AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

too much to do

I fell down to the crazy.  Lately I've been at the yarn shop like a kid in the candy shop.  It's bad.  Super bad.

I have been working on things for a holiday bazaar, which means a lot of knitting and not nearly enough smu-ing.  I'm nearly through week 2 and I have no idea what my word count is.  My notebook is on page 34 (I write the page # at the top, so I have some idea).  I think Sunday is going to be writing a lot of smu.  And baking a cake. 

My research goes well.  Chris, hearing my plight, sent me Dark Lover by JR Ward.  It might be a Mary Sue, but it was entertaining and well written enough that I only thought that when I first started reading it.  And better yet, none of the characters had a TSTL problem.  Of course, her vampires are completely different from my vampires, and I realize in reading Dark Lover that my main character needs more complications.  There just isn't enough strife.  I don't think I've made things too easy for Mr. Vampire Gigolo, but at the same time he still needs a good kick in the pants.  I have decided that instead of the bad stuff happening to people he cares about more of it needs to happen directly to him.  It's definitely more in his personality profile to care about himself.

So, the wrap up (my brain is gone): I have 1 scarflet, 5 scarves and 2 hats with another one on the needles.  Heck, I'm even finally getting comfortable with fairisle in this process.  Maybe there will be some pictures next week.  Of course, this is me.  Pictures are never a given.

happy birfday

My husband's birthday was yesterday.  I would wax horribly sappy and romantic, but that's not the kind of woman I am.

Instead I am just thankful that he can deal with my frequent irritated moods, my desire to cook things that are really bad for you (umm, the smitten kitchen peanut butter cake was the last one), and that he doesn't make too much fun of my coffee drinking.

For his birthday, I took him to see the Bruins v. Penguins game.  Before the game as part of his birthday present, he got to ride the zamboni.  The zamboni is one of the coolest things about hockey (I really do like hockey a lot, but blood on the ice is probably the coolest thing about hockey). 

There are two zamboni rides offered at a time: before the game starts and in between the first-second period and second-third period.  Because the other person who was signed up for a ride during our time slot didn't show up, I got to ride the zamboni too. 

Riding the zamboni is an unusual experience.  They look like they are just putting along when you are watching them work, but on the ice it feels pretty fast and sharp turns.  My hubby broke his zamboni.  The lever that releases the hot water had fallen to the wrong position, and one of the other members of the ice crew ran up to the machine and gave it a little percussive maintenance as it was moving down the ice. 

I love experiences like this.  It's just not your run of the mill: Hai, I made a cake for you, but I eated it.

Happy birthday, honey.  You deserve all of it!

nasmuwrimo

Pronounced: Nah Smoo Ree Moh

Yesterday I reached the point in my story that I am starting to feel uncomfortable writing in public.  It doesn't matter that my hand writing isn't exactly large, the fact is that I started adding the smu to my no.  For some reason that felt like a no no when I was writing on the way home.

I was excited to find at the beginning of NaNoWriMo that I apparently have learned something from my constant knitting on the subway system.  Before I could T surf.  I had the art of staying upright mostly OK, though there are some days that just suck on the balance front.  Then I started to knit, and I knit socks and scarves standing on the train.  I could probably knit a full sweater that way, except the pieces are too heavy.  I've graduated to writing on the train.

I was on a very packed train last night, but I couldn't stomach the idea of not getting another page churned out.  I'm going to stay pretty far behind until I hit the weekend, so the stolen moments on the train are important.  I was standing near a pole, so I could grab on if I lost my balance.  I had a pen in one hand and my notepad gripped tightly in the other.  I was writing smut.  I know it.  There is no other way to describe it.  Not Anita Blake past book 8 smut.  More like college students fumbling smut.  It's still smut.

Currently, when I'm not writing smut, I'm either looking for something to read (right now it is Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman) or I'm knitting icord.  That ball was at least 14 yards of icord.

I had this idea for a scarf or neckwarmer with the starting premise being icord, based on the bag that was in the Spring/Summer 2008 issue of KnitSimple.  I blythely ignored the fact that my largest needles are US 15, and the pattern called for US 19.  That was more than enough of a difference that I am holding off on making more worsted weight icord.  I wonder if I can sew the googly eyes on and the ball together and sell it as a toy.  If it is sewn tightly enough (without the eyes), then I can probably put a squeaker or something inside and it could be handy for dogs.  It seems like a waste of time not doing something with all of this icord.

Bite Me

Bite Me.com is the working title of my little NaNoWriMo driven.  Funnily enough we (meaning my husband) checked and it directed to someone's blog.  I'm just glad that it didn't direct to an adult website.  I can get into enough trouble just looking at cross-stitch and yarn.

I'm doing fairly well at the writing gig this time around, though I'll admit my level of exercise has suffered for it.  I'm walking to the T in the morning (the close one) and home at night (one of the far ones).  At least I haven't perfected the ability to eat and write at the same time, so I am losing a bit of weight (I blame Fire and Ice.  Wouldn't you?).

The hardest thing for me is getting my word count.  Not writing enough material (though I'm still admittedly behind), but transferring it from my notebook into my text file and then onto the site.  My main character is still trying to get meal number one (if it wasn't obvious from the title, he's a vampire).  Monday I wrote standing up on the train, thanking my constant practice with knitting that way to write something that remained legible.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do that as much since.  I'm hoping to transfer the four pages I wrote this morning and write another four or five, but I'm not going to kill myself over it.  I should be able to get another couple of pages written tomorrow while I am waiting for the guy from the insulation place to do the thermal imaging of our home.

day two: already behind

NaNoWriMo started yesterday, and per normal I am behind.  I did about 5 pages of writing (my handwriting is a little on the cramped side) double spaced, so I can add things if I think of them.  Roughly a thousand words.

My husband requested a story where the vampire character isn't a good guy, and I wasn't sure I could write it straight like that.  I have a slightly different twist on the concept though.  There are some sections where I have big underlines underneath sentences.  They are my "You might want to research this later" lines.  Just there to help me keep things flowing, but make easier to find the things I might want to take a closer look at.

I'm typing my drivel into TextEdit, just so I can pull the word count. 

I'm sure I'm going to have a bit of romance in the story, but the last vampire book I read was Anita Blake.  'Nuff said?  So, I'm looking for a few good examples of vampires in stories that have personality and romance.  Ideally not firmly entrenched in the horror genre (Poppy Z. Brite, anyone?).

If you are participating in NaNoWriMo this year, feel free to add me as a writing buddy.  I'm sure we can all use the encouragement!

Picture is from the cover of Ayashi no Ceresu volume 4 by Yuu Watase, one of my favorite manga artists.