Plot is a million miles away from resolved. 4783920 subplots now exist, along with an equal number of new character relationship complications.

I am so in love with my Phistos. (Grigori. Whatever. They will always be Phistos in my heart.)

My faith in my writing ability is sototally rekindled. YAAAAAAAAY NANOWRIMO! You have made a bleak month into a giant ball of totallyawesome, yet again. <3

Labels: nanowrimo, writing

 
Ὅσον ζῇς, φαίνου,
μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ·
πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν,
τὸ τέλος ὁ xρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.”

“While you live, shine
Don't suffer anything at all;
Life exists only a short while
And time demands its toll”

Song of Seikilos, oldest surviving complete musical composition, somewhere between 200BC-100BC.

I've spent a surprising amount of time researching music for NaNoWriMo this year - hours one day looking into wax cylinders and variants, how they worked and how they sounded and the sort of music that was put on them. Hours another day looking into music from ancient Greece, the instruments and lyrics and actual sound of the songs. The Song of Seikilos is short enough, and sweet enough, that I decided to teach it to myself - I occasionally forget a word or two here and there, but after repeating it 4783902 times, I finally got it down. (It's a tough melody, to our current music system... plus, obviously, I knew no Greek prior to this.)

The words to Seikilos really struck me on first reading - while there are older tunes, and more eerie melodies, this one seemed... oddly accessible, actually. The words could have as easily been written today. The song isn't a long list of the attributes of deities, or hero's praise... just a short, sweet little thing. Brief enough that I could have a character sing it in my story, and then I realized how struck by it another character would be, and with as light and happy as the song could be, it would make a really nice scene.

I'm happily surprised by how much joy has worked its way into the novel this year. I hadn't planned for Mephisto to be happy much at all, really, and here he is absolutely rapturous. (Definitely going to have to re-build the scene where it all falls apart - it's nowhere near epic enough anymore!)

...anyway, point of all this being. I've been listening to a set of U2 outtakes (mainly "Mercy", obsessively), and singing Song of Seikilos. "Love puts the blue back in my eye, love will come again...", "while you live, shine", and it's had me all warm and fuzzy and safe and happy, despite the occasional bouts of drama around.

Next post (which I'm not allowed to write until AFTER I get my wordcount in for the day! I shouldn't have done this post either, but, it got longer as I wrote), will be the story of our Thanksgiving trip to NC - and the fact that I am now engaged.

^________________________^

(...honestly? I just felt there HAD to be a buffer here. My last post, I was so angry at Tom! So frustrated and $^#*@(*! and upset, leading up to the trip. Trip itself went fine, and became really lovely, and then I got proposed to and could barely speak for an hour. Bit of an extreme.)

Labels: life in general, music, nanowrimo, reference, writing

 
Aaaand the annual prolonged absence kicked in again, didn't it.

August had the Star Wars con, which ate my life for a week (in the best kind of way), aaand then it was too overwhelming to write about, so I didn't, which yes, is stupid. I did start a scrapbook and a write-up, but it's all unfinished. Ask me about it and I will try to tell you. :)

For the month of November, I will be posting excessively on:
The 2010 NaNoWriMo blog.
Go over there to see what's new.

I am going back to work on Amaranthus, the Phisto novel I started in '07. It has lots of gaps, and needs more fat on its poor bones. I am trying to fix that.

Also - follow me on Twitter. I'm seriously enjoying the micro-blogging thing. I suspect it is going to be the bane of my NaNoNovember, but, well, something has to be.

Labels: life in general, nanowrimo, writing

 
"If you do creative work, there's a sense that inspiration is this fairy dust that gets dropped on you, when in fact you can just manufacture inspiration through sheer brute force. You can simply produce enough material that the thing will arrive that seems inspired."

- Ira Glass

Labels: art, navelgaze, writing

 
This is what happens when I am asked to edit a story.



This is only two pages.

What you probably can't make out, is how many suggestions and explanations are in brackets after all the blue highlights (which are things to change; yellow are simple additions)...

...

...I had to make a KEY at the top of the file explaining the highlight colors. That's how much of a psycho-editor I am.

I am enjoying the power-rush far, far too much. XD

Mel, I apologize in advance for how soul-crushing this is going to look to you!!! (I promise, I am not lying or exaggerating when I say the story is still amazing. My changes are things like sentence structure. Awkward sentences happen when you're good enough at writing to understand that you *can* mess with sentence structure. Most people aren't. You're awesome. Really. If you were not, I would not spend two hours on my day off to deal with ten pages of story.)

