​November was another month that didn’t feel as busy at times and was intensely busy at other times for me. As for my ghostwriting work I had a total of 31 jobs which was slightly higher than last month. Out of those jobs I had to write a total of 95 different articles, again a slight increase from October. The main difference this month was that the work contained four big jobs of ten or more articles in a set and several slightly smaller sets. I had very few single article jobs.
 
The Vending Piece
 
I look at my life these days as being a product of various pieces of a puzzle. My ghostwriting is a large piece of that puzzle. Vending JamBusters! with Brenda is another large piece. The past month has been a tremendous one in that department. I watched her work long hours in the kitchen to prepare for one major event in late November as well as keeping the inventory up for our regular vending dates. I even pitched in a few times to lighten the load.
 
Don’t tell her, but I rather enjoyed breaking apart a few pounds of garlic cloves and I really didn’t mind cutting disks for her labels. In a way, I found these ‘new’ tasks a welcome change from some of the hectic activity I experienced at times during the month. Regardless, vending JamBusters! appears to be an ongoing thing for us as I also designed an ad for JamBusters! and Watkins that will appear in the upcoming 2019 Oliver Tourist Information Guide.
 
The Town Council Piece
 
Probably the biggest piece is my extra duties as an elected member of our local Town Council. I was sworn in on November 5 and started attending committee meetings following our first official Town Council meeting on November 19. There have been several additional tasks related to the job and fortunately my home-based ghostwriting business gives me the flexibility to be able to participate in as many Town Council functions as possible.
 
One fun event for me happened to combine two of my puzzle pieces together. The annual Chamber of Commerce Christmas Craft Fair was November 24. JamBusters! has been attending this the past couple of years. It was also the same day as the Town of Princeton annual Christmas Light-Up and Santa Visit. Both events happened next to each other. I was asked to MC the Light-Up which was a fun experience for me and Brenda had a great day of sales.
 
The Gears Are Shifting Slightly
 
So as my ghostwriting volume is shifting into a reasonable place where I can stay caught up and not feel rushed, it has opened room for me to handle duties related to Town Council. I would have juggled them otherwise but I prefer to be able to take care of them this way as it really is much easier. The JamBusters! weekend vending is always fun but like Brenda, I kind of view it as a day off where we can spend it together doing something we enjoy.

​Although it hasn’t felt as busy as far as ghostwriting is concerned this month, I did receive a total of 29 different orders for over 94 different articles. In many ways, the content I wrote for some of my clients kept me as busy as I wanted to be. Work came to me from several sources and was from clients in Canada, the United States, China, Israel, the United Kingdom and Australia to name a few. Most of it was from regular clients with some new ones filling in some spaces.
 
The majority of the writing jobs focused on sets of articles as opposed to single pieces here and there. Of the sets of articles I wrote during the month, most of them were complete pages of content for new websites. The balance of the projects was blog posts. I actually found it interesting that so much of the work in October was for website projects as I normally find myself writing blog posts most of the time. This different work was a nice change.
 
The Other Things Going On
 
The weekly vending activities I participate in with my wife, Brenda, continued this past month. We actually missed the final weekend of September as we were still away on holiday. The both of us were anxious to get back to the weekly routine and sales were slightly better than I had expected. We had far better sales throughout October than we had recorded for most of the previous month and our Watkins Products sold better than we’ve ever had to date.
 
Plus there was a local election that took some of our focus. I participated in an all-candidates forum days after we returned from holidays. It was quite interesting for me as I am used to being the MC asking the questions of candidates. This time around I was one of the 15 candidates answering questions. I felt my performance was lackluster but from the feedback I received that evening and for the following couple of weeks I must have misheard myself.
 
Election night was a completely different affair. Again, I have attended these things in the past in my former Media life. Being one of the election hopefuls was giving me a perspective on the ballot results I had not had for some time (I ran in the local municipal election in 1999). Winning a seat on the local Town Council was the goal and I achieved that by the end of the night – or more accurately, well into the next morning. So I am now a Councillor-elect.
 
In The Next Month Or Two
 
Well, I expect things to be a little bumpy at times as I attempt to adjust my scheduling around tasks associated with my new role in our community. I fully intend to keep vending with Brenda as well as continue to write. I have already changed my writing rates to reflect the reduction in time I may have to do that these days. I was due for a price increase for my freelance work, anyway. I look forward to doing some great things with my time in the coming months.

​In addition to my daily ghostwriting work, I have had to juggle a little more paperwork than normal this month. It was in mid-September when I officially became a Candidate in the upcoming local Municipal Election. I had launched a website at 12:01 AM on January 1, 2018, but the actual Nomination paperwork had to be completed no later than September 14, 2018. That meant I had to find ten people to nominate me before I could hand in the completed forms. It actually was far easier than I had anticipated and my goal was to actually pool together 15 signatures in case one or two were disqualified for some reason. I ended up with 13 and one of my Nominators was DQ’d but I had enough names.
 
My month actually started busy with ghostwriting jobs. In fact, the order list for the month – and I stopped taking order on September 20 – totaled just 32 but several of them were huge projects. I halted the order traffic to allow myself to catch up before Brenda and I took off for a few days to unwind, relax and recharge. In order to do that, I worked many more hours than Bren did in the kitchen canning for her big JamBusters! events and both of us accomplished a great deal as a result.
 
I even vended JamBusters! alone one weekend in the Oliver Indoor Flea Market. Bren was away for a Women’s Retreat so I took the vending gear on the road and got through it okay. As I had writing jobs to finish throughout that weekend, I didn’t really do much goofing off while Bren was away. Then near the end of the month, on September 21, 2018 I was the MC for a short ribbon cutting ceremony to officially open the Granite Creek self-guided walking tour. I have been the Chairman of this historic society since its inception so I was pleased to see this project receiving much needed attention.
 
Now that I’m thinking about it, I had two MC jobs during the month. In addition to the one I just mentioned, when Bren was away early in the month I was the MC/Auctioneer at a local golf tournament where the funds being raised were in support of the Terry Fox Cancer Society. I’ve helped this group in the past and suspect I’ll be helping them again in the future. One job I have dropped off my list is the webcasts of the local Junior B hockey team. I just couldn’t see how I could fit them into an already intensely busy schedule.
 
I expect things to continue to be busy as we approach the local election (advanced polls are October 10 with regular voting October 20). I have also already been approached by several of my ghostwriting clients to book work in October so I anticipate I’ll be putting in some more long hours in front of the keyboard once we return from a few days off. Thankfully both Bren and I can keep this pace and also recognize when we need to stop and take a breather. Who knew our lives would get some interesting and involved in such a short amount of time?