Remember Remember

The... 8th of November... I don't think that's how it goes.

It's November. Well in, in fact. And I have about 2500 words of my novel for NaNoWriMo. And I don't really mind very much. It's a laudable goal, but it simply just isn't working for me this year. I didn't put in much effort, and between trying to keep up the running and the social life and the election craziness it just hasn't happened.

Instead of any self-flagellation about it, I'm just giving myself a better challenge. Why kill myself over a novel, when I could go crazy doing something more productive. Like knitting a sweater. I did it during the Olympics, which was what- 17 days? And there's 22 days left in the month. I still get to race, I still get the feeling of accomplishment... and unlike writing, which requires a laptop and time alone, I can knit while doing my other things. While watching the Daily Show and Dancing with the Stars episodes on my DVR. While hanging out with my friends and boyfriend in the evenings. And I miss knitting lately. Less than I would have expected, for how little I've been knitting... but still.

I have been doing a little knitting. I'm getting close to finishing the second ball of cashmere for my cashmere stole. And I did start the brown vine socks from the Fall Interweave Knits.

So now it's time to pick up my pointy sticks again, and knit myself a sweater. I even know EXACTLY what I want to make. It's the Olympics Sweater, redux! I have the yarn... I have the pattern... and I want to wear it desperately. It's a brilliant plan, really.

As a side note, I went to a Bond celebration at BoConcept, the furniture store downtown where I purchased my sofa. Their furniture was featured in the new Bond movie, so they held this cute little event to celebrate. The martinis were strong, the food was gone before we got there- but it was an excuse to wear some of my grandmother's rhinestones and head out on the town. Not a bad time at all! In lieu of knitting pictures... check it out.

Playing Bond


And me as a Bond girl.

Bad Blogger Time

I have not been a very good blogger. A rather sad correspondent, in fact. I've thought about blog posts (at work, where I cannot write and post them, or in bed, where the laptop is simply too far away). I've considered taking more photos, to have photos to share. I've wondered about what I might like to document- the half-finished sewing projects, and the half-finished knitting projects.

Mostly I've just been busy having a strange new social life. I'm enjoying that, but so much for blogging.

And now I know it's just going to get worse. Social life isn't going away. And now it's November. Last year I chickened out. Last year I agreed to put aside my goal-oriented type-a-ness for the sake of someone else, and spending time with them. Well, so much for that- I should have chosen writing.

Hello, National Novel Writing Month. Ah NaNoWriMo, how I have missed you. I'm hoping to finish my cashmere stole sometime before New Year's Eve, so I can wear it. That's my metro project. But my other free time? Now sacrificed on the altar of bad writing, silly prose, and unedited wanton written abandon.

Join me? It isn't too late. I'm not even 2000 words into my novel yet (though I am close).

Also of note, on the personal and running side. I ran my first 5k this evening with my sister. In costume, of course- both of us were dressed quite appropriately. Photos to come, as soon as she uploads them!

Don't get whiplash

I just can't do it. I knew this might happen, and it seems to be happening.

I wrote almost 2000 words already. And then I just... cracked. I can't write a novel this month. I have work commitments that need to be completed (in fact, that's what I'll be doing quite a bit of Saturday, I suspect). I hadn't realized the full extent of my commitments to GesherCity this month. We're talking 2-3 events each week.

And I got more than a little bit of a guilt trip from certain friends of a significant nature.

But don't think I'm stepping away from the challenge completely. I still may try to sneak it into my schedule. But darnit, I'm going to go to my knitting group tonight. And afterwards (or maybe there) I'm going to swatch Autumn Rose if it kills me.

You, you sweater you... you WILL be done in November. Cue the evil laughter.

I think my sudden change of heart may have been spurred by realizing I already hate my protagonist. I don't want to get to know her better. Why not quit while I'm ahead?

Oh, and here's my pretty little washcloth! Do I smell holiday gifts? Please disregard my apparent inability to weave in ends. This took longer than it should have- I watched an episode of House, two episodes of Rome, and the season finale of Battlestar Gallactica, season one. But I suspect the next one would be much faster. It would also be helpful if I could locate which project is using my size 7 KnitPicks Options needles, since I was required to do the whole thing on DPNs yesterday. It worked, but it was a bit tangly.

Giving in to the urge

Call me crazy, but I just can't avoid the lure of NaNoWriMo. I wasn't going to do it. I was going to knit fair isle! TWO sweaters (or at least parts thereof).

And then on the metro I had this crazy idea. And all of a sudden, I got that old familiar itch. Not just to write- nosiree, that would be easy.

This is the itch to spend every waking moment when I am not PHYSICALLY at work writing. To forsake sleep. To bid a fond farewell to my boyfriend, and tell him to get his fill of WoW raiding because my schedule just went kaplooey.

I have events scheduled for my crafts cluster- and I'm going to make them. But I'll write before and after. I have work that I need to be doing on weekends... and I will somehow have to fit it in. Crap, I'm even teaching two knitting classes (my first ever)... but no matter. I'll write in the coffee shop near the yarn store, all afternoon. Classes end at 11, I fail to see the issue.

So here I go. I'm obviously starting tonight, in two minutes. I'm firing up the laptop on the metro tomorrow. I am giving up my knitting and reading and Netflix (essentially) and focusing, as I am wont to do for one twelfth of the year, on just being a crazy writer chick.

