Given that I'm likely to finish a degree and likely to go to grad school, my father has agreed to help me out through the gap year while I try to find some means of supporting myself in the short-term. His assistance will prove invaluable. He and I will also be working together to get my collections catalogued and appraised so that they can be sold on short notice in the event that I need money.

Also, I had some real epiphanies on how to go down this route of becoming a historical consultant. Living on the West Coast (with plane tickets to LAX fairly cheap and with filming all up and down the coast) gives me a real advantage in pursuing this line of work. ubik suggested a dedicated professional blog which is a great idea. It also occurred to me that what would really help is to attend trade shows and go ahead and start building a portfolio of designs.

However, right now my focus is on building my repertoire of projects when I have the spare time this summer. This will probably include work on a history book I've been doing research for whenever the chance has arisen.

If I invest my time and money wisely over the next couple of years, I could have a rewarding career as a medieval historienne on my hands.