I spent all of October gnawing at my book. Every day, I’d get up, eat breakfast, put on a writing podcast, do my chores, then sit down and edit. I learned about myself, about things that make it hard for me to edit for long stretches of time. I learned ways around those things–mostly. And I hit my goals for the month.

Now it’s November. My favorite month, my favorite time of year, is over. I spent most of it in my book. But we tore through horror movies in the evenings and made apple cider donuts that we ate (with apple cider) and I burned a cinnamon candle with precious stones in it that are said to promote positivity.

I don’t believe in any of that. But it smelled nice.

I took the first week of November off to recalibrate, loosen the headache that had locked onto me the last week of October. (I need new glasses.) I caught up on house things, changed the sheets from cotton to flannel, ripped through a backlog of laundry.

This month, I had been planning on doing NaNoWriMo. I frequently say I’m going to do it and then I don’t. This time I was certain I’d do it. I have a short story to flesh out into a novel–I know the word count is there, I know the story supports being that length. I know what needs to happen.

NaNoWriMo felt like a good time box to step away from my travel book and finish the first draft of the other. It’d give me a break from editing, from non-fiction. I was looking forward to finishing it, even though I don’t think it’s sellable because it’s a modern fantasy and that market has been supremely flooded for the last decade.

And maybe I still will. Maybe I’ll start it on Wednesday, try to knock out that 50K word NaNo goal. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll go back to editing. I was on such a hot streak.