Writers have all sorts of strange superstitions, rituals and quirks. I like to keep a coin balanced on edge on the desktop while I type: when the coin drops, it’s time to take a break. Silly stuff like that.

But now I might start a new personal superstition – I only have to announce here on the blog that I’ll be working of a fun project just because, that some serious work lands in my mailbox.
For instance…

Yesterday I wrote I’ll devote the month of December to writing ghost stories just for kicks. Later yesterday evening I landed a new paid writing gig – 8.000 words for a publisher I respect a lot, working on a third-party character I always liked, and doing a noir/hard-boiled PI story featuring a strong female sleuth.

My pitch was accepted quite fast, and I am currently outlining the story and doing some quick-and-dirty research – I found out that if you put “woman gumshoe” in Google, you get pages upon pages of running shoes, while “woman hard-boiled PI” will get you an awful lot of close-ups of hard-boiled eggs.

And what about the ghosts, you ask?
Well, I’ll be able to devote less time to them, but I’ll still try and write a few short stories or ghostly flash fictions, just for the fun of it.
Let’s see if this lands me another job…