Rachael

Ahhh. It's getting closer. Can you feel it? The rumble of Nanowrimo, growing closer and closer, with every passing day.

That would have been a more effective sentence, had I not typoed at first the "fumble" of Nanowrimo, growing closer and closer.

And fumble might be closer to the truth.

I'm trying to get okay with the fact that I might not win this year. Since I first started this crazy Write a Novel in a Month thing, and this will be my fourth year attempting it, I've won every year (winning is writing 50,000 words, no matter if the book is done or not, which in my case it never is).

But this year? Ack.

I'm writing Book Three in the Cypress Hollow Yarn series, and I'm loving it, which is kind of weird. It's hard, naturally, because I find first drafts difficult. First drafts are like knitting really, really long sleeves. I don't like them. They are unwieldy and unnatural. Edits (and backs and fronts of sweaters) are where it's at.

I plan on hitting 50,000 words in Book Three this week (and I only started it 6 weeks ago! Woot! Cruising! See? And it's super fun.)

But to throw another novel on top of that one? AM I INSANE?

One word: Yes.

I heart Nanowrimo.

I love the energy of it. I love the craziness. I love the out of control optimism that is COMPLETELY gone by the middle of week two but comes galloping back by end of week three. I love Chris Baty and his tallness and I love the Office of Letters and Light and all the people that work there and make the world a better place. I love the refusal to believe by so many that it can't be done. Because it can.

I love that there will be people who will have won by the second or third DAY. Put THAT in your writing hookah and smoke it.

So this year: It's a Young Adult paranormal for me. IN FIRST PERSON PRESENT TENSE. I know. The form voted most annoying at her novel prom, right? (Second person wasn't even invited, so we can't talk smack about her, no matter how much we want to.) I'm so excited I could just spit. It's such a break for me, so far away from anything I've ever written, and I sometimes can't sleep for thinking about it. I'm going to write at night, and I'm going to write fast and hard, and not let it take away from my "real" writing which I do in the morning. But I know that there are a couple of really scary things this November to think about:

1. If writing the YA affects my voice in Book Three, I'll have to stop writing it. Period. (But it'll just put it off for a while. It will happen.)

2. If I don't have time, I don't have time. I've never tried working full time, twelve hour shifts (and plenty o'overtime as well), writing 2000 words a day on an ongoing project, and 2000 words a day on a new project. That's a lot of words. It might not pan out.

See me making preemptive excuses? That's not like me. I HATE to lose at anything. You might have already noticed. But I don't want to do what I normally do, which is to hurl myself at something so hard I end up breaking myself into little upset pieces. I'm going to have fun, that's all. If I'm not having fun, that's another good reason not to do it.

But I'm gonna give it my best damn shot. And I get my aim from my mama, friends.

Funny aside: I was emailing Erika and she mentioned she thought I should enter a challenge where the goal was to do nothing. After the screaming inside my head died down, I figured out the name of this challenge: Nono. HAAAAAAAAAAAA!

That I blogged over at PensFatales about BLOOD (It's October. We were feeling gory). But that was a few days ago, so you'll have to read through a few other great entries by my fellows Pens to get to mine, and then I hope you'll keep on readin.'

I have this image in mind: Someday, we're going to be at something, an industry gathering of some sort. A writer's convention, RWA, or RT maybe. The Pens will be bunched up somewhere, laughing, probably admiring Sophie Littlefield's fishnets, and people will point and says, "Look! The PensFatales. Did you see them? They're over there. Man, is that a lot money, prestige, and good looks all in one place." Another person will say, "You go talk to them." "No, YOU go."

Meanwhile, we're just being dorks. But we'll look cool from a distance. That's a nice dream.

In closing, a parting knitting shot — working on Fiona Ellis's Bonnie from the Twist Collective — I'm doing it in the round with raglan shaping because I really didn't like those set-in sleeves. Using Mission Falls, and I'm adoring it. I just attached the arms, and now it's HEAVY and slow. I love this never-ending yoke time.

Proof I still knit

I FINALLY HAVE A MAILING LIST!

You would think it would be easy, wouldn't it? I think people hire other people to set this kind of thing up. And I could have. But I'm stubborn and I like to do things on my own. Gets me in trouble sometimes. But now I have total control over that mailing list and you know what that means?

Next week I'm giving away a copy of HOW TO KNIT A LOVE SONG (in galley form).

