What I realized this weekend, at the event and afterwards, was that I like the SCA too damn much, and my attempts to limit my involvement aren’t working. I’m down to about an event a month, but this month’s event found me doing two jobs (handling parking control and running a quiz contest), and after being asked Saturday to consider a second Kingdom-level position*—and being sorely tempted by both of them—it became obvious to me that I needed to quit, cold turkey, at least until I’m not working two jobs. When I go to an event, I’m reminded of how much I love it, how much fun I’m having, how much I miss it, and the next thing I know, I want to go to more events and I’m volunteering to do more things and otherwise not focusing my energy in the right direction.

Bad, bad, bad. The writing has to come first. As Jenny Crusie says, “Protect the work.” I haven’t been doing that. I thought I was, but I wasn’t doing it enough.

So, for the foreseeable future, no SCA. No events, no meetings, no temptations, no volunteering, no wasting valuable time thinking about events and volunteering or whatever.

Except for a couple of exceptions. (I’m massively embarrassed to say that.)

• Great Western War next month. We’ve already registered, already paid, and already agreed to share an RV with someone, so we can’t back out. And that’s okay—it’ll be like the last hurrah. I may even take a couple of textile classes.
• Speaking of which, I’m not giving up the various artistic endeavors I enjoy. But they’re for my leisure time, and will not take precedence over writing. No deadlines, no requirements. At the beginning of the year I started hand-making Yule gifts, and the ones that are done will be given, and everyone else will get something less time consuming.
• The Shire storage shed. We’ll still be transferring it to our backyard, but Ken will be primarily responsible for it. I’ll help organize it, buy more containers as needed, update the inventory, and design whatever forms are needed, and then it’s off my plate. Off, off, I say!
• Friends. Most of our social circle is SCA, and I have no intention of ignoring our wonderful friends. There will be the occasional party, the dinners and brunches, the hanging out, the pagan circles. (But only after the writing is done—work before play.) But I’ll also have to keep a tight rein on hosting things. If we don’t go to NY for Thanksgiving, we’ve already promised to host it for Ken’s family. I simply cannot, however, sacrifice the time it would take for a 4-day Homeless Waifs Party.

At some point, when I’m not working two jobs, I’ll review everything and consider what I can add back in to my life. It won’t be easy. It may not, in fact, be possible—the allure of being involved, of helping out, is very strong. It’s not the fault of the SCA. The SCA rocks. The problem is my reaction, my desire to be involved. Right now, it has to be all or nothing.

When Mercedes Lackey decided to become a writer, she stopped doing SCA, watching TV and movies, and doing crafts. I have a writer friend who finally broke her addiction to running cons by moving to a little town on the coast. I’d rather not have to move, so I’ve just got to be strong.

And let’s face it: Writing is what I’ve always wanted to do. It’s not going to happen unless I make it a priority in my life.

First thing I did was sign off of all the e-mail lists. Then I sent the e-mail sadly declining the office I’d been asked about (which I wouldn’t’ve taken on with two jobs anyway—absolutely couldn’t). I haven’t been going to Shire meetings because I don’t get home from work until after they start. I just have to pull all the Black Oak stuff together and burn the files to a disk so Ken can take it to the next meeting to pass on to next year’s steward.

Next, I’ll be signing up for the 4th quarter Beautiful Trophy Challenge, with the goal of finishing DFL by mid-December, which is when the ms will need to be mailed to folks for the January Novel Workshop. I’d love to finish it by the end of November, because Teresa and I have discussed starting a new Black Lace in December, but I’ll play that by ear. I also have to review Trusting Nate because Sarah’s ready to work on it again (we need to add about 20K words and do some other revisions). My thought is that I’ll work on DFL during the week and TN and short stories on the weekends.

Ah, weekends. Another thing I had a realization about. I have found myself complaining that we’re always booked on weekends, that we have no free weekends. Well, ya big bonehead, the person who schedules things every weekend is you. Take the responsibility. Own it. And, now, stop f-ing doing it!

Ahem. Sorry you had to see that. Caffeine from the afternoon cuppa just hit.

Enough babbling. You get the idea.

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*One being Kingdom Chronicler, which I’ve been interested in doing here since we got back. The other was a “maybe, kinda” type sub-office, with no guarantees, but it would have been a lot less work than Chronicler.