Plots and Plans and Pompoms

We’ll take the title from the end, and work our way forward. Why not?

Here is a little bit of encouragement for all my fellow NaNo-ers out there:

You can do it! I know you can! (I’m cheering myself on while I’m at it, by the way.)

~*~

So I found out earlier this week that the wedding I had been frantically knitting the Swan Lake Stole for is an uber-casual wedding. As in, I won’t be wearing the dress that I had planned to wear the stole with. And so no need to knit like the wind.

I am still in love with the stole and the way the beads work on it, but if I am not going to be wearing it to a wedding anytime soon I need to focus on making Christmas gifts. So, the stole is not my only knitted object that will be getting some love and attention now. Yesterday I picked up the Hot Cocoa Socks, and am loving the way they are turning out. I just hope they fit M. (Or wait… should I be hoping they fit me instead?)

~*~

And in the NaNoWriMo department, I have been plugging away at my story (as the daily updates will prove). The best part about this is that I have been discovering things about the plot and characters that I didn’t know before. This is always much fun.

Now, I am not one of the writers whose writing method goes something like “and then the characters told me the story and I wrote it down.” I believe that the story is my work, and that I have control over it, in the end. However, I am not opposed to letting my subconscious (otherwise known in writing circles as the Muse) tell me things that it has worked out without my direction. I am quite happy when my brain takes a running head-start on a story, because that means I can be working on both the writing and the knitting (or crocheting, card making, spinning, etc.) and not feel guilty.

So, the end result is that things happen without my having to plan every little detail, and I can be surprised by some of the twists and turns just as the reader is. (If I don’t like said twists and turns, however - and for a writerly reason, not because the reader in me wants a different outcome - I reserve full right to change the ending. (The way some authors claim that they have no control is a rant for another day.))

And, the reason that all of this came up in the first place is that I had one of those twists last night. I was plugging away, trying to get words on my computer and I got nothing. So I pulled out lined paper and made a cup of tea, and ended up giving my hero premonition dreams that he had blocked away for years until he met the heroine and now they’re out of his control again, and…

Well. Yeah. The words kept coming. The only problem was I got tired, and so typed everything in and went to bed. Still - you gotta love when the writing is good. (When the writing is bad is also a topic best left for another day.)

~*~

11.9.07 Friday Fiver:

1. Who do you owe? My parents. I’m not talking money, here - I owe too many people money.

2. What do you wait for? (cue Disney music) … my prince will come … (Sorry, couldn’t resist. That was my first impulse.)

3. What do you disguise? Mushrooms. Otherwise I won’t usually eat them. Sometimes avocado too.

4. Tell us a lie: No thanks.

5. Friday fill-in: can’t get enough of you, baby…. (I’m in a song mood today, I guess.)