Why I Write

Because it’s an escape from reality into infinite possibility.

Because I don’t have to be self-conscious or awkward when I’m typing words on a page or writing in my notebook.

Because writing is the closest I’ll get to real magic, and I’m still waiting for my Hogwarts owl.

Because it is deeply personal and yet we share it and love it and talk about it.

Because I am a writer.

Because it’s like knitting; word after word, stitch after stitch, something new and beautiful (sometimes) comes together.

Because I’ve written over a million words in the last twelve years of doing NaNoWriMo just in the month of November.

Because the process is what matters.

Because I never lost that sense of awe I felt as a child when I realised a pen and paper was all you needed to create a new world.

Because someone thought something well over thousand years ago and I can still read it now.

Because I never figured out to stop, and I don’t want to.

Another NaNoWriMo Success!

Getting the last 1,500 words of the NaNoWriMo target out of me yesterday took the best part of three hours. Of course just before the final real milestone of 50,000 words I found myself at an intricate and difficult plot point that involved the introduction of many new characters, all of whom had a point.

All that meant I could not for the life of me hurry the hell up.

My usual typing speed can get me 1,000 words in 15 minutes without pushing myself so far, but sometimes the plot just takes over and it becomes impossible. During November that doesn’t happen very often – except this year I know what I’m writing and, at least in the vaguest sense, I know where it’s going.

Usually NaNoWriMo is one long word war for me. For those who don’t know, warring/sprinting is when you take a time and write as much as you can in those minutes. It’s drastically increased my typing speed over time and, more importantly, it’s a good way to get past the fear of Getting It Right and instead focus on Getting It Done. After all, you can’t edit a blank page.

I still have a way to go. I think this story might end up being around 80-90 thousand words in its roughest form.

How are you guys doing? I loved hearing about your progress before.

How is Your Nanowrimo Going?

We’re more than a week into NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) so for those of you who are involved, how are you doing with it?

As it stands my stats look like this:

So I’d say I’m doing pretty well.

My aim this time hasn’t been to reach 50,000. This is my eleventh year writing and I’ve only lost once: I know I can do the wordcount thing. My aim is to finish the story.

So often I get to 50,000 words and stop, abandoning it forever. Like knitting an intricate laceweight sweater and never bothering to finish the sleeves, this makes no sense at all. This year I want to change that.

For the first time, I think I might.

The story I’m writing is one I’ve written before. Twice, in fact. I wrote it in 2012 and continued to write it through most of 2013. In November 2013, I rewrote it. And then I forgot about it. It’s a story about dryads and humans completely failing to share a city and a forest. I love the two main characters. I really need to finish it.

Tell me what you do at the end of November! Do you close the file? Keep going? Set fire to your laptop and run away screaming?

Preparing for Nanowrimo

It’s been more than a decade since someone suggested I try out NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. Every year since then I have sat down with my laptop on my knees and poured out a fifty thousand word story from somewhere inside my soul.

The last few years have been different. I have been growing in confidence and though I always win (minus one year), now I really feel as thought I’m writing something with substance. Usually I shut the novel on December 1st without finishing the story and never look at it again, pleased to have written so many words in so little time. I don’t think about the content.

The last two years I have basically written the same story but from scratch each time. This year I’m going to do the same; it’s a story that is itching to get out of me and I am going to have to go to drastic measures to ensure I follow it to its conclusion this time.

Yes, that’s right. I’m going to outline it.

I’m not much of a planner. I pick up projects, knitting included, and don’t think about the consequences. It has given me oceans of false starts but also worked out well on occasion. This year I need to change the way I face it or I will end up writing the same fifty thousand words over and over with no resolution and no chance of it turning into a book rather than a large and ignored Word file.

Writing is a lot like knitting. It is satisfying to watch a project grow, whether written or knitted, stitch by stitch and word by word. Unfortunately I am not great at getting to the equivalent of the cast-off edge in my writing. Somehow I am going to change that this year.

Is anyone else writing a speed novel this November?

Knitting in the Cold

I knit through the summer but there’s a certain satisfaction that comes from knitting items when it’s already cold outside. There is something truly peaceful about sitting in a warm room with the rain and wind thrashing outside quietly knitting a hat for someone, knowing that it will make their winter a little more bearable.

It’s NaNoWriMo right now so, of course, knitting has suddenly become a desperate craving. It happens every November. In a bid to write as much as possible in one month (I’m aiming for 100,000 words this month instead of the usual 50,000!) everything else seems to be far more fun. Write? Nah. Knit another row of a hat I’d forgotten I cast on months ago? Sure why not!

The combination of the cold and procrastination make November one of the most productive months for me.

On the needles:

• A green hat for Lucy
• Spiderman hat (with eye holes!) for a small child’s birthday
• A blue cat teddy for my nephew
• A scarf for someone fancy and awesome
• Some red socks for myself with the yarn from the swap, and
• A scarf for the next swap I’m doing (this is technically on the hook; I’m crocheting it.)

And these are only the active ones, not the various things stashed away in my cupboards for later.

I do love feeling like I can’t get enough off the needles. It’s very satisfying to feel so productive. The best way to get me to do anything is if there’s something more urgent I should be doing; suddenly I can’t stop myself.

Are any of you charming knitters balancing a knitting life with Nanowrimo this year?

Related articles

• Test Knit Tuesdays – an introduction (itsaknittingthing.wordpress.com)
• Cozy Cowls (acunningplan.typepad.com)
• Knitting stories together (dorothyanneb.com)
• A Re-Knitted Jumper (myknittingmachinesandme.wordpress.com)

Victorians Smiling

 Victorians Smiling II from How to be a Retronaut.

Sometimes I’ll stumble across a website in search of inspiration and I hit gold. I’m not in the mood for knitting right now; with NaNoWriMo approaching rapidly my writing muse is emerging happily and that is taking up all my inspiration (plus I have a mistake in a sock to fix that I just can’t face right now but let’s not talk about that!). Of course procrastination goes hand in hand with writing and I can’t say I’m too worried about that when I stumble on websites like this.

Victorians have such a formal, stiff reputation and a lot of that has to do with the photographs taken of them. When one had to sit motionless for a certain amount of time it’s not surprising that it was easier to keep a straight face! Luckily technology moved fast and gave a little leeway. Or, put in a much less rambly way:

When Joseph-Nicephore Niepce took the first photograph in 1828, his photographic plate required an exposure of eight hours. That exposure time was drastically reduced across the course of the nineteenth century, so that by the 1890s the Collodion process had cut exposure times to two or three seconds.

Nevertheless, a three second exposure meant that subjects had to stand very still to avoid being blurred, and holding a smile for that period was tricky. As a result, we have a tendency to see our Victorian ancestors as even more formal and stern than they might have been. [from here]

Seeing Victorian people in a different context has opened my eyes. They may seem historical and stuffy but in reality they’re generations of people just like us with their fashions, their passions, and their apparently unending vanity. The 1800s is the first time in history we’ve been able to uncover ordinary people in ordinary lives with the power of photographs; still prone to interpretation from the photographer and the viewer, but nonetheless still much closer to reality than old paintings and prose. Maybe that’s why I find them so endlessly amazing.

How to be a Retronaut covers more than just the 1800s. Have a browse. It’s the 1800s that catch my attention though and fill me with inspiration.