Writing Cures Loneliness

One of my former students posted this quote from Carl Jung on Facebook today and it perfectly sums up one of the most important benefits of strong writing skills. Self-expression is life blood for humans. So strong is this instinct that we see it in youth who desperately strive to convey their feelings and personality through other means. Teens will pierce and tattoo their bodies, dye their hair, choose clothing that conveys a disturbing subtext, and take up unhealthy habits like smoking, drinking and doing drugs, all because they have no substantive outlet for their thoughts and feelings. They don't feel heard, so they shout themselves silly through the easiest method they can find, a method that requires little effort or serious thought. Of course, conveying meaning through appearance is hardly uncommon in a world so visually addicted.  We judge on appearance, but I don't think "dressing" ourselves this way is nearly as effective a means of communicating as thoughtful writing.  Parents, teach your kids to write!

Writing Resolutions

We're well into January of 2014 and I still haven't fulfilled my resolution to write more this year.  So much seems to get in the way -- mostly family and work obligations.  I've decided to declare my intentions here in order to feel a little more culpable if my follow through fails.

For my work, I tutor and teach writing to others for much of the week and my newest job is transcribing the words of others.  It pays remarkably well, for a transcription job, but when my fingers are sore at the end of the day, I can't help wishing they were sore from my own creative efforts. I hope to change many things this year and focusing on my own writing needs to become a serious priority.

This last year, my creativity was stimulated by a ton of reading.  I took the "Goodreads" challenge and read over 100 books and with almost all of them I kept thinking -- "I need to do this!"  My daughters both successfully completed NANOWRIMO last year and I was so very proud of them, but in the back of my mind, I was also thinking "I need to do this!"  I figure when a call becomes that insistent, it's time to pay attention.  I don't know where I'll find the time this year, but I will find it. Even if my writing has to happen in fits and starts, 20 minutes here, 40 minutes there, I will do it.  

Blog posting is a fantastic way to keep disciplined, so renewing my efforts with this blog will be part of my plan.  I'll write entries on homeschooling, my own writing, the writing I teach to others, the books I'm reading and anything else that seems pertinent.  Even if time is short, I'll make the effort and get something online.  This is my resolution:  always writing.

Civilized Discourse on the Internet.... Wishful Thinking? :)

I received a comment (a number of them actually, from the same anonymous source) that I deleted today.  Deleting comments is not something I do happily, so I want to explain why and add my own comments on what I think is a vital issue for people to be discussing about writing and the internet.  


Both comments in question began with obnoxious name calling.  I won't have needlessly inappropriate remarks like that on my blog for many reasons, but most importantly because my students read this blog.  Not only do I not want them to have to read such nonsense, I don't want them learning from me that such things are to be tolerated simply because one opens a discussion about a topic that may be controversial.  I welcome opinions that may disagree with my own and blog as a way of opening a forum for discussion.  I learn a lot from such discussions.  But stating an opposing position and childish name calling are not the same thing.


My post earlier today was on homeschooling and socialization and I've received a number of useful comments and emails expressing many different viewpoints, but it was clear that this particular individual hadn't even read the whole post and simply had an ax to grind against homeschooling.


Unfortunately, there are plenty of cowards on the internet who are happy to spend their time leaving rude comments on blogs, so long as they can hide under the cover of anonymity.  I suppose it's the price we must pay for the sorts of open discussions blogs and the internet allow.  I'm sure if this individual returns, I'll get more of the same in response to this post.  This isn't the first ugly and pointless comment I've received and I'm quite sure it won't be the last.  Still, I refuse to provide a forum for just plain nastiness on my blog and though I greatly value thoughtful disagreement, will always delete pointless insults.  So now I've switched to comment moderation... sad, but necessary.

Turning Corners: Socks & Novels

Turning the heel on a sock always takes a bit of focus.  It's not terribly difficult once you've done it a few times, but it involves a bit of planning and tracking.  You have to separate the stitches, create a sturdy foundation, narrow and turn and then expand and re-focus.

