October First: Catch-All and Linkage

The countdown begins to my-favorite-holiday-on-which-I-have-nothing-to-do, Halloween. I love Halloween, the idea of dressing up as something magical and maybe a little scary, a night to pretend I'm someone/something else--it's like taking the stories I write a step further.

When I write, I am, in some ways, every character. I need to get in their heads, know how they think, how they react, how they feel. On Halloween, instead of quietly looking over the shoulders' of these fictional characters, I can walk the street as someone else.

@_@

Not to take that idea too far, I just love Halloween.

It's incredibly sad that I never have any plans for the night. Candy for the handful of kiddies that show up, yes, but my family never has parties, none of my friends have parties as far as I'm aware, and I'm not a dance club kind of gal.

But moving on. October 1 also marks the not-quite-midpoint of Banned Books Week, as well as the first day of NaBloWriMo--National Blog Writing Month. Seeing as how I love to read, but have been lax in my CoffeeQuill blogging, I want to attend to these both.

Briefly, a WHAT TO EXPECT:

Tomorrow, I'll post about Banned Books, talk about this year's list, banned books I have or have not read, and share an anecdote from 2003.

Then, it will be my fervent attempt to blog each day of October. I don't imagine I'll keep up the once-a-day post after this month, but if memory serves, it takes about 21 days to form a habit. If I can manage NaBloWriMo, maybe I can manage a more regular posting schedule. I'm already making a list of topics to post on.

LINKAGE

On Publisher's Weekly, there's a vote going on--PW is planning to do an interview with an urban fantasy author, and they want to know which UF author people want to read about. Voting is happening on now, and you can go here to cast your choice. You don't need to log in to leave a comment.

Today also heralds the guest post on "The Charming Bracelet," by "Only Milo" author Barry Smith. Jennifer Ambrose, the author of the blog, is running a Big Idea--a chain letter of sorts, but with a book. Receive it, read it, sign it, blog or tweet it if you like, mail it to someone else. Eventually, the book returns to Jennifer and more writers and readers are aware of a debut author. The book sounds interesting, and you can go to Jennifer's blog for more details about the book, Smith, and her chain book idea.

ETA: While writing about NaBloWriMo, I knew there was one more blog I wanted to mention. By the time I got to Linkage, I forgot. 'Cause I'm a dork like that. Seeing as I love Halloween, and by extension, October, here is a link to Writtenwyrdd's short fiction contest. 500-1,000-word horror story. Halloween as the deadline. Prize is a cuddly Chthulu plushie. I haven't written much horror, but for that, I'm going to give it a try.

(Thanks to Writtenwyrdd for reminding me I wanted to post about this.) :)

So that's October 1, day one of NaBloWriMo. 30 more days to go.

Happy writing,
Sabrina