Two years ago, I wrote a blog post on Halloween night discussing whether I should take part in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. I did do NaNo that year and “won,” meaning I wrote 50,000 words in the month of November.

That first draft sucked. But for the next year and a half I worked on it. Not straight through–there were months when I didn’t touch it–but by mid-2015 I had a decent draft that had been edited a million times by me, and once by a professional editor. Now, two years later, that book is completely different from the book that “won” NaNo. As you may recall, it’s called She Laughs in Pink and will be published in May by BookFish Books.

And here we are… another November. This month, I’m working on Book Three of that series. It’s sort of a NaNo Cheat, since I already have about 30K words written, but my goal is to have a complete first draft by the end of the month.

Also this month, I’ll be “hiding in the editing cave” (writers seem to like that phrase so I’ll borrow it here) with The Love Square, which will be published on January 12, 2016 by Limitless Publishing. I expect to hear from my editor by November 24th, and I’ll have a little over a week to rewrite.

Did I mention I’m starting a day job, too? Yep. Tomorrow. As in this tomorrow, November 2nd. I’m honored to be working for the State of New Jersey and happy I’ll have income, but yeah, it’s going to throw a wrench in the whole system.

I’m not scared though. Okay, maybe I’m a little scared. But I learned from Thomas the Tank Engine recently that “you can be scared and still be brave.” So I’d say I’m scared and brave. I’m scared about the writing and publishing, I’m scared about the new job, and I’m scared about keeping up my family responsibilities and staying in touch with my friends.

But mostly I’m brave, because I’m going to try my hardest to do it all. Everything that’s happening this month is difficult and good and so worth the effort. This month encompasses all the things I want to do forever–of course I’m going to try to make it work! Fear and stress can knock on the door all they want, but I ain’t gonna answer. I’m going to cover my ears and say, “La la la,” until they back off.

Will I drop a few balls as I juggle November? I’m certain I will. But I’ll just bend down and pick them back up.

Join me in NaNo? I’m on the NaNo website as Jessica Calla. Come find me!