Technically, after knitting as lengthy a tube as I want for the leg portion of the sock, I separate the heel stitches from the in-step, knit a sturdy heel flap, do some short rows to turn the tube in a perpendicular direction to the existing tube, pick up stitches for the gusset, join to my patiently waiting instep stitches and then decrease back to the original number of stitches to send my tube on down the foot, where it will eventually resolve itself into a toe.

When possible, I like to do this all in one sitting -- my memory stinks and I seem rarely willing to write things down (other than here of course -- but, you know what I mean!).

Where do novels come into all this?  Just wait, the analogy's coming.  Turning the heel on the sock always makes me feel like I'm almost done.  I'm past the half-way point and the end is in sight.  I turned the heel on this sock last night after the kiddos were all tucked in their beds for the night and then I marched myself back to the computer and whacked out another 1600 words or so on the Nanowrimo novel, which amazingly resembles the original pattern I'd outlined for myself far more than I would have expected it to at this point.  Doing so brought me well past the half-way point for that as well and I'm entering the home stretch there too.  Characters have had to turn corners, grow, expand and change course  Separating the various plot stitches will have to come later during the editing process, but I can already see the individual strands coming together and I'm confident that they will, eventually, resolve themselves into a toe all their own.

I printed the novel today for the girls to read -- it is a children's book after all -- their opinion is as valuable to me as any editor's at this point.  It was 52 pages single-spaced and 33,360 words (but, who's counting, eh?). My little excel spreadsheet informs me that is 67% of my 50,000 word goal for November and I feel like 67% is about where I am on the sock too.  For those keeping track of such things, yes -- this is the birthday sock I began almost at the same time I got started on the novel, and yes -- it's taken a ridiculously long time.  We will tactfully, fail to mention too that this is only Sock #1 and predictably, another must be knit before long.  Three weeks IS an inordinate amount of time to knit such a little thing, but I bit off more than I could reasonably chew this month -- what with that novel business and daily blogging and a few other dozen things on my "To Do" List that are also frankly, half baked... or I should say, 67% baked..

Anyway, I see light at the end of my tube, tunnel and that's a good feeling.  I've enjoyed the work on both projects, but I doubt the book will keep my toes toasty at night.  Considering the amount of snow outside my door right now, I might do well to devote all my time to getting that 2nd sock done!

Ain't it purty?

Sock models being notoriously hard to come by, I must officially thank Charlotte for contributing her foot to posterity!

Bejeweled Time-Wasting Blitz

I'm happy to report that as of today I have somehow managed to reach my word count quota for my Nanowrimo novel.  I'm hovering somewhere around 18,500 words.  I'm not sure how I've managed this though, as I've developed an alarming addiction to this stupid, *#~&%^-ing game.

Maybe it's the unsolicited, positive reinforcement.  The word processing program I use to type my novel doesn't spontaneously reward a particularly fabulous sentence by saying "EXCELLENT" in a deep, bass (and ok, I admit it -- downright sexy) voice.  It's also not equipped with flashing, verb exploding jewels that zap out entire lines of verbiage in brilliant explosions of light and sound.  And let's face it, matching tone and mood to character is just a heck of a lot more trouble than lining up 3 yellow squares, especially when one of them is a "money" square with a nice payout.  I know better than to imagine that I'll ever earn so much mixing metaphors.

Must. Stop. Blitzing.

The problem is too many of my friends play too and the urge to be at the top of that scoring heap...  too strong to fight.  I will conquer all!  Somehow, I will get to the end of November with 50,000 words, dozens of blog posts, a million or so hours of teaching, homeschooling, driving and XMAS knitting, Thanks-giving for a crowd and a high score of at least 400k on this ridiculous game.

Yes, I feel completely sane -- why do you ask?

Black Coffee in Bed....

Some mornings are just so chilly the only thing I can do is climb back in bed with a steaming cup of Java before my toes freeze.  Thank goodness I know how to knit warm socks!  There's no snow on the ground, but everything outside my window this morning was covered with a thin layer of frost.  It was about 25 degrees outside, which is just where I like it this time of year.  Astonishingly, we've already had our first snow, short lived as it was.  I'm personally hoping for more.  This November has been absolutely jam packed with writing tasks and I just work better when things are cozy inside and brisk outdoors.

