The October Project, Part I

East Rand Mines in South Africa, Current Day

For the 45 years we've been married and the 20-some years before we met, my spouse has been collecting life-stories and experiences, polishing and retelling them until they are gem-hard and shining. Until now, family and chance-met acquaintances have been the only ones to hear these travelers' tales.

So in October, we are collaborating on a compilation of these anecdotes. The finished project, tentatively titled Staying Thirsty (a nod to The Most Interesting Man), may not be finished before NaNoWriMo begins on November 1st, but we hope to have a rough draft complete by Halloween. Once the November writing blitz (which will probably focus on my third Indigo novel) is finished, we'll complete the book and publish it. The plan is to publish Staying Thirsty in both eBook and print.

I'll be using the compilation techniques I developed for My Social Calendar 2014-2015, which is now available from Amazon for Kindle. 

That compilation was essentially organized for me; the calendar months and days made a preset structure to compile into. For The October Project, the structure needs to be generated. We have several choices:

• Chronological (childhood experiences, years at Colorado School of Mines, South African years, etc.)
• Topical (mining tales; mineral collection; outdoors—skiing, cycling, hiking, etc.)
• Some combination of the two.

October's Non-Writing Project

Also in October, we will continue The September Project with tasks left from the previous month, as well as production of three new designs from the 3D printer. These may have commercial potential, but for now, are simply part of the plan to "play" with the portable Bukito 3D printer.