Labels: family, silliness, writing

 
Superbowl food menu:
- Pepperoni pizza from Blasdell, because Tom was starving.
- Chicken Wings by Tom - started out with a recipe, but he decided to wing the ingredient amounts. Largely bbq sauce and honey, everything in the slow cooker. meat LITERALLY fell off the bones. absolutely delicious.
- Chicken and Peach Wontons - because I'm a sucker for wontons, and wanted something a little different. These were pretty delicious, a little heavier filling than I'm used to, but very good. Tom wasn't keen on, but that was okay. Frying in a giant pot instead of a giant pan = win.
- Sausage Jalapeno Poppers - Halved this one, and glad I did, since it ended up being just Tom and I for Superbowl-watching. These would have been better if I'd broiled or something for a few minutes, and gotten more of the grease off the bacon. Filling wasn't quite as awesome as anticipated, but these were still good. Wearing plastic gloves while hacking up pappers = win.
- Smoky Cheese Ball - It was an *insanely* close call for Tom, which food was best, the cheese or the wings. The wings won only because it was football food. This silly thing is DELICIOUS. And huge. Made it with smoked gouda, coated with pecans, and it's all so sweet and creamy, and was ridiculously simple to make. I don't know why I thought it would be difficult, but, holy cow, it's awesome. And despite the fact that Tom keeps eating chunks of it at a time, totally bypassing crackers, we'll still be eating it for a week.
- Drinks were some Smirnoff ice and Coke + vanilla rum and Coke + lemon vodka.

Unfortunately, I wound up with a migraine not far into the evening (I blame the bad light in the basement at work, where I'd spent six and a half hours that day), so I didn't get to enjoy everything a whole lot. It didn't get bad until a little ways into the game, so I still got to munch and things, and keeping a hot cornbag on my head and neck meant I got to stay around and enjoy somewhat at least.

~ ~

What else is new...

I made a giant batch of chili (based on the classic BHG cookbook's recipe, but with spices according to my own tastes - smoked paprika for the win!) a week or two ago, and Tom had to admit that good food CAN come out of a slow-cooker. (He was a little traumatized when his mom got obsessive with hers for awhile during his childhood.)

~ ~

We have been SUPER-cleaning. I had one of my totally arbitrary breakdowns a few weeks ago, and couldn't deal with the mess in the apartment. So Tom proposed the reasonable plan of tackling a different little section every day that we could. That worked wonders. We had a day off together, and went to freaking town around the couch. The result? I'll have a picture later because I'm obsessively happy - WE HAVE A BOOKSHELF!!!!! I had books sitting in crates and boxes alllll down the living room wall, and it was madness. WalMart is awesome for cheap furniture, so $45 got us a bookshelf that is taller than I am, *and* a littler one to hold movies. It's so exciting. Only trouble is...our books don't all fit lmao. Tom has ONE shelf. His mega-box of Star Wars books is a project for another time. There are like two shelves of all my antique books. One shelf has my giant U2 books and old textbooks and things. One has other random stuff. There's a smaller bookshelf (like three, four feet high.. the kind of thing that's all most people need) that holds a lot of my other random books, and a little freestanding thing that I discovered I can put things back-to-back, and hold both my manga and often-reread things like Madeline L'Engle, The Dark is Rising, etc. There is also a crate upstairs of Choose Your Own Adventure books and other things that I'm not sure count as real books.

We have a buttload of books. I cannot wait to own a house, so I can have a library. If we have this many when we're still semi-poor recently-college-kids...

Side note: Our movies didn't all fit either. One shelf for me, one shelf for Tom, one shelf for vhs. The vhs (almost all mine) are arranged two-deep. The other shelves have a bit of space, since I put the four seasons of Futurama and assorted amounts of seasons of Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Monkees, Jem, etc., on top of the bookshelf. We actually physically own a lot more movies than I think either of us realized.. we honestly don't buy all that many right now. (And yet, we own Road Warrior on Bluray. sigh.)

On another media-note: Tom was unaware that my whole little rubbermaid cabinet is filled with cassette tapes. It's probably best that he's also unaware of just how many records I have stashed back home somewhere. The three-and-a-half towers of cds terrify him enough.

