October blues

Every year it's the same. I want October to be a calm month, a month when I can get things ready for NaNoWriMo and Halloween and be rested by the time November first rolls around. And every year October is complete chaos.

Okay, I've exacerbated the situation this year by sending out all those queries at the beginning of the month. To be honest, I didn't expect to get responses on any of them this quickly. I'm not really complaining, since I've now had two requests for partials, but the whole process is jacking up my stress level considerably.

And I suppose September is a bad time to send out short story submissions, because by October the rejections have started to trickle in and I like to keep up a quick turnaround time on those. It takes time to get a manuscript ready even if the market research is (ideally) already done, so that's another bite out of the day. Or days.

This year I lost my head entirely and ran a short story workshop that spilled over into October. I really enjoy doing the workshops, but why, oh why, did I not realize what bad timing this was going to be? I feel so guilty if I'm late getting back to my students with every assignment.

And then, of course, there are Halloween costumes to be prepared, garden work clamouring to be done, housecleaning ditto...no wonder I've been rushing around feeling completely overwhelmed lately.

I suppose that's enough ranting for tonight, though. I'm about to re-order my to-do list and hopefully cross off a couple of items. Of course I'll probably also have a few to add...