From Grathew's Desk

It has been a busy two weeks, and now its NaNoWriMo. Oh boy. I don’t expect to participate. Between the short stories, Worldbuild Wednesday, Noah Bannon, Fantasy Friday, Sci-fi Saturday, and these dispatches, I have more than enough to keep me busy. For those who are unaware this is a writing challenge for the month of November to write a novel. 50,000 words is tSheir bar should you wish to attempt it. If you’re here I would suggest at least using it as an excuse to write something, a short story or start on something. It is the month for it after all.

That said I know The Girl in Green hasn’t gone out yet. I’m not quite done with it yet. When it comes to Slonminma I get a bit to particular with names and it gums up a lot of the gears, as I want to use the languages and the cultures I’ve created to name characters and places. Which ends up being more difficult for me than I’d like. I have solved it, at least for the moment, and will be getting it out in the next week or two. High Rollers is still slated to be this month’s story, which means you’ll get two from me this month.

I think October was a good month, maybe not the most engaging. However it was fairly consistent. As they say consistency is king. I am interested to see how things develop moving forward as I keep building. I think October will be more volatile than November, although I’m unsure. I need to get a good rhythm built up. Which is the goal going forward, get into a good rhythm and get consistently ahead. As I have heard from many creators, getting a head on releases is often the best way to prevent burn out and make things better in the long run. Which will be my goal for November. Get into rhythm and use that to get a head of the release schedule.

I have some news from outside of substack, I got interviewed by Rich the host of the Never Ending Radio Show we talked about the philosophy of AI. Which was a good time. I will put out an announcement when it goes live. I am also talking with a few other blogs about doing guest posts. We will see if that goes anywhere. On the writing news the There and Back has been plotted out almost completely; I will be moving on to characters their backstories hoping to get that done by the end of the year, which will make getting it into your hands by end of 2026 much easier. I also am working though Ghost. Which will be my fantasy LitRPG-ish serial. I also have the first big arc of Noah Bannon plotted out. I think you’ll enjoy it.