~ ~

Books! I finally got around to reading Mel's story, since she sent me a .txt which I could put on the Kindle. While that may have contributed to it feeling like a real book to me...it's also pretty amazing. You will say I am biased, and I might well be, but it honestly sucked me right in. Couldn't put the silly thing down whenever I picked it up. I'm going to help her super-edit and fix some random wording issues, but, I'm so freaking proud that my little sister wrote the thing. If I'd bought the thing at a bookstore (once an editor fixed the "its" issue!), and paid money for it, I would have been happy to have it on my bookshelf. :)

~ ~

Katie and Jane came down to visit.. a week ago? ish? It was really great to see them, it had been way longer than I'd realized. They both seem to be doing really well, which makes me happy. :)

In other social news, Tom and I went to a party at DJ's, and got to feel all special... because DJ wound up spending most of his time talking to the two of us. Like Tom's ego needs any more inflation lol. But it was interesting... since Tom only knew one or two other people, and I didn't know anyone, we people-watched, and it was amazing how well Tom could analyze peoples' relationships. For as much as he claims to dislike people in general, he's insanely good at understanding them. His and DJ's readings can be a liiiittle bit off when they're looking at the other gender, but, well, that's where I came in. It all reminded me so much of those days back in junior high, high school, where we'd sit around Elizabeth's basement and "psychoanalyze" every boy we even remotely had crushes on. <3

~ ~

Still crocheting. Made my first money from it!!! woo!!! My coworker Luke requested a giant rainbow scarf, which I was more than happy to make. :) Finally nearly done with the hat I'm making for Sue Mac - she saw mine and loved it, so we picked out some colors to match her coat, and it's looking awesome. I love having the knowledge to make things work for people - like, Luke just wanted bright colors. So I picked out some yarn that was cheap but also wool, and made sure he didn't mind not being able to throw it in the washing machine. Mac, meanwhile, knew she wanted machine-washable, and when I showed her some color swatches in my trusty Knit Picks catalog, she totally picked out the exact colors I'd been thinking for her. :)

I am also semi-working-on slippers for Tom, at long last. I have a much-worn copy of "The Happy Hooker", which was my very first crochet book, a gift from Shannon. In it, there is a pattern that she actually wrote, for adult-size fuzzy bunny slippers. They're adorable. More importantly, I actually totally understand their construction, and could figure out how to make them man-sized. I pestered Shannon about the yarn (the book calls for expensive yarn, which I was not going to waste on boy-feet; turns out, Shannon originally used cheap yarn, yay!). A trip to WalMart turned up Lion Brand's Hometown USA, which is actually a super-bulky yarn. It is HUGE. And very cushy. And acrylic, so I can wash them without having to handle things that have been on boy-feet. This yarn is SO much bigger than what the pattern uses, that I ended up not having to increase the size at all - I'm just working with a way bigger yarn, way bigger hook, and actually leaving off a row or two here and there, and voila! Big enough for Tom!

Also, super-bulky yarn? Works up SO. FREAKING. FAST. In like half an hour, an hour, I had the sole of a slipper done, and that's including time spent waiting for Tom to reach a stopping-point in his game so I could compare my giant oval of yarn to his foot.

~ ~

I need to shower. And probably do laundry. I'm so not motivated to go out into the cold. I got through most of my taxes today, and finished Mel's story, that's some accomplishment for the day... If I'm really ambitious, you may start seeing all the photos I have taken since I last plugged the camera into my computer. That appears to have been April or May.

Labels: apartment, being social, books, cooking, crochet, family, friends, life in general, movies, music, writing

 
This is going to be short, because I'm too lazy to plug in the laptop, and its battery life is... well, an hour and a half tops, when I'm only typing, with no wifi/networking enabled. ha.

I worked normal-people hours, while Tom's working his normal night shift, so after work I went over to Tim Horton's to write for a few hours, and finish catching up for the week. (Also, I will need to get a bit ahead, with Thanksgiving and some other things looming.) But I am SUPER happy with what I wrote today, I'm actually terribly amused by the banter among the historical society members.

Yes, historical society members. Sounds dull, I know, but who else is going to know all the hundred-year old gossip?? They're awesome. And I get to flesh out my backstory, huzzah!!!


While I was sapping Tim Horton's electricity (offset by the coffee, soup & bagel, then hot smoothie & donut I bought - it was dinner-ish time, and I need to munch when writing), I got a phone call. Actually, I should back up a bit. Did I mention that Tom and I went to Dave & Buster's again the day after I went with the Paper Factory crew? We did. I was talking to Tom about it, and he got all excited, and, discovering we both had the next day off, we decided to go. We also decided it would be more fun with more people, so in the end, he got his buddy DJ to come, and I got Mel to meet us up there.

