Today may go down in history as the weirdest Crown Tournament in Caidan history. It was cold. It rained. No, it poured. At one point, it even hailed. Why is this weird? Well, I’m not aware of a Crown in recent history that had any rain. The last two April Crowns were in the 90s.

We ended up leaving early, in part because we still have tons to do to get ready for our trip. And we had to swing by the new GWW Exchequer’s house to drop off five or six boxes worth of stuff. That’s where we are now. Ken has to explain stuff, so I brought my laptop along because I knew it would take a while.

Life is a little weird right now as well. Some stuff I can’t really talk about. Some SCA, some not. Lots of emotional upheaval on my part, from near-tears to just not giving a shit.

Meanwhile, I’m pondering a rather crazy idea. In mid-June, I’m going to a weekend-long OCW workshop (Story Structure/Writing Faster). I’ll arrive home Sunday evening, and then leave the next day for Virginia, because the first Styx concert there is on Tuesday. I’ll be staying there until probably the following Tuesday or Wednesday. The crazy idea is this: The weekend before the OCW workshop is another workshop, and if I went to it, I could stay in the workshop house in the intervening week and write write write. That first workshop is a novel workshop, wherein you submit a completed novel ahead of time for review—so in the week between, I could rewrite according to comments, and have another novel ready to start sending out.

I do have a potential novel. The working title is Rowan, after the main character. I wrote it in the UK, but I didn’t know what type of book it wanted to be. Right now it’s a supernatural suspense. A suspense with paranormal elements. (See? No specific genre.) I want to add a romantic element to it; the characters are there; they just need a few more scenes together.

Can I get those scenes written and the novel ready to send out to the other workshop folks by 1 May? Good question. Question 2 is whether I’ll have time to read and critique one full novel and about 10 novel proposals (synopsis + 3 chapters) between 1 May and mid-June, what with a 2-week motorcycle trip in the middle of that.

I want to try. I need to ask Dean a couple of questions before I make a final decision, though.

Eep.

<><><>

There. Synopsis for ALNM ready to go. Cover letter ready to go except for the editor’s name and address, which is at home. It’ll be ready to mail before we leave on the trip tomorrow.

I have a very sweet pygmy cat half-sitting on my lap. Slowly encroaching on the laptop space in the hopes that it will go away and I will devote all of my efforts to petting him. Because after all, that is what humans are for, right?

<><><>

I had to pick up the laptop to change positions, and the cat took over. Ack. I read for a bit, and now we’re home, and it’s late, and I keep screwing things up (I had to print some things several times) or breaking things (the kitchen garbage can lid) so I have to go to bed. I’ll just have to deal with packing tomorrow morning. I hate that, but it’s better than messing up tonight.

I don’t know if I’ll post from the road, so you may not hear from me again until the 25th or 26th.