Infinite Gratitude, Infinite Hope

I thought I’d write this post sharing with everyone the current personal projects I’m working on, hoping to turn them into something more later on.  October is a dedicated write a page a day month.  October is not dedicated to any specific type of writing; it's just a writing month.  November is National Novel Writing Month.  I will be on vacation for the first part of this challenge, but plan to write in the moments when everyone is asleep, at work, or at school.

1) Short Stories – I've been writing them for many years, and I've shared a few on different websites. As I've learned from content marketing, those websites make money from my content, but they do not share that revenue with me. I pulled my stories for that reason.  I feel I would rather share my stories on my own income generating site or self-publish.  The only one who should be generating income from my stories is me.  Content is king and if you are not creating new content you are not ranking with Google.  While I respect those websites need to earn in order to stay alive on-line, they are not generating their own content, they are relying on others to create for them.  I have no intention of producing content for those sites anymore, but I am still dedicated to creating short stories for everyone to read.  I haven't decided if I want to incorporate my work on this blog, but I will eventually republish all stories I've released in the past, somewhere.

2) Novel – During the month of November my attention is going to be hard to keep.  In keeping with the challenge of Novel Writing Month, I have to write 50,000 words from the beginning of the month to the end.  There is no specific word count for each day, but the end result is 50,000 words.  The point is not to have a polished, fully edited novel ready at the end of the month.  What I will have is the meat of a book that will then need to be edited, and then possibly published.  Since, I'll be in Texas for the start of this challenge, I'll be writing in notebooks.

3) Essays – I enjoy writing prompts, especially those with dedicated word counts. I will be writing page long stories based on prompts that my sister has been generously giving me, as well as prompts being sent to me through my writing sites.  The nice thing about essay stories is they don't require you to write beyond a page (possibly two), but they can lead to a short story if the idea is good enough.

My plan for the future is to get away from writing for others, and just write for myself.  My goal is to be more Stephen King or Nora Roberts, and less content writer.  I don't know how my writing plans will affect this blog.  I plan to maintain it during these crazy busy months, but at the same time I still need to focus some attention towards my job as a content writer because I do need to pay my bills.  In November, I'll be working toward a goal/dream while still working to live, and I'm not sure how late that will keep me up each night.  I expect to be exhausted at the beginning of December.