We had to leave no later than 10 today to get Dennis to the airport. He showed up at 8:41, about 20 minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off. I fed him breakfast and pulled myself together, and then we went. Hit traffic, so it’s good we left early. And I had some time to putter here afterwards.

So, how stupid of me would it be to do a Novel Dare in September? I know it’s just before GWW, and I’ve said I can’t take on anything new before then. Let’s look at the cons first:

Cons:
* I’m busy, busy. Projects to finish… I’m sure I’ll get hit with lots of GWW e-mail, too.
* I have to get the Combat and Gate Booklets designed and printed by the beginning of October.
* I may have more copy editing jobs.
* I’m co-teaching two Collegium classes in September.
* I don’t know if I’m being fought for in September Crown yet.

Pros:
* I need something to kick me into writing gear again.
* The Site Booklet for the BoD should be done by the end of this month. Other projects are in various stages of completion.
* I should have the Combat Booklet done this month, leaving only one for September.
* Copy editing doesn’t take all my time.
* Neither Collegium class needs much prep work.
* The chances of us winning Crown are minimal (and if by some weird chance we do, then the Dare stops. No problem.).
* Ken may be gone for a couple of weeks in September.

I don’t want to start a new project, but I’m thinking of using it to finish AETW, and maybe write some short stories and/or write an outline for the Valcour novel and/or work on ALNM. (With regards to the latter, if it weren’t for GWW, I’d probably use flyer miles to visit Sarah; I’m convinced we could finish ALNM in a week. But, Ken needs the laptop, which leaves me only with the Palm, which isn’t compatible with Sarah’s computer, which is another problem. Maybe in November?!)

The other problem is that I’ve pretty much failed at every Novel Dare I’ve done so far. I know that’s weighing on me as I consider this. But, I was just looking back in my journal to this spring, when I was producing well on AETW, and I was amazed at how happy I sounded. I’m a big grumpy nonwriter right now compared to that.

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Back from the Getty. Very tired. Made a schedule to handle all the things I have to do tomorrow. It’s so much more manageable when I actually set it out by hour.

The Getty was lots of fun; I’m glad I went, and the costuming lecture was fantastic. It remains to be seen if my notes were legible; it was very dark and my hand was cramping. I bought two postcards for myself, of paintings I really like, and birthday presents for Ken and Morgana. Ken called while we were out looking at the view, and it was so wonderful to talk to him. He just called again so we could talk before I went to bed. He’s going to try and get an early flight home (when he first got the reservation, there weren’t any spaces available, but you never know).

Really must sleep. More tomorrow. G’night, pets.