Unless I realize it's Thanksgiving, I am so sleep deprived I fall asleep at my desk, and generally I cannot live without knitting. But I'm hoping I can hold out for at least that long. And maybe, if I get my typing speed up to par again, I'll be done by then anyways.

Ha.

Wish me luck. 50,000 words or bust!

Oh- I did finish the chullo except for the braids. And tonight I knit a washcloth. So hopefully that'll get me through a few days sans knitting! Pictures to come.

Best laid plans...

Reviewing my UFOs yesterday didn't help as much as I thought it would. For one thing, I realized that I'm in an awful lot of knit-alongs right now. And I want to do them! I'm beginning to wonder if I can really do NaNoWriMo this year or not.

Here's my rationale for the moment, until I switch back to wanting to write. If I don't write after all, I could do some marvelous stuff. For example, I could swatch and start knitting Autumn Rose. Which I very much want to do.

And I am also in the Anne Knit-and-Read-Along. Someone on Ravelry noted that they're going to do a Philosopher's Wool sweater for the knitalong. Weeeeell. Philosopher's Wool is Canadian. Anne is Canadian. The pattern is traditional fair isle. 1907 is traditional (err, old). I have the kit for their Garden Patch sweater, and in fact I bought it at Sheep and Wool. Not last year... the year before. Oops.

So maybe I will have to reconsider my goals for November. Is it better to write a bad shoddy novel that will never be published anyways... or to knit two beautiful fair isle sweaters that I will be able to wear and enjoy for decades to come?

I swear, if these are the difficult decisions of my adult life I am a charmed woman. Good thing I have a few more weeks to decide one way or the other. I guess if I choose to knit, I could sign up for NaSweKniMo instead...but could I realistically knit an entire fair isle sweater in the month of November? I guess if the goal is 50,000 stitches, I could distribute that over both sweaters. Ponderponder.

Don't both of them beg to be knitted?

A very knitty October, before a very wordy November

I have sold a whole bunch of skeins of yarn since Ravelry came out. This makes me happy. Sometimes I just get very freaked out by clutter and messiness. Looking at old pictures of my old apartments reminded me of how very much I need to get back to taking care of my things, and thus taking care of myself. It really is all connected- I need to move my body, eat a bit more worshipfully, tidy my living quarters, and shape up my reading and knitting queues. There are so many partially finished projects that it has begun giving me heartburn! Well, maybe.

My biggest heartburn, or at least heartache, is that I CANNOT knit Seraphim anymore. All the color printers are on the blink at work, and I am out of color ink at home (as I have been for months now)... which means I have no way of printing the charts. I finished the stockinette section this evening, and was raring to go when I realized that I can't read charts via computer screen. Apparently our intrepid heroine will be trekking to Best Buy in Tenleytown tomorrow- my favorite last-minute stop for necessities such as iPods (mine was broken!), headphones, and of course color ink. It's a PSC 1510xi All-in-One. That's my gentle reminder for tomorrow.

Besides continuing my love affair for Schaefer Anne and the Seraphim, which will be perfect metro knitting should I ever manage to print the pattern, I realized I have very little in the way of convenient portable knitting. I try to keep a few relatively simple projects on hand at all times for the metro- simple baby blanket squares, patterns with easy repeats, scarves and such. But right now, apparently everything on the needles is just too complicated. The super-secret holiday project is fairly portable, and the aran baby blanket would be fine if it weren't already a pretty hefty project. Maybe I should start a sock pattern? Unfortunately, all the socks I want to knit right now involve plain-colored Opal yarn in fantastically intricate cables. That defeats the purpose of portable!

What's a girl to do. Besides obsessively read Anne of Green Gables. I had forgotten how much I adore this book. I had forgotten how it made me laugh aloud, and weep copiously when I first read it in third grade. I thought maybe that was because I was a high-strung child. I know I've become more calm and rational in the intervening decade since I last read the books. But within a page I was laughing and tearing up. Oh, LM Montgomery, what a mighty tale you weave. My mother insists I was Anne-like from the beginning, so I didn't simply model my curiosity and wordiness and obsession with beauty on her alone. If I did not consciously mimic her, then we must simply be perfect kindred spirits. She was the first memorable heroine in my world, literary or real, and it is such a pleasure to revisit her now. I want to scream and shout at her that it will all turn out fine, that her optimism is anything but misplaced, that her imagination is natural and to be celebrated. Rereading Anne of Green Gables puts me in the mood to write, fast and furious, and peck out a real story of my own. I'd best get knitting, since it looks like I will be spending November in its accustomed novel-writing haze. Not much time for any other craft once I take up the quill, or in this case my baby laptop, and start on my goal of 2000 words a day. Maybe this year the tale will even be a bit more publishable. To my mother's eternal dismay I did not turn my young love for fantasy and dragons into becoming a JK Rowling, and I don't even write romance novels. I haven't written a memoir of my time in France, even if she did help me with a title. And explaining my job title to the non-computer set poses a bit of difficulty. I am thus somewhat of a failure of a writer daughter. Last November I attempted to rectify this- I ended up writing a lot of tripe, but it was enough to win NaNoWriMo by meeting the 50,000 word goal. Anyone with me for this year? Can we set down our pointy sticks long enough to create fiction? It's not too late to sign up...