Howdy friends! This month has been so busy. Work-related responsibilities are ramping up with the start of the new academic year, I just went on a quick vacation to the other side of the state, I just accepted a new position at work, a friend of mine is getting married and I’m the maid of honor so I need to get a few ducks in a row on my end, AND I just completed my second attempt at the 3-Day Novel Contest hosted by volunteers affiliated with Geist magazine every Labor Day weekend.

I outlined like a beast attempting parts of the snowflake model.

I wrote earnestly for two long days, sleeping and eating reasonably. And, perhaps unfortunately, I only got to 60 pages before I was done with the story I was telling. I really like the little bizarre thing I wrote about Death and Misery as these sort of independent, archetypal, and very human-like immortal women encountering their roles in the world and doing their best to play them, and I really liked exploring the inner workings of the two human men in my story who were encountering the forces of Birth (forgot to mention her before), Death, and Misery as they made their way through their lives day by day. It isn’t a novel though. It’s just an overly long short story. Perhaps I can do a middle part and an end part. That might be my plan for now, but I likely won’t get back to attempting the writing of it until December.

For now though, enjoy the strange little drawings I did for the start of each chapter (below).

Take care, and keep the work and the play in equal parts if you can!

~ Alissa