Wow, I’ve completely cleaned out my e-mail In Box. Can’t remember the last time that happened!

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I’m surprised nobody’s asked where we’re going on our trip. I know I’ve told a few people privately, but I was making a point not to mention it here, because it’s a surprise for a certain group of people. This won’t get posted until they see us, so now I can reveal that I’m on a plane to Britain, Wahoo! Drachenwald Coronation is being held in Caerphilly Castle again, where we held it two years ago, right before we moved back to California. So with the help of the evil and secretive Lucrezia, we’re just going to show up and blow people’s minds. Bwahaha.

After that, we’re going to Birmingham to spend a couple of nights with Amanda and Gordon (we’ll probably miss Dave) and also spend a little more time with Ed and Marian. Then we have a few days of “no clue what the plan is” before we have to return the rental car in London. After that, we’re taking the train to Paris and spending two nights there, to visit Vicki-Marie. We have a list of stuff to see/do in London, and I want to see the catacombs in Paris. And maybe climb to the top of Notre Damn.

Unfortunately, we never did find the travel books, so I’m at a bit of a loss. We’ll buy a basic guide and an atlas when we arrive. Ken wants to go to Stratford, which is cool. But the only pagan site I can remember that I want to see is a particular turf maze. I couldn’t even search online for most things, because it was hard to pin down what to search for. (I know where to find the info in certain books I have, of course, but…).

Anyway. We got on the plane and discovered that they’d double-booked our seats, so we got bumped to business class. Hurrah! Gobs of leg room, seats that really recline, etc. Alas, I remain unable to sleep on planes. I may have dozed a little, but not much. Even champagne, wine, and cognac wasn’t enough to knock me out. Right now I feel tired, but completely sober. Sigh.

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So I never really talked much about Christmas, did I? A busy day. I think I mentioned what we got as presents. Two crock pots, sheets, and a teapot set. Wonderful stuff, but it made me feel kind of old!

As expected, Ken had missed me a lot while he was in Korea so I had a mound of presents. Really, more than I needed or wanted. The one that means the most to me was simply a box full of ginko leaves. See, years ago—1996, I believe—he wrote me a poem on ginko leaves. We have them framed by the front door. I don’t have the poem memorized (how awful is that?), but it’s about how it’s a custom in Korea for lovers to write notes to each other on ginko leaves, and how there aren’t enough ginko leaves in Korea for him to express the joy he feels when we’re together. Opening a box of them made me cry…

He bought us a cool table for entranceway. We’ve been wanting one for awhile, and have been looking for the perfect one. It couldn’t be too deep, or it would block access, etc. This one has sloped sides (i.e., it’s narrower at the top) and has a bunch of drawers, and it’s dark wood. I put the leaves in one of the drawers. :-)

He also got me an amethyst necklace to go with the earrings he bought me last time, another necklace (citrine, maybe?), and a Blackmore’s Night live CD and live video. I think there may have been more, but I can’t remember now.

Donna sent us Xmas mugs and Earl Grey tea, and my niece Emily made us a magnet with a picture of us and glitter. My parents sent money and our yearly ornament, as well as last year’s ornament (one’s gold bells and one’s a sleigh), and I also got my yearly check from my grandmother, who left an account for my mom to distribute to us girls. My aunt sent money as well. Teresa gave me a harp CD recorded by a friend of hers, and Vera, whom I totally did not expect a gift from, sent a small book of quotes.

As for Ken, I gave him two shirts—one with one of the rathergood.com Viking cats that says “Fear Me” and one that says “I’m not speeding, I’m qualifying”—a Queensryche CD, a wooden box with a map on it and a space for a picture, and a Galileo thermometer. Cat and I went in on a game for him, too, called Princes of Florence (thanks to Jenn for mentioning it in her journal, because it’s perfect for Ken!).

I also promised ya’ll the Cat/hair clip story. I love the sparkly Victorianesque jewelry that’s popular now. Silver, rhinestones, jet, etc. I adore the stuff. I’ve really wanted a hair clip, but the only ones I could find were $40, which was more than I wanted to spend. Cat and I were at the mall on Christmas Eve Day, shopping mostly for other people (although I needed rose-scented bath gel from The Body Shop, too), and I got distracted by the booth of sparkly shiny things. I looked at a lot of hair clips, found one I really liked that was still a wee bit more than I felt justified in spending right then, then found one I also liked for about $10, so I got it. Meanwhile, Cat is palming the one I really like off to the salesgirl, telling her to keep it quiet. I did see her lean over to sign the receipt—despite the fact that she was trying to distract me—but I played along. We were very giggly about it. So now I have two wonderful sparkly shiny hair clips. Cat is very cool. :-)

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So, Happy New Year, pets! I can’t do a retrospective because I don’t have all of my files here, plus with the November hard drive crash I lost most of my submissions log and still need to re-create as much of it as I can. I did sell a few stories, and see a few in print (“Return to Wildwood”, “Frozen”, and “What the Tales Never Mentioned Was That She Had a Daughter” are the ones I remember offhand). I went to another OCW workshop and because of it was invited to submit to a pro anthology (still waiting to hear on that). I started out the year very positively, but had some slumps. I regrouped in early December, although with the holidays, company, and travel plans, I got less done in the latter half.

My 2004 writing goals are currently just for the first six months or so. I’ll project farther ahead once I see where these projects are. These are roughly in order.

1. Finish AETW (it’s about half done, which scares me because I feel like I don’t have enough to fill it up, but it’ll sort itself out in the end).

2. Finish ALNM (it looks as though Sarah will be able to visit in late March/early April, so this is eminently do-able).

3. Revise Rowan (a novel I wrote a few years ago as an experiment—I want to add a romantic element, but not make it a romance per se).

After that, I’ll look at the other novel ideas I have, and go from there. I’ll also keep working on short fiction, especially for reasonable anthologies. Teresa and I want to collaborate on more erotica, too.

I’ll be taking three OCW workshops in 2004: Writing Faster (weekend, June), Work-For-Hire (week-long, August), and the Romance Weekend (November). They’re having four novel weekends as well, to get novel feedback, and we’ll see if I can squeeze one or two of those in.

Finally (or maybe firstly), when we get back home from this trip, by the end of January I want to get all returned stories back in the mail and redo the submissions tracking file.

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Right, let me try to doze again and see if I’m more successful this time.

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In the B&B in Caerphilly now. I think I did doze a little on the plane; I felt reasonable by the time we landed. We drove out here and napped for about two hours, then went to the crash space site.

Hee hee hee! So many double takes and astonished looks, followed by huge grins and big hugs! I feel wonderfully evil, but it a good way. We went out to supper (Indian, because none of the pubs the locals sent us to actually served real food) with Ed, Marian, Ulf, and Samuil, then went back and hung out some more. Now we’re just tired. Sleep will be good.