Jokingly, Tom and I threw around the idea of trying to set the two of them up. We thought this was hilarious - really, Tom, a matchmaker? Terrifying. And funny as hell.

But then when we all got there... the two of them genuinely seemed interested in each other. It was really freaking cute. Cuter still, was later in the week, when Tom got obsessive texts from DJ about Mel, and I was getting texts from Mel about DJ, and Tom and I were sitting in the same room sharing notes on the whole situation.

(Finally, we got them to exchange phone numbers, so they could waste each others' minutes instead of just ours.)

So the two of them have been talking all week. They're both somewhat spazzy, but deep-down really good, kind people. Neither one has the attention span of a gnat. Tom and I are endlessly amused by all the shy little cautious repartee that the kids trade back and forth, instead of just being blunt like he and I are now. It's freaking adorable to watch.

So. DJ, wanting an excuse to visit Mel, sees on Facebook that she has a band concert today. He decides to go. Now, I had heard Mom mention that she might go to the concert, but that she wasn't sure she was going to make it. I decide this might well make the already-nervous DJ not go, and anyway I'm not sure, so I keep my mouth shut. (The kids need to handle their own relationships, Tom and I will be there for each of them and give advice, but we're making sure they run their own affairs here.)

Now, DJ is a pretty attractive kid. Even Tom is always going on about DJ's absurd powers of attraction over women. (For which Tom gets all kinds of gay jokes from me, ha.)

[plugging in the laptop because I'm enjoying this story too much to stop now.]

DJ, however, is a fan of anime, and must know a bunch of girls who are as well. He also lived in Japan for a handful of years, not sure if this has affected his viewpoint. As Tom has told me numerous times, DJ likes playing up the image of the cute anime boy. Sometimes this means good things like wearing tiny little clingy black t-shirts. (This happened one day at work, and the conversations Tom related to me when he came home were insanely entertaining, consisting in large part of Tom saying he could well be gay for DJ. Or at least that's the impression I insisted upon getting, because it makes Tom feel so awkward. ;)

Most of the time, however, it also means he spikes his hair. And not your normal little emo-kid mini-spike. We're talking all-out, electrocution-style spike, hair sticking out like four, five inches from his head all over. Sometimes with a long bang combed diagonally down.

This works in drawings, and it works in anime. It's a bit of a shock to walk into the Fredonia Applebee's, and see this skinny but muscular 21-year old boy leap out of a booth, literally bouncing in place, waving like a maniac, with electrocuted hair, "TOM! TOM! I'M RIGHT HERE! TOM!!!". At a distance of maybe six feet from you.

That is DJ.

He's an incredibly sweet kid, but he is also somewhat insane. Half puppy-dog, half hummingbird.


SO, to finish the story I actually meant to tell. While sitting at Tim Horton's, I get a phone call from my mom. She just got the shawl I made her for her birthday, and absolutely loves it, which makes me really, really happy. :) After talking for a few minutes, she tells me she and grandma went to Mel's concert today. "Oh, and I got to meet DJ."

Mom. AND GRANDMA. Met DJ.

Apparently, they saw him before they met up with Mel. (DJ is rather hard to miss.) Grandma spotted him, and said "What is that???"

This is where I started totally losing it in the middle of Tim Horton's.

Mom rather calmly explained that well, they were on a college campus, kids do all kinds of crazy things... And then Mel came over. And then DJ came over, and she introduced them.

Oh, that poor, poor boy... but I've been giggling to myself every five minutes for what, the last two, three hours now? just trying to picture Grandma seeing this kid. oh my dear lord. I called Mel after talking to Mom, and suggested that she call DJ and reassure him a bit, because I can only imagine how totally freaking panicky he'd get from meeting a girl's family like the second time he even saw her. She told me that she actually had left him some kind of message already, which eased my mind a bit.

On Tom's dinnerbreak, we traded the sides of the story we'd each heard. I freaking love stories. Between that and just a touch of facebook-stalking (I refuse to feel guilty if people have things posted right on their walls - there are options for private conversations, if people talk in public, and I happen to read things sometimes before I even realize what I'm reading...), it looks like all is well so far. And I may actually get to see my sister a little more often thanks to all of this. :)

Labels: being social, family, life in general, nanowrimo, silliness, storytime, writing

 
Cross-posting from the NaNo blog, because I don't blame anyone for not slogging through that blog, and I think the content is relevant to everybody. :)


I love Chris Baty.

