I’m Stuck! Send a Mental Tow Truck

It’s 11:13 pm and I’m trying to get this poor girl untied from a tree and I can’t get past her dress.  Really, why should we care what the poor girl is wearing?  After all, her shoulders are numb and her hands are severely chaffed from the cord wrapped around her wrists.  The hem of this mystery dress is torn and filthy from the three days she’s been dragged through the Norman countryside. 

She’s bleeding and miserable, but I can’t help her escape because I can’t decide: A) What her damn dress is called.  Is it a tunic?  An under-tunic?  A super-tunic (I didn’t make this up!)?  B) What is the fabric?  Is it wool? Silk?  C) She’s a Celtic (?) princess (?) so I’m guessing she’s wealthy, her attire would be very fine, but it’s cold there and this is 12 – 13th century so……

I really hate when I obsess over this kind of nonsense.  I’ve been in the same place, literally, for hours.

Here is the last sentence I wrote:  Her knees rubbed nearly raw by the sticks and stones of the forest floor, her dress…..

And that’s where I stumble.  Her dress what?  For God’s sake (the God of procrastination and OCD).  I know I should just rewrite the sentence all together, but you know it’s all going to circle back to what she’s wearing.

And all this time, I thought the Knight would be the problem.

I have no less that three reference books – most with pictures – laying on my desk and I’ve been all over the Internet.

And yet there she is, tied to a tree in the rain, cold, wet, miserable and afraid.

Do you suppose she still has shoes on?  Oh crap.