Snow Days and Writer’s Block

I don’t know as it’s Writer’s Block per se. It feels more like Writer’s Iceberg of Doom really.

I have various and sundry WIPs floating around the hard drive. And to be quite honest? I’m really not interested in finishing any of them. I don’t have a topic. I don’t have characters. I don’t even have a McGuffin.

So I’m asking myself if writing a novel is really something I’m actually interested in doing. Needless to say, I’m not feeling all that creative at the moment.

At first, I wondered about it…and my “eh” attitude towards my on again/off again with “The Boy” (hardly a boy as his hair seems to be greying quite quickly).

We’re coming up on the one year anniversary of my mom’s passing. And all I’m feeling is a deep sense of sadness and loss.

Drat! and other snowy Friday ponderings…

Drat #1 Writing the “I’m sorry but Mom passed away last year” note is buried deeply within the “Not Fun and Games” category. Periodically we get a note or holiday card from someone who wasn’t in the various address/contact notebooks Mom kept…she had several…and not all of them have been found. So a note gets written…but it takes me a bit to get up the nerve to do the writing.

Drat #2 Brother dearest has a house guest for ShmooCon. And he just grabbed the shower out from under me.
ETA: Cool…he left me hot water and then came down to have a nice conversation that ranged from tech to Ireland and the structure of parliament.

But I’m listening to a bluesy playlist, typing on the computer, and watching the snow come down. There’s the back of a knitting WIP in front of me (am making the Central Park Hoodie as well as the Clasica Coat as part of a Knit Down Along). The power hasn’t gone out again. And there’s a fresh pot of coffee on. So it could be a whole lot worse.

Oh…Drat #3 What’s up with writer’s block? I have the beginnings of the book…an ok plot line. And about 17K worth of words thanks to Nano. But I’m stuck with the whole MC’s motivation thing. Really? Does she actually have to have one? Or maybe I can just shift over to another writing project for a bit.

Procrastination? Yup…

First off…I’m on break. That means that I have been sleeping as late as possible, staring at the computer screen to make words magically appear, watching TV because I can, getting my ipod up and running again with the new software install, hiding from everyone that I don’t have to deal with, and petting the cats because they need pet.

Oh…and I’ve been knitting on a number of different UFOs in an attempt to knit down as much yardage as possible before MDSW this spring. And thinking about my plan for the next semester–EN102 students? You’ll be learning about many X-Files related things…enjoy that. I know I’ve been really enjoying the reruns.

What I haven’t been doing could fill volumes. One of those things that I haven’t been doing is coming up with all of the inane bells and whistles related to course rationale for “the other class.” When I first saw the request for my course rationale, my response was a very natural “WTF?” And even as I sit here and compose a one line rationale for why I am teaching a class on professional writing, I still don’t even remotely understand why I need one. It’s writing. It’s for business/communications students who are about to enter the real world. They’re going to need to have a working idea of what it is that they’re going to be asked to do when the boss comes up and says something along the lines of “I need a press release for next Saturday’s event. And I need it yesterday.” the newly hired employees will have a good idea of what it is that they’ve just been asked to write.

So while the departments think it’s necessary (read required) for business and communications students to have a theoretical as well as a practical understanding of the numerous rhetorical situations they will face in the arena of professional writing, I apparently have to come up with some sort of justification for the course’s existence.

And though the response to my “Why are you here…in this class?” question is generally met with a deadpanned “Because it’s required for graduation,” I suspect that a shrugged response of “Because it’s required.” isn’t going to fly with the folks who like to toss around words like praxis and discursive.

Really…I’d rather be knitting…

The Mount Everest of Blanket Projects

I blame the Yarn Harlot.

Back in June, she started a project “Let the Boring Begin,” And though it seemed as though it was/is a sea of garter stitchery, it also looked like it might be a pretty cool blankey to knit.

After many different cast-ons, I opted to go for a larger needle size than the actual pattern called for. I also decided that I wanted to go with a three color schematic rather than the four that the original pattern calls for.

The nice thing about the log cabin pattern is that like the log cabin quilt pattern, it’s open to all sorts of wonderful mutations and modifications.

Three Days and Counting…

The gearing up has begun.

Yesterday, I cleaned up the kitchen…again. The clean linen table cloth–white covers the kitchen table. The basket on the counter is slowly being filled with things chocolate and yummy. There’s a basket of writer’s block knitting nearby.

And I’ve tossed a warm kitteh blankey onto the chair near the window to attract soft and furry support of the feline variety.

Whilst lots of thought has gone into the set up of some scene cards, other relevant writing tools and tricks have fallen by the wayside. But I really need to get them figured out too.

I know I keep repeating myself, but I have a murder victim and a murderer…YAY!!!

There’s even a scene of the crime complete with crime scene investigators…or at least the small town equivalent (e.g. sheriff, deputy, and coroner crew). That is before the news filters out that the victim is someone of “federal interest.” Then we wind up with a whole crew of investigators from the local office.

Other things…

We went on a ghost walk a week or so ago. Why is it that we got the lone “nothing ghostly ever happens to me” tour guide? I mean…seriously. If you’re going to be a guide, you might want to at least get into the “ghostly” mood. The tour was good. It could’ve been great.

I haven’t had a chance to look at the few photos I was able to get.

But I think we’re headed to the Patapsco Women’s Institute for a ghost hunt…if there are reservation openings.

Which Austen Heroine Are You?

After taking the quiz, I’ve found out:

Take the Quiz here!

