A Courtly Challenge

I am going to set a challenge for myself here. I am planning to attend this conference in July:

http://www.uhb.fr/alc/ias/version_ang/ang_congresrennes.htm

One reason I want to go to it is that there will be publishers’ booths available. I figured it was logical to assume that publishers who would find it in their interests to exhibit at an Arthurian conference might likely be willing to publish my Arthurian books. The challenge I am going to give myself is to get my first book, The Flower of Knighthood, completely ready for self-publication in time to have it for this conference. That way I will either have a finished product ready for sale and can network with people I meet at the conference to distribute it directly, or I will have a perfectly finished sample product to show a publisher in order to convey my vision for the book. It sounds like a win-win to me. No matter what I ultimately decide to do, I’ll have something in completed form.

The other reason that I want to go to this is that it takes place in Rennes, the capital of Brittany in Northern France, and one of the activities offered is a visit to Mont St. Michel. My book Parsifal mentions both of those places, in passages I wrote last summer. I have been a member of the conference’s sponsor, the International Arthurian Society, off and on for several years, and renewed my membership back in November. I got a confirmation packet in the mail from them which included a flyer about this conference, and when I saw where it was taking place, I knew that I needed to try my best to go. More synchronicity, something I always pay attention to.

I am almost done with what I sincerely hope is the last round of edits on TFOK, and am trying to have them done in time for the poetry conference March 28-30 (see 2/25 post below) so I can take a few copies there as samples. That’s the first part of this larger goal: finish the edits, proofread the manuscript one last time, and print a few copies and have them bound at the copy store by March 28. Then I can move forward with the rest of the manuscript preparation process.