 

Your chance to read it, far in advance of all your friends who sadly (VERY SADLY) have to wait till March 23rd. All you have to do to be in the drawing is sign up for my mailing list! You may have already received an email from me (in which case just click on that link in the email and you're all set — Oh! and check your spam filter if you think you should have got one — it might gone there) or if not, JUST CLICK HERE to sign yourself up.

BONUS: Every month I'll be giving away a little something, randomly, to someone on my list. Just for fun. Because, no lie, I love my readers. You already know that.

Not to get even more sappy, but I gotta tell you this. So this last week I've been making this email list. I didn't have a good method for keeping track of people last October, when I announced I'd made the sale to HarperCollins, so when people told me they wanted to be on my mailing list, I'd just label them in my gmail account with the label WRITINGLIST. Highly technical, I know.

A solid year later, I've been copying and pasting each and every email address into an Excel spreadsheet. As I've been doing that, I've been rereading each email. Oh, my goodness. You all made me cry again. I'd almost (but not quite) forgotten that giddy head-over-heels complete sense of disbelief I'd had when I'd made the sale. The lifelong dream coming true. Published. A real author.

You all made me realize that all over again. Some of you have been with me since the very beginning of this knitblogging journey and some of you are relatively new (hi! I'm nice! I like salt a lot and I'm not good at sleeping although I'm getting better!). But you're why I come back to this space, again and again, and I thank you. I adore you.

So once a month, I'm gonna put something in the mail to someone. It might be you. In fact, I hope it is. (Sign up! I won't sell or share your email, ever, I promise.)

I'll draw a winner next week, on Monday, October 26th. Yay!

CLICK HERE to sign up (or put in your name and email and hit JOIN again if you're unsure if you're subscribed — it'll confirm it for you — I'm the kind of person who likes a little extra assurance.)

I have such cravings this morning:

• for sushi.
• for pot roast.
• for spinning something soft.
• for a ride on a vaporetto in the fog.
• for sleep.
• for writing.
• for more coffee (I can fix that one!).
• for scrambled eggs (that too!).
• for ice cream (chocolate, with caramel sauce).
• for sitting on a foggy beach.
• for an early night and sweet dreams.
• for popcorn and a movie.

Oh, that list just made me happy. What are you craving right now?

The last of the tomatoes and a very, very funny carrot.

I'm working this month (okay, let's make it this year) on balance.

I'm not the best at balance. You may have heard.

I have a slight tendency to work too much. I overdo things.

Wait a minute. I just had a thought. Why don't I overdo fun? Why isn't that true of relaxing? Why can't it be that I say that about relaxing? God, that is SO NOT TRUE. I'm the queen of flipping on the television, watching seven minutes of something, then pausing it in order to go do something (vacuuming, or brushing the dog, or checking email). Then I come back and watch four more minutes before I stop to do something else.

I exaggerate a lot — I do it often, and I do it well. But that, up there, is not an exaggeration. TiVo tells me exactly where I pause, and it sometimes astonishes me to find that after I feel like I've been watching TV for an hour that it's been literally seven minutes.

I put OFF relaxing. I find every single thing that has to be done and I do it. Therefore, the relaxing is often the thing that doesn't get done.

And I'm trying to get better at it. I have friends who cock their heads to the side and say with kindness on their faces, "Oh, Rachael. You have to stop." They're right.

Even now I'm postponing pleasure. I know I have an Amazing Race episode just sitting on my TiVo, calling my name, and I'm loving putting it off (but that counts, doesn't it? As pleasure? That delicious sense of anticipation? I always save the good stuff for last. Always have).

But hell. I'm gonna go watch it right NOW.

Balance. Work. And fun. In the right proportion. (Like roast chicken and potatoes and brussels sprouts! In the oven right now! Making the house smell delicious! Lala isn't happy about the b. sprouts, but she is just wrong. They are so good. And I will eat them all. Oh, happy night. And the rain is coming. Knitting. With a storm outside. While I'm on the couch. See? That's some relaxation, right there. Woot!)

EDITED TO ADD: It is exactly two hours later. I am NINE minutes into The Amazing Race. We have had dinner.. Lala ate a brussels sprout and did not die. She cut up the chicken, which she is a champion at, and at which I royally suck. I have had one glass of wine. There has been no knitting, but I've done a load of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, done the dishes, changed my Twitter picture and made my Twitter background page WAY busier than is good for anyone, and scrubbed the toilet. Headed back in to Relaxation Station. I mean it. Here I go.