It's Saturday night, and I am starting to feel the edge of some ever-so-slightly MASSIVE, UNCONTROLLABLE PANIC about the fact we're leaving Monday morning for a full month (!!!!) of traveling, we haven't started to pack, I haven't even started to think about what to pack, and in fact, apart from writing (which has been beautifully productive and fun lately, thank the writing gods!), I've accomplished absolutely NONE of the things that I planned to do before we left.

::pantpant::

Eek?

The good news is, I wrote about 1200 words of Chapter Eleven of Kat by Starlight this afternoon, and I was bouncing with happiness and excitement as I wrote them, which is not the way I usually feel when I'm writing the middle of a novel. And every night for the past few nights, I've sunk with enormous pleasure into the collected letters of Jane Austen, which is a surprisingly addictive read. I know I'm missing at least half the casual references she makes to people/situations I don't know about, but she's so witty and personable and just fun in her letters that it actually doesn't matter. And I love, love, love the insight I'm getting through them into a world that's really hidden in the political histories of the time period and most novels set in the Regency - the world of single gentlewomen in their late twenties and thirties, who were no longer members of the flirtation/marriage game, but who had their own active social circles and satisfying lives filled with interest and activities. They might as well have been invisible for all that they ever show up in even the social histories, so it's fascinating to see their lifestyle revealed in Jane Austen's letters.

And, of course, it's so, so much more fun to read the letters than to start getting serious about all the packing and everything else that needs to get done before we leave but ohmygodthere'snotimeIwillneverevereverever...!

Whew.

Sorry about that.

Back to more reading, I think...