For the uninitiated, Chris Baty is the crazy who started this whole whirlwind adventure that calls itself NaNoWriMo. And every week, of every November, he sends out pep talk emails, which always lead to both giggles and warm fuzzies of camaraderie and encouragement.

Closing this week's:

"I didn't say this in the Week One pep talk because we'd only just met and there's really only so much cornball sentiment from a random guy on the internet that anyone should have to tolerate in one month. But here's the truth: You have a book in you that only you can write. Your story matters. Your voice matters. The world will be richer for you seeing this crazy creative escapade through to 50,000 words.

This may be hard to believe given the craptastic state that many of our manuscripts are in. But there are great, unexpected things ahead for you in Weeks Three and Four. And there is someone out there who has been waiting their whole life to read the book you're writing now."


That... is exactly why I drag myself through the slog of 50,000 words every November. Because I think (I hope) he's right. And not just about me, but about everybody - everyone views the world from a different place, with different eyes, seeing different hues of every color in the world.

So, yay for Chris Baty. <3

Labels: art, nanowrimo, navelgaze, writing

 
Halloween at the store was fun and exciting and full of loooong hours. We had one exciting arrest of someone stealing a costume. We sold out of: vampire teeth (surprise surprise), cat ears, handcuffs, nerd glasses, V for Vendetta masks, afros in normal hair colors (i.e. not pink green blue etc), bumblebee and butterfly wings, and were down to three mustaches last I knew. Not sure why the run on mustaches. I had a customer specifically ask for "the girl in the sailor dress" (that was Thursday's outfit), because "she knows EVERYTHING". I win!

Thursday: last year's sailor dress, worn over jeans.
Friday: Rainbow Brite costume from a few years back, worn over jeans, with ridiculous eyeshadow and my hair in a side ponytail. People knew who I was dressed up as and it made them smile. yay.
Saturday: 80s rock star, somewhere between Jem and Cyndi Lauper. I forgot to get a picture before work, but Ann took one of me and Sam, which will find its way to the 'nets sometime. Black tanktop with a mesh-y glittered shirt overtop, a waistpiece with two belts, short black capris, aaaand the most amazing skirt ever: a little tutu-style thing, neon pink tulle under a layer of poofy black lace. I added: pink fishnets, two layers of socks (scrunched down, of course), a flowery tattoo sleeve on one arm, a mess of bangle bracelets, THE most amazing lacey glovelets I designed myself and crocheted, giant heart-shaped ring, chain'n'crosses'n'coins necklace, star necklace, aaaaand I teased my hair and sprayed it in place. And crazy eyeshadow again. It. was. AWESOME.

(It also took me at least fifteen minutes to comb my hair this morning.)

I made a general invite to my place for snacks and drinks and Wii games after work... but nobody came. Which was a little sad, but I had a really nice night anyway. Tom and I watched movies and ate snacks (my dip was kind of a fail, but the Twinkie sushi IS AMAZING) and had some drinks and then sleeeeept. Sleep felt amazing.

Today was nice and quiet. Mom came down for a visit, and brought me a re-released "Boy" LP - ORIGINAL COVER ART omfg. I staaaared at everything for a good long while. The cover picture is beautiful. The booklet... I'm so glad I didn't grow up with records. Because I would have been SERIOUSLY angry over how small booklets have become since. There's so much visual real estate in an LP booklet it is positively mind-boggling. And this one had Bono-drawings in it! And the original lyrics, aaaand some of the contact sheet shots from '79 that Megs and I spent probably weeks in total studying every detail of. I think a few of these were new to me though, AND! they used Kodak Tri-X film! That's what I used, all through photography! eeee! I don't (currrently) have a record player around but I so don't even care, it's such a beautiful thing.

There are also food goodies, and a WalMart trip got me a few more.

...which brings us to the import of today. NOVEMBER FIRST! NANOWRIMO begins! Approximately 7oz of trail mix and one Snapple raspberry white tea later, I have met my word count for today. It was only a little painful. And my main character still lacks a name, but at least I have some ideas.

Tom, in trying to get me to stop nagging him to NaNo with me, has declared he is going to write a program this month. It is a little consoling to see him throwing words at walls too... or what passes for words in coding. I know enough about the theory to have a vague idea of what he's spazzing about, but, uh, not enough to remotely help.


