Rachael

Whew.

Just caught up with the NaNoWriMo novel, caught up on the words I was behind on — didn’t write a scrap yesterday. I thought my computer was fine after the fall, but then I couldn’t make the power source work, so I was unable to charge it. So I couldn’t write yesterday, of course. Didn’t want to run down the last few minutes I had to my name…..

But of course, Lala was able to make it work, and I wrote today. Sigh. It was a struggle. But I did it.

I’ve been working from a plot-line for the first time ever. I don’t know how long I’ll stick to it, but it’s been a dream so far. Every time a character wants to wander to the kitchen to make tea or coffee (yawn), I know it’s time to pull a card. I used Holly Lisle’s plot card idea, and I keep them right by me. I don’t know how it will work in the end, but for right now, it’s keeping me writing, without that desperate back-of-the-mind I-have-no-idea-WHAT-to-write-next thing that usually hits me about now.

(At first I uploaded a picture of the cards that could actually be read, and that was a very bad idea. Too incredibly embarrassing.)

And hey, as of today, I’m twenty percent done. Dude! Not bad.

Yesterday Lala had a great idea — I should insert myself as a character, and then I could include my blogging, which is always somewhat wordy. Up my word count that way. Heh.

I can hear a tambourine somewhere in the house. This is so cute and domestic: Lala has signed on to do NaSoAlMo (is that right?) National Solo Album Month. So she’s in there making an album. Which I think is rad.

Especially since she’s found that Clara is TERRIFIED of the harmonica. Lord, that’s a funny thing to see.

Now, I’m off to spin some more on my new lovely Ashford, which I’ve tweaked into working great. Neck is way better today, thanks for asking. Mwah!

https://rachaelherron.com/whew_just_caugh/

SOAR is like nothing I’ve ever been to. Two hundred and fifty people, mostly women, sitting around talking really seriously about fiber. It was kind of unnerving and crazy and so, so wonderful. I guess I thought it was going to be something like a fiber festival, Stitches, or Maryland Sheep & Wool, but it was nothing like that.

It was more like winter camp (but roughing it meant having to wait a minute for them to bring out more filet mignon — really) with classes, and a couple of small rooms filled with fiber and wheels, should you feel like shopping in between learning. It was intimate, and now Judith MacKenzie McCuin knows who I am (I have such a crush), and I told Alden Amos to XYZ. Heh.

The only unfortunate incident was caused by ice. Ice, unless it is in my bourbon, is stupid, people (actually, that’s disingenuous. I don’t even like bourbon and ice. I like bourbon and WATER. Hold the ice. See?). Ice on the ground is just ridiculous, and people from the Pacific Coast have NO idea what to do with it. I know neither how to walk on it, nor how to drive upon it. Lordy.

Yesterday morning, while leaving my room (I stayed offsite), I fell. I didn’t just fall, but I did that feet skating back and forth wildly thing until both legs flew UP and I landed on my back and the back of my head. I was holding my laptop at the time, so it flew five feet up in the air and hit the ice on its corner. I remember thinking as I was going down, "The novvvvvelllllllllll……."

When I caught my breath, I got up and checked the computer — bashed and cracked, but it still works! God bless my little Apple PowerBook G4. I then got in the car and took a small curve a few minutes later in the lowest gear, less than 10 miles per hour and totally skidded out, losing control of the car for a few seconds. Hairy, but I turned into the skid, and all was right, but I was shook up all sorts of ways. Stupid ice.

But besides a wicked case of whiplash today (dude, you have muscles in the FRONT of your neck, did you know that?), I am SO good. It was one of the most fun times I’ve had in memory, and that’s saying a lot. Every single person I spoke to was interesting, kind, and talented. Isn’t that amazing?

Hey, you want some pics?

    On the road

    My little travel buddies

   
    A Joy-ful row (that 3rd one’s mine)

   
    Feral Janine

    Alden’s Big Ass Flyer and Bobbin (ABAFAB)

    How Stephanie felt about ABAFAB

   
    Ready to rumble

    I won! (A gorgeous Forester Spindle and carrying bag)

   
    My peeps, Brooke, Greg, Janine and Marilyn

   
    Lake Tahoe, across the street from my hotel

    Still cold, but not icy today

   
    A Very Happy Spinner

I have lots more pictures, but if I post some of the ones I want to, Stephanie will yell at me for making her look rabid (and/or drunk, we went for a beer run, and not only did they let us drink it at dinner, they brought us an ice bucket — okay, that’s good ice). I have other pics of other people that I really like, but my camera kept adding things like chins and jaundice, so I will leave the post be and go have a little lie-down for my neck. Although I just want to spin.

