Amazing evening with my writers' club. It was originally co-workers and we set aside an hour a week during work hours to talk writing and write. Now it's expanded as one of the group has moved on to another job. It was a great and productive night, kicking off NaNoWriMo for two in the group.

I recently finished a short story for the Horror Fest: Bloody Parchment competition, for Halloween of course! Working on this story brought me a step closer to the process of just writing without worrying about every word, just getting it down, and then after writing, edit. The idea is to get some of the benefits of NaNoWriMo without the stress of trying to write a novel in a month (50,000 words, gulp!). I tried, but just can't commit to writing that much every single day, but I have enormous respect for those disciplined souls that can do it.

I did however write a solid 600+ words tonight for my...whatever it ends up being. I've been kicking around this ghostie idea for years. I've set myself a goal to complete at least 20,000 words (novella length) by at my birthday in late Feb.  I have played around with ideas for this story in short pieces, one I published as a Flash Friday entry. My obsession with ghosts mostly stems from the fact that the rational part of my brain does not believe in ghosts, but the ancient, fight-or-flight part of my brain is terrified by the idea and the image, so I must believe in them on some level. There is not one shred of hard evidence; scientists have found evidence of something as strange and small as quarks, but no real evidence of ghosts. It is the long standing battle within my brain and I find it fascinating.

As Dave Emory, who filled my head with lectures on political scandals and conspiracy theories as a teenager, said, "Food for thought and grounds for further research."