So NaNoWriMo is over, and I have another 50,000 words down on my future military / psychic reconnaissance novel. A few middle and ending scenes need to be filled in, and it’s all a disordered jumble in one document at the moment. But I’m happy to have completed my 2nd NaNoWriMo event.

  
I learned (or re-learned) a few things along the way, which I’ll post over the next month. 

But more importantly (to me), this frees me up to focus on revising and publishing my fantasy novel that I finished in late Spring. Thanks to several very helpful and thoughtful first readers, I have some solid suggestions on fixes and changes.

I’m going to start posting the first few chapters as a lead-up to the book being publically available online–which should happen by Christmas. It’s my present to me… and maybe to some of my friends who are already after me to work on book 2. 

If all goes well, this year’s group of Okinawa NaNo participants will also form a monthly writers’ group–something we wanted to do last year but couldn’t due to various military commitments and obligations. I’m ecstatic, since I maintain that’s the absolute best way to grow as a writer. I enjoy it so much I wrote a book about it, called Elements of Critique. 

And sadly, when I look at the news out of my hometown Chicago and other places around the States, I see very little has changed from the stories dominating the headlines last year. When I completed my first NaNoWriMo, racial tensions and community relations occupied my mind. More importantly, I could not ignore the wide gulf of animosity I saw on social media between people holding opposing viewpoints. And I wondered if anyone really considered the hurting families and broken lives in the aftermath of Ferguson and other flare-ups of racial tension. My book, Not to the Swift, is my effort to understand and empathize as a fellow father, husband, human. Seeing or considering what others go through reminded me how much I have to be thankful for. 

I hope Thanksgiving and the oncoming holiday season find you well and give you the chance to count your blessings. Maybe that can be another Christmas present we give ourselves. Gratitude and contentment seem truly counter-cultural in the West, so this is our chance to be ironic hipsters and go against the flow.

Grateful always for your time and attention,

Dave