mirror” and several other chapters in my larger Blood Sisters novel. I’m eager to see where I finish in my overall word count by the end of the month. Hopefully someplace good.
Anywho, I hope everyone else had a pleasant Spooky Month and is looking forward to wrapping up 2023 strong. Let’s do it in style, gang! Until next time, peace!