​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?

​This past month has been busy for me. When I look over my job list I see that in June 2018 I had a total of 54 different ghostwriting orders. In July that increased to 58 and August ended with a total of 59 writing orders. I’m just talking about the actual number of orders. Each order is for between one and 20 different articles with word counts per article ranging from 350 to 1,500.
 
If I were to calculate the actual article numbers and word count for August 2018, I’m sure it would be my busiest month in some time. It isn’t my best month this year but it is one of my better ones. Regardless, I’m pretty happy that there continues to be a steady flow of traffic coming to me for my ghostwriting service. I’ve even picked up some new clients this month.
 
Heritage Week Presentation
 
For the third year in a row I was asked to make a historic presentation in mid-August as part of Heritage Week celebrations in town. The Princeton Museum was the downtown venue used for a nightly series of three presentations. This year I was the one in the middle and I decided I needed to do something different from what I had done in the past regarding ghost town history.
 
It just so happens that a local non-profit group I have been the Chairman of since its inception is hosting a celebration next month. I used that as the point of my presentation and moved backwards from there. So, I told the story of how this group was formed and shared the many accomplishments made along the way in the past five years it has been in existence. It went well.
 
Podcasts/Webcasts
 
I took a break from producing a weekly podcast for my podcast channel “Ninja on the Loose” and have to get back into the routine. Part of the reason why I took a short recess was because of how busy I have been with other interests. Plus, with the new local hockey season upon us late in August I was approached earlier in the month to resume the play-by-play webcasts.
 
Considering my present workload, and my upcoming bid for a seat on Town Council in the October 2018 Municipal Election, I had to step down from that project. In the past ten seasons webcasts have been in play in the Junior B hockey league, I have been the play-by-play guy doing the webcasts. I took a two season break before, so after eight seasons I am a little tired.
 
Vending JamBusters!
 
Brenda’s home-based business, JamBusters! has been as busy as my ghostwriting. This summer was particularly hectic for that part of our lives. With all kinds of fresh fruit reaching harvest at the same time, Brenda has been spending extra hours in the kitchen to keep up with the demand and filling our inventory for big vending events later in the year. It has been a lot of work.
 
It got to the point where I took it upon myself to attend the local Chamber of Commerce outdoor, mid-week markets on my own. I’m sure if they were located more than just a kilometre away from our home that I may not have been so keen. However, I had good sales days the two times during the month I went on my own to vend at the venue located along the local major highway.
 
Things To Come
 
September is going to be another busy month for both my ghostwriting and Bren’s JamBusters! but we anticipate a slowdown in October and November which will make all of this hard work in August worthwhile. It’s hard for me to believe that as I write this, summer is nearly over and schools are reopening for another school season. It has been a busy year for us indeed.