Best laid plans . . .

An annual treat for me for the last half a dozen years has been ACEN in Chicago. I've done a lot of things on the fanfiction circuit at that convention, from the fanfic panel to running a writing workshop with the late Kristine Batey. In the last few years I've switched to running the FFXI panel, since Square Enix pretends that the midwest does not exist when planning their fan festivals.

This year, the convention was considered a no-go because I quit my job to become a housewife/writer/stay-at-home-layabout, and my share of our tax refund went to 10 glorious days in the Bay Area. Well worth the trade-off to me.

Now, my husband, wonderful, talented, funny, creative, and above all, employed, moves in anime circles but strictly in the non-fiction writing sense of them. He gets invited to conventions as a guest in order to add a shiny Dr. to the guest list (great for colleges who need to have guest professors to add some legitimacy to their tiny parties.) This is why I was schmoozing in the green room at Dragon*Con last year, and that was when I made my vow that someday I was going to be the invited guest, not him.

Well, he's done it again. There's a possibility of him being invited to ACEN as a last minute VIP guest. If he goes, I go, since we'll probably drive. And here I planned on having May as a nice, predictable free month, in which to finish up my rough draft of book #2.

I'm still not sure whether I should be angry or happy.

Writing through the good and the bad

Husband said something upsetting to me this morning. We had one of our Not-Fights, in which I cry and in which he sits there and feels wretched because he made me cry, and within 15 minutes we're apologizing to each other and coming up with a solution to the issue. (The issue was whether he would go to a friend's wedding this weekend, since Certain People were going to be there that he cannot stand. The compromise? A tersely worded message from me to Certain People to be civil this weekend, for the sake of our friend.)

I'm going to make myself write this afternoon, despite this. I actually sometimes write better when I'm emotionally distraught. When my father passed away in 2004, I spilled out about 10,000 words over the course of three days. I won't be writing any happy scenes, but that's okay because the section I've been brooding over these last few days is sinister, with villains. It needs me to be cranky to get the mood right.

I am, however, going to do this writing holed up over in Barnes & Noble with a Frappucino.