OK folks, here’s where we are with regard to November.

Firstly, while I might not have much urgent work on the books, the quantity of stuff that has been put on the back burner over the past few months is huge, and I need to clear it. Much of that is book reviews.

Secondly, it is probably more important that I should be encouraging you to read other people’s good fiction than that I should add to the large amount of bad fiction in the world. I know that for a lot of people that makes me just another opinionated jerk, and not a real “writer”, but it is what I enjoy doing.

And thirdly, while I still don’t have a complete outline, it has become obvious over the weekend that what I thought was a fairly lightweight urban fantasy is actually a complex, deeply political novel for which I’ll need to do a lot of research on ethnic communities in London. That shouldn’t have surprised me, but it does mean that I should not try to write the whole thing in the coming month.

So I am planning to write 50,000 words in November, but most of that will be promised magazine articles, and book reviews. It may also involve a few novel chapters and/or short fiction, but those are secondary priority.

As I understand it, it would be wrong for me to sign up for NaNoWriMo under those circumstances, so that will have to wait for next year, when I shall try to be better prepared.