It’s absolutely incredible that I was at one point ambivalent about coming to SOAR (Spin Off Autumn Retreat). I drove up yesterday in the rain, met up with Janine, who is my spinning guru, and then took part in a mad well-orchestrated scramble for classes. I ended up with Alden Amos, As the Wheel Turns, this morning and I have Judith MacKenzie McCuin for Three Wild Downs (buffalo, yak, and cashmere) tomorrow.

The Yarn Harlot spoke last night, and brought the house down, despite the chill of the rain beating down on the huge outdoor tent. Watch the SOAR blog, I believe I heard they’ll be posting a podcast of it. As Stephanie’s tagalong, I snuck into a knit-glitterati studded party afterward, and had a grand time pretending to Be Someone, which I’m not, but if one sticks close by the Ones Who Are, and smiles a lot, no one seems to mind.

Oh, and I bought a wheel. Heh. A really inexpensive Ashford Traditional at a must-buy price. It’s the one I’ve been wanting, and I simply couldn’t pass it up. There was a rather shady looking exchange in the parking lot, cash flashing, passing of things from station wagon to station wagon. These are SO my people. 

Ain’t she purdy? New Zealand, represent.

And I’ve been writing. I’m kind of exhausted. But really happy. Will write again here and catch up on email on Monday, okay? Peace out.   

Done with day one’s writing! NaNoWriMo, here I come!

I write quickly. I forget that. And I write way faster when I have a plan,
which I roughly do right now, and I write faster in the beginning, when
everything is an option and I don’t have to remember things. At the end
of a novel (no, I haven’t really completed one yet, but I’ve been at or near the end of three that are in desk drawers, waiting for the light of day), I can’t remember what characters are likely to do, or what
they look like, or what they do for a living, so I spend lots of time
flipping back and forth, doing research on STUFF I WROTE MYSELF. That is how bad my memory is.

But in the beginning, I just go at it, and I got more than 2025 words
written in 75 minutes. Words that don’t suck very much, and it would be
okay if they did. I am supposed to just get the words down, not worrying about editing or whether it’s ass or not. It does help that 70,000 other crazy people are doing the same thing today. A lot of them are probably having trouble with the beginning. I wish I could share the excess beginning mojo that I have and swap it for a little middle-part stick-to-it-tivism.

Of course, I’ve always taken my time with big projects, and writing lasts months and months, into years. That’s a long time to be forgetting things, and I’m very good at that. One of my biggest talents, actually. I’ve been trying to remember whether Lala likes a big fork or a little fork for almost three years, and I never remember it right. (I’ve solved this by setting out one of each, because I don’t care and then it looks like I remember.)

So perhaps jamming through 50,000 (I’m aiming for 57,000, actually) in 30 days will help because that gives me way less time to forget. We’ll see.

My challenge for this week is to write while at SOAR. I leave tomorrow for the retreat session, and will spend four of the first five days of Nanowrimo at a spinning retreat. How’s that for a time-spending quandary? See, my goal is 2000 words a day, which it totally do-able. Almost easy. But where I will run into major trouble is if I lose a day. 2000 words a day is fine. 4000 to catch up would suck. 6000 to catch up would make my lower lip tremble, and 8000+ to catch up would make me cry. Not a day missed, okay?  And if you’re doing it, we’ll do it together. Send me your user name, and I’ll add you to my buddy list (I’m writerach406 — me linking you does not link you to me for some reason, this is no friendster). (And if you link me, it’s a working title, and a joke. I can’t decide on a title, ever, so I’m torn right now between using Bleating Hearts or Alpacas of the Heart. Heh.)

Woot! Off to the dog park! What a life!

People! What is UP? You don’t write fast enough. I went
through my bloglines and read everything (you know how to do that, right? Click
where it says the number of feeds you have, and they all fill in – make sure
you have either the time to read them all or else the stomach for skimming) and now everything
is cleared out and you aren’t WRITING. What is up? You have something better to
do on Saturday night? Besides keeping me entertained while I’m at work, working
not twelve hours, but thirteen because of the stupid time change? Out
gallivanting? Huh? Huh?

