starting again

Stretching my legs at NaNo Station 20,000+

It’s time for me to get off the NaNoWriMo train for a while and do some thinking. Until a bout of feeling physically crummy knocked me down for a few days, I was on board writing to quota and enjoying myself. A good thing. My story had holes in it big enough for a Twilight fan club meeting. Another good thing, since it was a first draft. I was writing every day. A great thing. And I was enjoying my characters and the trouble I was getting them into. Also a good thing.

But—

Yup there’s a ‘but.’

I have realized that I’m a purposeful sort of person. And though the writing has been fun, I want to write something with—if I may be so bold to say so—A PLAN! I have reached the point where I have decided that, if I’m going to set aside time to write every night, it should be something about which I have a clear vision. I’ve been writing for fun and it’s been fabulous for getting the creative wheels to turn and to get my commitment to writing every day back again. Now, I desperately want to take that energy and that revived excitement and put it to use—at least my version of use. And thank you NaNoWriMo for some much-needed writer CPR!

I have a project that has been lurking and begging me to get to work for a long time. It plays to two passions of mine–young people and the love of writing. And I’m going to go for it.

My NaNoWriMo daily word count is now ‘counting’ toward something purposeful. Nervous but eager,  I’m getting off one train and getting on another. New direction, new excitement, new challenges—but—that’s why I’m a writer.

Photo via Flickr:http://www.flickr.com/photos/78469770@N00/

Unravel–Rewrite–Now!

NaNo ParticipantThe sleeves on a sweater I made this summer were knit on 4 needles. When I finished knitting the second sleeve, I tried the sweater on and the sleeve just didn’t feel right. I had used needles that were a size too small and not noticed. Fed up, I left the sweater in the knitting bag and walked away. I just didn’t feel like unravelling and reknitting the thing after putting all that work into it the first time.

On Saturday, my NaNoWriMo novel hit the same snag. I happily wrote a scene of great danger and suspense, met my word quota for the day, and closed the laptop. On Sunday, I realized that I had written the wrong scene. Unlike the sweater, where I could put off tearing it down and fixing it as long as I wanted, the novel needed to keep going—right away. I used Chris Baty’s delete method—highlighted the useless chunk of writing and changed the font colour to white so I couldn’t see it anymore. Then I wrote another scene, one that fits the story, and makes the next scene—and the next—possible.

The crazy NaNo deadline kept me from moaning about my wasted writing time and put my focus where it should be—on getting the book finished. Once the new piece was written, the feelings of annoyance at the waste of time and effort on something that was destined for the delete button went away. It felt good to find another solution, to fix what was wrong and, more important, to know I could do it. Back on track, I am now looking forward to clicking out Monday’s instalment.

I’m ready to finally face the sweater, too. Unravel, pick up the stitches, start again. And next time, I won’t wait so long.

Losing the Pattern

Sweater-No-Longer-In-Progress
Sweater-No-Longer-In-Progress

I have looked everywhere for the pattern for my partially completed cardigan. The only thing I can think of is that I laid it on top of the newspapers on the kitchen table and it got scooped up in the recycling. Can I remember what magazine it was in? No. Have I looked everywhere? Yup, pretty sure–darnit.

 Now what do I do?

I had just about reached the decreases for the neck and sleeve shaping on the left front. Now, I have to figure out what I did with the right front and reverse it.  The decreases are very difficult to see in the pattern, and, of course, I will have to invent a sleeve pattern, too, to finish the piece.

Is it possible for me to do all this? Yes, probably, if I had lots of time and patience and was willing to slog through a lot of trial and error to get it right. And I’m sooooo not in the mood to go there. The yarn is lovely to work with and I want to get back to the feel of it slipping through my fingers and making its unique colour pattern as it grows.

Solution? Tear it down. Frog it. Find another knitting pattern (and make several photocopies of it!) and start again.

Has this ever happened in my writing? Definitely! I have lost the pattern there, too. Or rather I’ve found that the pattern I was following was the wrong one. Sometimes I’ve realized that I’m writing in the wrong voice. I change third-person to first and suddenly the story takes on a new life. My main character gets a little cheekier, takes more risks, and has more fun— and so do I. Sometimes, the plot lands in a bog where it threatens to sink into complete inaction. In that case, I need to drag my characters back to the crossroads and point them down a different road.

Today, I’ll be winding balls of yarn and looking for a new knitting pattern. Tomorrow, I’m going to go back to my young adult work-in-progress and get my character into a lot more trouble than she was expecting. And I’m going to enjoy doing both!

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