I am so sleepy. Was up too late last night, and now that the insanity of Halloween is over work is going to feel very, very boring, which makes me feel the tired more. I have some dishes I should wash, and definitely need to make some food sometime today, but... we shall see. There is a Wii with Super Paper Mario on it.

Labels: art, nanowrimo, U2 spazz, work, writing

 
It has been a very stressful couple of weeks. I was down with a maaajor cold last week, still dealing with the aftermath of being extra-tired. The store has been SWAMPED at night, between high schoolers having spirit weeks/homecoming and college chicks coming in to try on 8000 costumes apiece. And we're not even going to talk about Wing City's banners. (Except to say that, when I had called and talked to a fifth person, to verify the size so I could print it that time...FIVE MINUTES LATER the guy ran into the store to flail and say WAIT IT STILL SAYS QUESADILLAS YOU NEED TO TAKE THAT OFF THERE!1!!1 freaking disorganized idiots. Love the restauraunt, love the food, hate the lack of management organization.)

All this happening, of course, led to...was it Monday night? ALL I could do was fret about work when I got home that night. Had like three dreams about work. Couldn't drag myself out of bed because I knew that meant I'd have to actually go in and deal with things. It was bad. This has been going on for awhile, but it's finally bad enough that I know I need to do something about it. So I spent a good bit of time thinking, and I finally realized that a good bit of the problem is that there really isn't anything else in my life going on, besides work. Since my life centers around it, that's all I think about, which is not healthy or productive or making me happy. The simple distraction method, of listening to audiobooks and things all night when I came home, only worked as long as I was listening to them. Wasn't cutting it.

So, I've been trying to shift my mental focus. Not always easy, but, having NaNoWriMo looming is helping tremendously - and I've been thinking a lot about how happy I always am, being all wrapped up in stories all through November. In November, my mental focus turns to stories, and the whole drive and rush of NaNoWriMo keeps my focus there - it gives me something besides work to make my time and thoughts all about.

Every handful of months, I find myself in these depressions, and I promise all over again to do something creative every day. I always drift away, with one thing and another, but as long as I come back to it, I'll be alright. I bought myself a super pretty new notebook, to keep track of NaNo ideas and outlines and things in, gearing up for November. I also dug out my semi-current sketchbook, and both books are next to my side of the bed. With a pen attached to one or the other. I already have a page-and-a-bit of ideas for this year's NaNo, and a really gorgeous little picture popped into my head a few nights ago that I'll draw out sometime.


NaNoWriMo 2009? I'd been dying to do something like Beneath the Dust again, doing a series of short stories all set in the same location. It was the ideal mix of freedom and restraint for me, and I found so, so much to draw on in the one little room I created. So! I'm doing it again, with a fresh setting:
Mackie's garden.
...way back (i.e., a couple years ago) in my obsessive U2 rp'ing days with Megs, I created this vast garden, which was Macphisto's frequent haunt. Somewhere I actually have a sketch of the main layout, but I remember a lot of the little areas off the top of my head, easily enough to start with. I'd been just getting into the whole flower-meanings thing at the time, so I know there are places where there are trellises of...jasmine and honeysuckle, I think, with a certain type of roses nearby, all these things with complimentary and subtle interplays of meanings.

I have like ten different characters already in mind to put in the garden, some are doing things, some I just know the characters (I've been re-reading the Anne of Green Gables books, and I'm dying to try writing Anne's daydreamy point of view). I remember a few of the garden nooks, and it's never hard to think up more of them.

...so having all that to focus on, to bring my life's attentions back into the creative realm, I think is really going to help. Crocheting works in small doses, but once I get into a groove it doesn't hold my full attention, the way creating the world of a drawing or a story does. (Though crocheting + great audiobook = pretty near perfect.)


Speaking of audiobooks: The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. Fantastic book, I'm so sucked in it's ridiculous. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, and it's the most wonderful kind of haunting family history story, with twins and people going insane and a house falling into ruin and everything you could want in a believably haunting story. (Though I do recommend it with a bit of a cautionary note, it can really suck your emotions down a deep dark pit if you ingest it for too many hours straight all alone in the house at night.) ...it sounds over-dramatic and awful in summary, but the story itself is so grounded in the everyday that it doesn't feel unbelievable at all. Lovelovelove.

Labels: crochet, navelgaze, printshop, work, writing