Like I needed another hobby

Nanowrimo is coming. And I’ve got my murder victim as well as my murderer (any similarities between the murderer and anyone in my life are purely ::cough:: coincidental ::cough::).

I’ve got the town–located in the middle of the Catskills…a conglomeration of several towns that I have lived in or visited.

My amateur sleuth owns and operates a yarn shop. (side note: this is my new dream job. If I could figure out how to do it, I’d be there now…running a shop and having a blast.)

I’ve got this odd ghost hunting thing floating around it. But I’m not too sure where it’s going to fit in to the novel. Perhaps there’s a ghost hunting group hanging out up at the cemetery…

A friend of mine and I are going to the ghost tour up in Ellicott City this weekend. So I get to use some of the information that I’ve been reading about in Fionna Broom’s podcasts and Ghost Hunting class. And the batteries in the digital camera are all charged up…I even have back ups.

w00t!!!

And there are quite a number of different knitting projects in the basket that are “in progress” (I honestly think that’s a euphemism for “I’m a procrastinator”).

So what did I do? Yup…I ordered a drop spindle and a ball of roving:

from copperpot to try my hand at spinning. I’ll be picking up a book on spinning this afternoon after work.

What. The. Hell. Am. I. Thinking???

And what is the shelf-life of a pumpkin?

Memeville

Why?

Cause I can, I guess…

Top Ten Desert Island Books (in no particular order):

1. Alexandre Dumas The Three Musketeers
2. Arturo Perez Reverte The Club Dumas
3. Katherine Neville The Eight
4. Douglas Adams Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
5. Neal Stephenson Cryptonomicon
6. Charles de Lint Moonheart
7. Charles de Lint Spiritwalk
8. Mark Danilewski House of Leaves
9. H. P. Lovecraft Short Stories
10. Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice

And there’s a whole ‘nother trunk full of different series books that I want on my desert island too…and a case of Saranac’s Pomegranate Wheat (trust me…it’s good). (Note to self: Ask beer store guy to order the Pumpkin Ale.)

This list doesn’t include the packets of spiral notebook and pens that would also be stranded with me as well…cause once I’ve read or re-read all of those books, I’ll have a bunch of novel ideas to knock around.

Though…with my luck, a rescue ship’ll come by and pick me up just as I start getting down to the noveling part.

A Discombobulated Miscellany of Stuff

I’ve got a ton of things spinning around in my head right now. That’s making it difficult to focus on any one thing or other. So here they are in order of relative importance (in other words…there is no order of importance…really):

1. I’ve signed up for the Hollow Hill Ghost Hunting Course. (I can’t figure out if it’s really because I want to start huntin’ ghosties or if it’s going to wind up in my Nano novel)
2. The New England Ghost Project has finally posted a new podcast. (YIPPEEEE!!!)
3. I’ve been trying to figure out whether I want to whack my Nano novel’s murder victim over the head, trip him up then strangle him, or just have the murderer tackle him to the ground and whack him over the head with a stone from a local construction site. (Oh the thinks that you think when trying to plan the murder backstory to the Nano novel…he’s going to wind up poisoned. But I have to figure out how to get him unconscious in order to do the rest)
4. I’ve learned a new stitch thank ever so to the Yarn Harlot and the patience of a right handed knitter who allowed me to watch as she stitched the stitches a couple three times. (As a south paw knitter, my stitches are backwards…and potentially dizzying…to the right handed world)
5. Last night’s pool match. (I won! But I’m still playing one of those scratch on the 8 ball shots over and over in my head)
6. Replaying the latest Danger Kitty Adventure in which she manages to catch a squirrel by the tail only to wind up chasing the squirrel about the porch until the squirrel defies gravity and makes it to pissed and chattering freedom. DK manages to not fall off the porch railing in the chase. She’s learning.
7. Contemplating the fact that I’ve got like 5 knitting projects going and someone announced that I’ve got 12 weeks left for some of them…a couple are much closer to done than others.
8. Did I mention that I have to write an academic article for an upcoming conference presentation?? (Aaaargh!)
9. Then there’s the root canal. The only positive thing that I can think of with regards to even the idea of “The Root Canal” is:

I’m sure there’s more…but…

The Great “Sweater” Project

So…

A while back I ran across this awesome sweater pattern from Vogue‘s Silver Anniversary series.

The cables. The squishiness. The just big warm sweater part of it is compelling.

Never mind that my experience with cable stitches isn’t that in-depth. Never mind that it gets 3 little cubey things on the difficulty scale (intermediate, I think). Never mind that I’m left-handed and the cables are going to wind up backwards.

I’m going to do it.

Indeed, I’ve actually started it.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Isn’t that yarn amazing?

Here’s a close up on the smaller cable:

I know. It’s not the llama/silk the directions suggest. But I have to admit that I went ::gleep:: at the initial price for each skein of that particular yarn. And then I realized that I’d run across the “right” wool last year at a craft festival.

So I waited for the festival to come around again. And lo’ the wonderful yarn merchants from Glennfidich Wool were there. And though they didn’t have enough of my initial pick, I noticed this heathered blue that had these flecks of purple mixed in.

Beautiful…

It’s a bit heavier and thicker than I’d expected. But once I realized that, I’d already cast it on to the needles…squeezing every last stitch onto that set of needles.

Lesson learned: If you’re going to deal with a yarn that’s just a bit thicker, switch over to a set of circular needles. That makes it soooo much easier to work with.

Project completed? Bear is sporting a scarf made out of Manos del Uruguay…

that I picked up over at Wool Winders.