Writing Adventures
The Navigator made it all the way to the proof edit stage before I stalled out with all the travel. After five incredibly full-on months, I made a conscious decision to back off slightly for the sake of sanity. But a good rest brought all the joy and energy right back, so I’m working on the final proof edits and cover details. I can almost name the launch date but want to wait a touch longer so I can be 100% confident I can deliver for you. :)
Sailing Adventures
The welding is almost complete on the boat and she’ll shortly get shipped to the finishing factory where all the furniture and systems will get added over the next four months. Come November, she’ll finally become our new home.
And while the welders have done their bit, we’ve done ours. The boat finally has a real name. After years of going in circles over what might seem like a simple decision but instead was a nauseating teacups ride of: nope, too long, too pretentious, too hard to say on the radio, or spell, or understand, too cutesy, too boring, too masculine, too aggressive, too common, too much like a bad word in another language, too pop culture, too ancient history, cool but not us . . .
We ended up realizing that the one word that brought us the most joy was actually the name of our old boat.
So sailing vessel Pristine, she is.
Meanwhile, we've been taking our personal preparations to a new level and just completed two weeks of medical care at sea classes—the "what happens mid-Atlantic when you can't call emergency services" stuff. It wasn't easy, but it was incredibly valuable. And I finally know what a spleen is for. That's a win, right?
Actually, it's rather stunning to be reminded of all the ways you can die—sepsis, heart attack, traumatic brain injury, anaphylaxis, catastrophic bleeds—the list goes on. It’s good we took this training now, close enough to departure for the skills to be fresh, far enough for some of the fear of death stuff to fade before we set sail. Our aim is to make use of Murphy's Law in reverse—hoping if we’ve learned it, we won't need it.
Reading Adventures
Back in December, I wrote that 2025 would mark Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, thinking you might appreciate the tip. I may have even vowed to re-read a book or two.
If you’d asked, I would have said I liked Jane Austen. Not loved. Not ravenously consumed. Definitely not Beatlemania level, willing to neglect husband and hygiene to make it through one more chapter.
But when I picked up Pride & Prejudice, I re-entered a world crackling with such love and misunderstanding that I was loath to leave it—even for food. Next came Emma, who became my emotional support character every time travel fatigue set in. Then it was Mansfield Park. Then every film and TV adaptation I could find of those three novels. And I mean all of them.
Note the stunning lack of self-awareness.
Since I was in the UK, it was definitely time to visit Bath—a key setting for some of her novels, but also a place Austen herself lived. Of course Bath is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site of gorgeous Georgian architecture, the home of very impressive Roman era Baths, and a stunning weir. For the regular me, they would have been the draw. But for the Austen-obsessed me, they were merely the icing.
The cake was the Jane Austen Centre, a tiny museum squashed into a Jane-era home. There were some displays and some artifacts, but the centre knew its audience too well to stick to lifeless facts and stodgy formality. They were there to indulge reader fantasies and embraced their role to the hilt. A costumed Mr. Willoughby told Jane’s life story while Elizabeth Bennett took visitors through the centre in groups, amplifying the experience by tromping around with a tribe of fellow obsessives. They even helped us into our own empire dresses and bonnets from a theatre-worthy wardrobe so we could all take selfies with Mr. Darcy.
Every museum should be so fun.
As a writer, though, what surprised me most during my Austen deep-dive was the text itself. For all our cultural fixation on the gowns and ballrooms, Austen herself barely described any of it. The dresses, the dancing, the estates—beyond the occasional cost—she left largely to the imagination. She even broke the show-don’t-tell guideline endlessly. Instead, she relied on razor-sharp dialogue to build her unforgettable characters, almost like a film script.
I suppose it makes sense. What’s historical to us was contemporary to her. If one tried to write fashion details or dance moves into a novel today, it’d be out of date by tomorrow’s TikTok feed. (Luckily I write historical fiction so can revel in details). But it meant that for me, the books and films were best experienced together, as a package deal.
Next up is Sense & Sensibility.
What about you? The Colin Firth Darcy or the Matthew Macfadyen Darcy? Feel free to let me know in the comments.
Fair winds,
Cheyenne
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