I wish I could've enjoyed my coffee, happily daydreaming like the gal in the painting above, but I had my notebook out and was jotting down the last 500 or so words I didn't finish the night before to meet my Nanowrimo quota for the day.  I'm happy to say that I've managed to scratch out (more or less) my word count each day, making up for off days here and there.  What's really surprising me is how much I'm loving my Nano novel this time.  Maybe being utterly distracted and ridiculously overworked inspires me...  Uh oh!

Anyway, I still have a fairly hefty hunk of words to squeeze out today if I'm to stay on track, but my little "noveling" interlude this morning was so sweet I had to memorialize it somehow.  I'm aging myself, of course, to point out the soundtrack going through my head as I wrote, but what can I say -- I'm a child of the 80's.  I've included a reminder here for those of you who aren't already humming it yourselves:

On your mark, get set....

...and we're off!  Nanowrimo has begun today in earnest.  I haven't even started yet; it's 9:45pm and I'm sitting here blogging.  Insane!  I have to get something barely short of 1700 words written in the next 2 hours... just to stay on course.  Besides, the bar has already been set fairly high.  I have a friend who has already logged over 3,000 words today (and you know who you are, DELANEY!).  Of course, I'm endlessly jealous, but also endlessly proud of said friend.

Our plumbing is still on the fritz and I'll be dealing with the septic tank people bright and early tomorrow morning -- let's all sing together -- Happy Birthday to me....   sigh.  No, I won't say that it's a crappy way to spend a birthday -- that would just be too, too.....

But, I'm off to novel.  I hope all my noveling buddies make their quotas for the day!  Good Luck All J

Nano Novel Percolating!

Two weeks.... two weeks!  That's all the time I have left until NANOWRIMO begins.  I'm not the fly by the seat of my pants, no plot/no problem, type of gal and since I've been preaching the value of outlines and planning to my creative writing students all semester, I feel obliged to get my act together here and soon.  So, I've made a couple of decisions.  It will be a YA novel, with an escape type plot.  The main characters will be a brother and sister (I thinking angry and alienated) and I'm going to throw them into the woods, survivalist style (though they'll have a few amenities).  There will definitely be themes of abandonment, estrangement and  probably anti-tech.  I will undoubtedly find a way to get some character knitting something at some point and since I'm feeling Halloween in the air, I'll probably throw in a witch for good measure.  That said, I may completely change my mind by tomorrow.  Still, that's what's brewing now!  Any thoughts?

Gearing up for NANOWRIMO

After a year's hiatus, I'm returning this November for my 3rd NANOWRIMO (or National Novel Writing Month).  If you've never heard of this, check out their website.  This is one of the most challenging writing challenges I've ever taken on and somehow, despite the stress, I have a blast with it.  It's very motivating to be sweating out word count deadlines with hundreds of thousands of others and very freeing to completely abandon my inner editor and just write at a breakneck speed.  The outcome isn't always spectacular, but having done it twice -- I have one novel I really like (and my daughters love) and a second that's pretty cruddy, but taught me a lot.  Not bad.  There are a number of novelists who wrote their books during NANOWRIMO, including Sara Gruen who wrote Water for Elephants one dark November.

Now, it's true -- only a man with absolutely no responsibilities for Thanksgiving meals would schedule such a thing in November.  Apparently, Chris Baty chose November because he thought it was a dull month with nothing much happening.  Hah!  Clearly, he doesn't have 40 or so of his nearest and dearest over for turkey and trimmings or if he does, he's not the one doing the cooking and cleaning.  Our idyllic mountain location makes us the family destination for a huge Thanksgiving Turkey bash, which includes my sis and her family staying for 5-6 days that week too.  It's an event we look forward to all year, making November just about the toughest month possible for me -- but heck, just heap that onto the challenge :)

This year I'm extra geared up because I'm teaching a Creative Writing class that has already begun a 10-week version of Nano with a goal of 15,000 words.  They're waiting for me to put my money where my mouth is and get started too.  So, now all I need is a plot.... any ideas?