November 2025 very much did not go as I’d expected, and my writing output shows it, clocking in with a word count under two thousand.
I’m keeping the details and reasons between us, but Michael and I separated early in the month. I’m the one who moved out, and since there was nothing keeping me in Georgia, I came back home to Eastern North Carolina. I spent exactly half the month — fifteen days — living in a hotel before moving into a beautiful 1910s-era house in a small town. It has way more square footage than I need, but it’s well-built and extremely walkable.
The long-distance move and keeping up with the paid job took up nearly all of my time and energy in November. I’m just now beginning to reflect, regroup, and figure out what I want to do next.
But even with all that, the writing output was not zero, and I can report a couple triumphs for the month. I (mostly) kept up with a tracking task on the professional blog I started in October, and I wrote a little bit of fan fiction. The biggest news, though, is that The Iron Rose and Other Stories: Tales from Lacerta Station was finally published. The third story, “Fenestram Aperit,” and the tenth story, “Legacy,” are both mine.
All of my work in progress is on my own computer, and prior to the separation I had already signed up for a Signum SPACE Creative Writing Workshop during December. I’m planning to use this workshop to kick-start my fiction work again, beginning either with some Scarecrow and Mrs. King fan fiction or with a short story set on Roscara — or, possibly, both.
I was also already far enough ahead on my annual word count that losing November has not left me in a position where it’s impossible to catch up by the end of the year (although it will not be easy). That also gives me an incentive to bring the writing back up to a normal pace during December. Let’s see if I can do it!