Archives for October 2008

Good lord! A wonderful person just donated the money that will let Bethany and I both go to the Night of Writing Dangerously!

WOOOOOOOOT! This is how I felt when I found out:

Really. I did that.

Then I realized that both things I had blogged (my reading and the Night of Writing Dangerously) are on the SAME NIGHT.

So I'm going to have a ball. First to the N.O.W.D. with Bethany, where we'll set up our computers and snack and write and listen and play. Then I'll jet over to the reading. I will read and listen and shmooze with knitters. Then I'll jet back to the City for the last hour or two of writing dangerously (doesn't that just sound so romantic?).

So to you, you know who you are (and I don't! It's killing me!), THANK YOU. You made both Bethany's and my Nano November already the best one ever. I can't believe I get a whole night of magic – reading from my first Nano, now a real book (although not published or nothin', we're working on that….) and working on my current one.

You really knocked us out. And we'll toast to you that night. Thank you.

WRITERS WHO KNIT:

This is cool. I'll be part of a reading at Knit-One-One
on November 15th, with Jesse Loesberg and Peggy Vincent. I'll be
reading from my recently completed book. Please come? I haven't given a
reading in years, not since I was in grad school, I think. At least it
will be for knitters. That will ease my nerves.

Saturday, November 15th, 7:30pm, Knit-One-One, 3360 Adeline, Berkeley

T-2

Two days to Nanowrimo! I've been plotting my little brains out. I have a goal of compiling seventy-five to get me comfortably on the way, and I'm up to something over fifty now. Of course, I like plotting along the way, too, and for once in my life I know where a book is going to start AND end, so it should be easier, but you never know. I have three unfinished novels in the drawer that died the death of no-ending, so I'd like to prevent that from happening again.

Sister Bethany is also joining the novel in a month madness again, and she is raising money for the Office of Letters and Light — if anyone would like to donate, please click here:

All money goes the group behind Nano and the Young Writers Program, which is all about promoting writing for writing's sake, anywhere, everywhere, all the time. They are seriously rad. Thanks.

(Also, if she raises two hundred, she gets to go to the Night of Writing Dangerously. If she raises three hundred, she TAKES ME WITH HER. Ahem. I so want to go.)

PS – your recipes for brown rice/quinoa/barley sound so good I'll be cooking up a storm today. Rain tomorrow. Days off for my weekend. Joy.

I swear I have. I've just lost all motivation to blog about the knitting process, not that I ever had that much to begin with. You know I love to spring 'em on you, all completed. Voila!

But I've been designing a sweater, and the cool part is that it's for the book! My main character is a knitter, natch, and through the book she's been knitting and designing a russet man's sweater. It's an unconventional Gansey (narrower chest design, zig-zag on sleeves rather than plain or cabled). I wrote the book, then wrote the pattern to include with submission, and NOW I'm actually knitting it. The pattern I sent with the book is a rough draft — I've still got to figure out the neckline and write the chart and different sizings. For all I know, if you followed the pattern, you'd end up knitting a ranch house.

But isn't that fun? Pattern sold with book? I love it. It's like novels that feature food having the recipes at the end.

I adore how my lust for yarn increases so rapidly this time of year. Unable to think about knitting anything for so long, it feels like coming back into myself every year. (If you look at my Finished gallery, you can see that most of the sweaters are banged out in fall and winter.) I need to cast on some more socks, and finish another sweater for me, and start another one, a stripey one…. Ahhhhh. I like to think about knitting on the couch almost as much as I love BEING on the couch, knitting.

PS – Is there a way in hell to make brown rice not suck? I hate it, hate the stuff. I've tried cooking it in all kinds of broth, cooking it plain, adding spices, adding vegetables and tofu…. I might just be bad at cooking it or it might just be as awful as I think it is. I'm about ready to give up, but if you have a miracle recipe, lay it on me. Puh-leeze.

PPS – Miss Idaho says Too Many Cats Here:

No, really. I'm going. First week of December. Delta is having a sale – $161 ROUND TRIP from SFO, non-stop flight. I had been planning on going away that weekend, probably driving to Tahoe, but good god, New York will be almost as inexpensive at that price!

Of course, there's the lodging that might break the bank. Anyone know of a well-located, inexpensive hotel in Manhattan? I want my friend who's never been there to stay in the City, to see it right, but there's always the problem of the hotel. We do have an expensive room reserved already, but any other good ideas? We're looking at December 3, 4 and 5, leaving the 6th.

God, I love New York. I'm so excited.

Oh. KNIT-OUT, anyone? Woot!!!

I really may be the very last person to see it, but I finished watching the movie Once last night. It was incredible. I don't know when I last saw a movie that made me feel like I was eating it and drinking it. Every camera angle was gorgeous and heartbreaking and perfect.

I think it might have helped that I watched it with subtitles. I'm usually really good at picking out English from strong accents, but I could NOT understand Glen Hansard's words without the subtitles. But having the lyrics right in front of me made the experience of the songs richer, I think. I loved their voices together, and I loved the story, minimal as it was.

As I was watching it, I was already nostalgic for it. I can't wait to watch it again. It may be one of the few movies I need to own. (I only own a few: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Room with a View, Roman Holiday. That might be it.)

I haven't been moved like that by a movie in a long time. (It took me a long time to watch it, too, almost two weeks. I sometimes like to watch TV in the ten minutes I have between eating dinner and going to bed. La thinks I'm kind of nuts — she can't imagine not watching a movie all in one sitting. But if it's SUCH a great movie, I like to save it, dole myself little bits and pieces of the deliciousness.)

What movie last made you feel this way?