Dear Inklings,

Fall came early this year, at least in the Twin Cities. The first day of cool weather came on my best friend's birthday. I've been telling them that they ushered in autumn this year. In my neighborhood, some of the leaves are already beginning to change colors.

I'm feeling much less lethargic and much more creative than I was in the warmer months. That's sort of my cycle. I do best in the cooler months, and then when the summer comes around, my brain turns to mush.

The new job has been fantastic so far, but it also hasn't impeded with my writing too much. Though I am a bit behind where I'd like to be. I set a goal for 17,900 this month, just a bit higher than I was last month. As of this moment, 1am on Sunday the 27th, I am sitting at 10,900. That gives me four days to write 7,000 words, which would be a stretch but could be doable. I should have written today, too, however, and instead got carried away with a new game idea with some friends.

I think I'll spend the next few days prioritizing writing. If I don't meet my goal this month, that's okay. But next month through December, I will need to buckle down. I'm going to be doing Weeknight Writers' #FirstDraftFall.

This is a sort of gentler NaNoWriMo, giving you all of October to prep and then November and December to write the first draft of something. Though the lack of a solid wordcount also means you can kind of go at your own pace - within the goal of finishing a first draft. Here's what I have planned:

OCTOBER

For October, it will be business as usual - with a somewhat higher word count goal and focus. I'll be alternating between Time's Sacrifice Book 2, Fox Eyes Book 1, and Luminhaven Chronicles Book 2. I think I'll aim to write about 35k across all of them. Individually, I'd like to:

• Finish an outline for the new draft of Time's Sacrifice Book 2. After being stuck in editing purgatory for too long, I decided to start the draft over so I could tackle some structural changes with more gusto. I've been using the Five-Act Structure to outline it, and I think I've already worked out some of the plot issues. By the end of October, I'd like to be done with the outline and at least three chapters into the draft.
• Write as much as I can of Fox Eyes and Luminhaven. I'm in the middle of drafting these, so my goal is to just...keep going, basically.

NOVEMBER

November will be the biggest month. Although NaNoWriMo is now defunct - and was kind of terrible there towards the end - I do think I want to shoot for 50,000 words this November. But more specifically, I want to dedicate November solely to working on Luminhaven Book 1.

I'll be honest with you, my dear inklings. The brainrot has been real for this project. For the past several months, I've kind of only wanted to write Luminhaven. But I haven't let myself do that. For one thing, I already have a book that's been out for three years that desperately needs a sequel. For another, I'm also trying to finish Fox Eyes, which is the book of my heart in many ways. I worry if I dedicate my time to Luminhaven, I won't ever finish those projects. And what if I finish Luminhaven Book 1 and then something else shiny and new gets my attention and I never finish all these series?

I don't want that. I want to finish things. But I do think trying to force myself not to write the thing I've really wanted to write, especially while burned out, has been exacerbating things. So for November, Luminhaven gets all the attention it wants. I'm going to work on it until I'm sick of it. Then I can give some love to my other projects after.

DECEMBER

Well, the goal of #FirstDraftFall is to...finish a first draft. So if, by the end of November, I haven't finished a first draft, it's time to do that. If I finish Luminhaven, I plan to celebrate a little...and then get to working on Time's Sacrifice Book 2.

My wordcount goals for September are a little less stringent. Let's go back to 35k for the month. That will mean that in the last quarter of the year I will have written 120,000 words. That's more than everything I've written to this date combined.

My overall hope is that #FirstDraftFall will: a) help me, you know, finish a first draft; b) help me get Luminhaven out of my system a bit; and c) help me kickstart my writing again and get back to the kind of output I used to have and miss.

And of course, I'm hoping to have a lot of fun with it. I'll keep you posted on how it goes!

Until then,

Alex