I suppose I understand. Fun-havers, all of you. 

But now that I’m thinking about fun, and because I care, I
will now share with you:

THE BEST, FUNNIEST BOOK I HAVE READ IN AGES. 

The Yes Man, by Danny Wallace

It is so good that I finished it on the airplane coming back
from Europe, didn’t have another one on me
because apparently I had no brain cells at ALL, and just started reading it
again from the beginning.

Funny? Oh, my GOD, is it funny. A Londoner, Danny Wallace is
living in a funk after a breakup, hiding under his covers and not going out. A
guy on a bus tells him to say yes more, and it’s A Revelation. He says yes to
EVERYTHING after that for an entire year. Everything. Not some things. But everything.
It’s amazing where in the world one can end up if one says yes to every
question posed.

Also, he’s just a good guy. A nice, funny, sweet, bumbling,
enthusiastic goofball – the kind that I’d shoot darts with in a bar and end up
taking him home and making him spaghetti. (By that I mean spaghetti, you
dirty-minded Saturday-night fun-having people.) 

And it’s more than just a funny read. Might just change the
way you look at the world. It’s a happy, hopeful, wonderful read, and you will
love it. I mean it.

BUT THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: 

Do NOT read the back of the damn book. The publisher placed,
like, the WORST spoiler ever on the back. If you read the back of the book, you
will learn something big, something that you should NOT know until the last few
pages. On my copy, I’ve blacked out the offending phrase. If you buy the book,
put a cover on it if you can’t help stealing peeks. It’s important, I swear. I
don’t read backs of books, so I didn’t know, but Lala did, and she was sad
about it. Simon Spotlight Publishers, take note. That sucks.

(Oh my god, I originally linked to Powells, because it’s
independent, but they have the same spoiler! Don’t read it! So I linked to
Amazon, but you should really call your local bookstore, instead. Yes, that’s
it. Then have THEM sharpie out the text on the back for you. I’m not kidding.
Plus, having worked in a bookstore for years, I would have loved to do that.)

https://rachaelherron.com/people_what_is_/

I like making people do things that are good for them. I like prodding Lala to go to the gym, my mother to go to the doctor, my sisters to take this vitamin or read that book. It must make me very annoying.

That said, I have a list of things You Should Do.

You should save a life, save your country, and save your knitting.

Ready?

    * Go give blood and join Martha’s blood drive. Martha’s mom has lymphoma and almost couldn’t get the blood she needed. Go save a life — that’s really what you’re doing. Isn’t that cool? I know it’s been too long since I did. I’m going on Monday.

    * VOTE. For the love of pete, vote. Don’t let this year go by without voting. I know you’re too smart to wake up that day and not be able to find time, or your voter packet, or your car keys. Pretty much, I feel this way: If you are a citizen of this country and don’t vote, you’re a bad citizen. Sometimes when I find out that friends haven’t voted, I actually feel let down, disappointed in them, and I’m not used to ever feeling that, because I have fabulous friends. Like you. You won’t let me down, right?

    * When knitting, SSK this way: slip one knitwise, then slip one purlwise, knit 2 tog off right hand needle. I bet everyone knows this, right? Everyone? Really? Why didn’t I know this? Knitting through both back loops didn’t look right, SSK with both slipped knitwise didn’t look right, but you know me, I don’t care if it won’t be noticed from a trotting horse. But this way is so PURDY. Did you know about this? Knitting for 29 years and I just found this out. Dude.

Now, go be good! Mwah!

Oh WOW. Laura in Alameda just left this comment and I think it’s wonderful.

You know, as a nurse, I have hung blood (meaning administered it) many,
many times. It is never a mundane moment. On the outside of the bag,
along with the id number, the type of blood, ( A, B, O, pos or neg),
the familiar Red Cross symbol, there is a phrase that never fails to
send a good chill down my spine: volunteer donor, and the region it
came from. People who get blood are usually very, very sick. Sometimes,
it is the only thing that will save them. I picture answering the
personal questions asked of blood donors, standing in line, rolling up
their sleeve, wincing for the needle stick- giving the life of their
own body to someone who needs it keep going. It’s like the image of
lighting one candle off another- it doesn’t diminish the first flame to
have lit the next. So, go forth and get stuck, and if I am the nurse
who hangs your blood, I will send a silent prayer/tribute winging up to
you.