Going to be writing on the road through May

Tomorrow marks the start of five straight weekends of travel. This also means I'll be spending five straight weekends writing on the road. I wrote quite a lot of Meant to Be while traveling, so I'm hoping all these trips will get my creative juices flowing on my shiny new project (that currently only has one completed chapter).

So what's on the slate?

Tomorrow I'll be driving south to hit Asbury Park with the Boston B Party to take on the Jersey Shore Rollergirls.

The bout is at the amazing Asbury Park Convention Center RIGHT. ON. THE. BEACH. It's going to be a good one (also, probably crazy tough... I'll update tomorrow night with the score!) 

UPDATE: We lost pretty big... the final score was 198 to 87. But that was ok, because the Jersey Shore Roller Girls were AWESOME hosts. We had such a great time playing them in Asbury Park. I'd go back and do it again in a heartbeat!

Next weekend is another hard-hitting derby weekend, when the Boston B Party travels to Philadelphia to take on the Independence Dolls. This one is FOR. SURE. going to be a really tough game. Philly is a notoriously tough team. I hope I'm not hobbled when it's over!

The following weekend I'm off to Tennessee to see my little sister graduate from high school, a fact I can hardly believe. Her graduation from Maryville High School means my own graduation was TEN YEARS AGO. Oh man...

I got her graduation announcement in the mail today, along with the invite to her open house ... look what my mom did to her! Poor Claire ... she was pretty cute, though, huh? You can't see it in the picture, but her prom dress was gorgeous, and I might try to steal it from her for my trip the following weekend... So here's the question ... should I try to find her a super cool gift, or do I just follow tradition and give her cash? Which would you prefer if you were 18 and getting ready to head off to the University of Tennessee?

The weekend after THAT I'm flying to Chicago to see one of my best buddies and favorite couples get hitched.

Kathleen and I circa 2005, acting like goobers on the steps of

the Wisconsin capital.

Kathleen just finished medical school and will be getting hitched and moving to Milwaukee to start her residency. Her soon-to-be husband's name is Joh, though he does go by another name sometimes:

John "Hayward" Williams is a totally amazing folk/Americana singer/songwriter, and if you're into that kind of music I recommend you check him out right away. I'm not just saying this because we've been friends for five years now and he's marrying one of my favorite people.

And in my last crazy trip of a long five weekends, I'll be flying to Las Vegas to represent the Boston Derby Dames at the Women's Flat Track Derby Association Annual Meeting. It'll be my first time in Las Vegas, and while it was never on my list of gotta-visit cities, I'm pretty psyched to be going with my friends (some other BDD WFTDA reps) to hang out with rollergirls from all over the world and geek out over roller derby.

And after that, I get to come home a stay for quite some time. I don't know how May always ends up quite so busy, but it seems like every year it fills to the brim with excitement. I'm hoping to use all the flight time to really crank on my shiny new project. I've been mulling it over and making notes for about a month now, and I think now it's ready to come pouring out. And once I get a good chunk written, maybe I can start sharing some of the secrets of the shiny new project and maybe even some teasers!