Several of my friends have completed a huge list of creative SCA projects throughout 2010 and I say — go them! I find them an inspiration.

Me — not so much. Let me trot out excuses: I work full-time, I’m a single mom, I’m going to school. Well O.K., if you put it that way. But really I have time, I truly do. And I love learning and meeting goals. But I feel quite unfocused. I’ve been wanting to do a heraldic notebook and a bardic notebook forever. I want more 12th century clothes. I want to learn more about the sagas that I specialize in. I want to write more poetry. I want to finish a persona journal I’m working on. I want to tell more stories. There are so many wonderful projects that interest me but I’m such a procrastinator! *sigh*

So… what did I accomplish in the SCA this year?

• Worked on my persona journal. This is a large and ongoing project where I learn about the running of a northern English farm in the late 1100s and early 1200s. Animal husbandry, crops, forest, farm buildings, parish church, village, farm trades, running the household, etc. I love that stuff. I started it but would like to have at least one in-depth section before feeling that I’m making good progress.
• Made a gown that I’m very happy with including handwoven trim.
• Created and told a story from a dramatic poem that I wrote last year.
• Delivered said story for the Gyldenholt Bardic Contest. (Won said contest.)
• Told stories at Open Arms Bardic at some war or other — Potrero? Some were new.
• Wrote some poems that I’m pleased with.
• FINALLY learned how to inkle loom and produced a good amount of trim. Yea!

For 2011, I want to have more purpose to my projects. I also want to go deeper in my knowledge about all of them. I realistically plan to:

• Study more Norse and Anglo-Saxon poetry conventions so I can write more accurate historical poetry.
• Write or learn one new story a month. Note: “write” means the stories I create, and “learn” means taking stories from the sagas to share. That’s not as easy as it sounds since you must edit the sagas to pull out concise individual stories. They’re all over the place, but they are usually strung out over the course of much longer stories.
• Tell more stories and be more flexible in my timing. My favorite environment is an indoor stage. Outside and by a fire are much harder for me. Even a very short story takes 5 minutes, and that’s a long time for a single performer to take around a fire. Still, if I have stories ranging from 5 minutes up to 10 (the longest story I’ll tell) I’ll be more flexible.
• Sew more war stuff. Love my court stuff, my war stuff not so much!
• Make cool new notebooks for bardic and heraldry.
• In general, be more period. As my household motto goes, “More period is more better.”

I’ll also use these projects to move along on my A&S50 list, which I do enjoy doing.

So to all us procrastinators out there — may we focus on doing stuff we really want to do in 2011! Join me for a toast!