Let's Go Novel Quest!!!
And the new Chicken Soup Christmas book
News
Books
Tales of Christmas is out! You’ll find my tale under my non-fiction penname (Virginia Mueller, paying credit to the other grandmother). And hey, here’s a photo of me holding the exact toy I mention in the story, ‘Santa Gifts Forever’!
Yes, I know Halloween isn’t even here yet, but CSS let us know there’s no guarantee print copies will last till Christmas, so it’s best to grab a copy early if you want one. Part of the proceeds also go to Toys For Tots, so you can feel good reading it for reasons other than the stories.
Events
Illinois Novel Quest kicks off Nov 1st! It’s the alternative to NaNoWriMo I’m running with a few other ex-MLs around the state (See my backstage posts on Ko-Fi for a lot more detail). There were four prep events in October, as well as a kickoff party yesterday with pizza donated by the library. As of this morning, there are 58 writing events planned for November, from a Friday night bar crawl to Monday morning Discord sprits to Saturday adventures, like racing trains into Chicago. Please subscribe to the substack or join the discord if you want to participate!
Gwen’s Writing Gossip
October is always a bit of a whirlwind for me. Historically, this is when my weekends start to fill with National Novel Writing Month, or Novel Quest this year as every Saturday has a writing workshop to help people prepare. I also scramble to get things done and clear my schedule to prepare for November writing. Grocery shopping. Story research. Finish binging current shows.
It’s also my birthday month - so I had friends in town to celebrate. And a friend got married - so I was out of town for a weekend for the wedding. Plus, for the first time ever I took my actual birthday off and relaxed at a spa.
All that to say, in October there’s not much writing for me to gossip about. I’m really looking forward to all the writing/editing time I’m blocking out next month.
I will say for the anthology we decided to commission an artist for the cover. I got a first draft sketch of it today and I love it. I should have a final cover to share in November!
Media Recommendations
I’m entering that oh no phase of the year where I begin to doubt I’ll hit my reading goal for the year. I’m at 26 books out of 35, and I know my reading time will drop next month. I did read two books in October, but I’m not sure I’d recommend them.
Instead, I’m going to tell you that you should watch Love Next Door, a Korean drama on Netflix. It’s part slow-burn romance, part family drama. It’s long. I cried. I stayed up till three am because I didn’t realize episode length jumped to 90 minutes in the middle. The first 5 or so episodes are also a good example of how to parse out information to readers/viewers in a way that adds tension and reevaluation to a story.
Next month Goodreads opens up voting for it’s GoodReads Choice Awards. Do you have any 2024 books on your shortlist?