Life, Horses, and Conventions

Yeah, it's a cliché, but Life does some pretty crazy things now and again… and again… and again…

The first big thing going on in my life, and the main reason I took some time off from my blog, is 

A Horse!!

Yep, real, live, flesh, bone, blood, and love horse.  For me!  It's been a total rollercoaster to see if I could handle this responsibility, and there certainly were some bumps in the road and some heartbreaks… and then some heart re-assembling, but I'm working on boarding contracts now, an ownership contract, and we've got a date set to move Calico into her new stall on Saturday.  Prez Susan from the BSER has been a HUGE help in making this all happen!

It was a really hard decision to make.  First of all, horses are FREAKING EXPENSIVE.  You've got more food than any other pet - and I consider horses as much pets as partners, just as I consider any of my other pets partners in household decisions (Nylis, I appreciate your input, but groceries are not entirely going to your Greenies fund!) - you need to give much more time to them than cats or rabbits (who want, you know, maybe 15 minutes of love at a time.  And food.), and, well, they don't really fit well into a house, so you need a safe and secure place to keep them.

And that's really just the tip of the iceberg.

But, I crunched my numbers, and it's doable.  In fact, I'm setting up a bank account JUST for horse expenses.

In regards to time, I looked back at all my tax records and - quite surprisingly for me - I was THE MOST productive (down to FINISHING drafts for a novel and a half) when I was regularly working with horses 2-3 times a week with the rescue.  With Calico, I'll be going out to Oakham (and perhaps Leicester, if that works out, too!) a minimum of 5 days a week, for a minimum of 2 hours a day.  That will "cost" me at least 20 hours a week including travel, not including weekends I want to hang out with her (and Sue, who's boarding her) and take lessons.

BUT, I'll be doing this first thing of my morning (noon), which kickstart my day: physically, mentally, and spiritually.  (If you don't think horses affect one's spirit, you haven't spent time with them.)

Also, of course, IT'S A HORSE!

More importantly, it's a horse I connected with in our first visit together, who's coming to me under circumstances that have worked out too amazingly to be simple coincidence.  Calico is THE horse. 

What does that mean for my life?

In no particular order:

Probably a huge scramble to organize myself through September.

More later hours at Smarthinking.

A kibosh on the plan for the U.S. tour while Scott's away (which, isn't necessarily a negative change, as things just kept coming up to prevent me from planning that event.)

More writing that involves horses - oh, wait, what's my current WIP about?

More blog, FB & Twitter posts about how AWESOME my horse is.  Probably some cute pix, too.

A definite restructuring of spending, particularly in regards to travel/accommodations for conventions. (How many roommates can we squeeze into one hotel room?)

And… I really believe, much more fiction output and submissions in the near future.

Yes, this is a big change.  But it's a good one.  :)

xx

You get a double blog post, because, well, in the midst of my equine insanity, PI-CON happened!

I <3 Pi-Con!  (And not just for the Awesome reason I don't think is official yet so I won't officially announce.)  It's tagline should be "the convention where everybody knows your name."  I caught up with so many friends and colleagues over the three days!  The panels are a lot of fun to be part of and attend.  The parties are great.  I love getting to see the Come Again Players/Genetic Imperfection two days in a row and just being able to stumble back to my room afterwards. 

One of the highlights, for me, of this year were hanging out in the Book Room on Dealer's Row with friends - and the fact they were fabulous and threw the Broads a party after our reading!  Also, the Guest of Honor, Rob Sawyer, hung out there a lot.  There was just a really positive energy in the room, and I hope that Aradia got a ton of sales.

While I normally have a 2nd home attending panels, I spent a good amount of time just wandering around and socializing.  Much fun!

The Broad Universe Rapid Fire Reading was also well attended, and two of my very good friends, Renée and Stef, drove out just to see us.  Well, Stef was coerced into coming because she's working on a Comic! with me, and Renée was also interested in the jewelry making panel and networking.  Both said they had a great time!  (So, huzzah to Pi-Con for appealing even to more "mundane" folk!)

xx

So, that's my life for now - at least that I can share, and I'm quite happy with it!  Yay, life, horses, writing, and conventions!