You Don't Choose When Inspiration Strikes

It was a half hour past my strict ten o' clock worknight bedtime, and I was not asleep. In fact, I didn't even feel tired. I blamed this mostly on the fact that I put too much coffee in my coffee slightly before noon that day and thus, spent the majority of the day in a perpetual state of jitteriness that left me without control of my shaky limbs, though staying up a little to finish watching "Hysteria" (great movie by the way) right before bed probably didn't help matters any.

I tossed and turned, taking some care to avoid completely disheveling my hair, while my mind failed to deactivate into slumber. That's when it happened. Something clicked and suddenly, images of the novel I am next going to write invaded my night. I tried to turn them off, fearing a groggy morning at work that required yet more coffee, thus perpetuating the cycle. My inner muse took no notice of my grumbling and, begrudgingly aware that I should not pass up such a gift horse, I got out of bed, grabbed my notebook and a pen, and put the kettle on for some required sleep-inducing chamomile tea for when the madness was over. Then, sipping my tea, I began scribbling.

On the page, there it was, everything I needed to get started: main character, minor characters, basic precise, major plot points, setting, situation, motive. Then, I set the paper and writing impement beside the bed, gulped the dregs of my tea, and flopped my head down on the pillow. I hit the snooze button three times come morning, but I'm ready for novel two. All the waiting, the wondering, the worrying that maybe I only have one novel in me, it collapses into this livid late night deluge of prewriting and suddenly, I'm back.

Since that night, I have been compiling a list of required reading for my next book. That list I include below as the first real hint of what I have planned:

Fiction
The House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Bad Things by Tamara Thorne
Ghost Story by Peter Straub
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Hell House by Richard Matheson
Reread "Stone Animals" by Kelly Link
Reread The Princess and the Goblin

Nonfiction
American Hightmares by Dale Dailey
The Golden Bough by James George Frazer

Stained Glass

In my immediate future, there was going to be a house, and not just any house but a house that is so perfect that if I won the lottery, I would keep it as my primary residence. Admittedly, if I won the lottery, I would probably invest in a second residence with a lake-front view, a private beach, and hand-carved banisters like those found at the mansion in "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" but I digress. Yes, I have been house hunting for so many months now that I've lost count, but we didn't find the right house until this house.

This house has stained glass windows in almost every room, hand-crafted by the previous owner, who was, obviously, a stained-glass artist. It has a a wood-adorned walk-out basement with a functioning wood fireplace that has a full-scale stone mantel. It has a farm house, this-is-your-grandma's kitchen complete with pantry large enough for a built-in pot rack. The basement floor of the back of the house is adorned with glass-tile mosiac. the two car garage has a giant bonus room behind it that has a seperate entrance and a stain-glass light hanging from the ceiling. There's a stocked fish pond next to the creek out back that borders the almost acre of land in the downtown area of a small rural village. I loved this house.

Of course, then we found out that this house also has a defective electrical box, a crumbling cement ceiling in the basement workroom, a sinking foundation on the addition, faulty wiring, a bonus room not connected to the heating system, and poor roof construction that depletes the life of shingles by a good 20 years at least. Then, we found out there was a slight radon problem and that in our haste to purchase the perfect house, we overpaid by a good 10 thousand. In light of all of this, sadly, I gave up the house.

Because the previous owner, whose husband created all that stained glass, experienced quite a bit of emotional hardship in deciding to sell us the house, I made a plan to take a close-up photo of one of the windows in the house. From that photo, I wanted create a pattern for a lap blanket that I could finish and give to the previous owner of the house at closing. However, as we aren't buying the house, that is no longer necessary.

Even so, the glass that dazzled me, made me consider months of house construction, stays with me now and I wonder, how beautiful would a handknit inspired by stained glass be? I might just give this a try.

With that thought in mind, I do have a blanket I'm supposed to complete. My brother has been whining for a blanket since I gifted him a knitted beanie for Christmas. I want to give him the promise of that blanket as part of his Christmas present (but don't tell). It will be U of M inspired, but I'm now thinking perhaps it should be stained glass inspired as well. Either way, I'm definitely using this stained glass theme on at least one future knitted creation. If not the Michigan blanket, something.

For the Love of Baking and Breaking in the New Apron

Last Sunday, I rolled up my sleeves and test drove my new Williams Sonoma apron (which is a nice thick fabric that almost makes it worth its price point). Yes, I got down the white whole wheat flour, the baking powder, the soda, the oil and sugar. I got down the salt and vanilla, the measuring cups and spoons, and I baked the heck out of all of it. My goal: New York Black and Whites.

You see, one of my coworkers gave me his old tablet for drawing illustrations into photoshop. He said he wasn't using it anymore anyway, but it was such a thoughtful present that I announced baked goods were in order. The most complicated cookie recipe I own is for NYC Black and Whites, so I figured he'd earned them.

I started right after we got back from church at noon and I didn't leave that kitchen until past 5 at night. To make black and whites, you first have to zest a lemon and an orange, which my nine-year-old was willing to do for me in exchange for video game playing time. Then, you make the liquid part of the batter, then the solid, and you mix them together. Then you bake the cookies for 20 minutes. Then, you let them cool. Then, you make the white frosting, after which you frosten the whole cookie. Then, you have to melt chocolate chips and you make a huge mess and it looks a lot like someone let loose a hose that squirts melted chocolate all over your kitchen. Then, you take that chocolate and make the chocolate frosting and frosten half of the cookies with that.

(The picture quality is not the best, but before I remembered to photograph the cookies 

this unattractive one was the only one left.)

I made two batches, one for work and one for home. It was a long arduous process and I had so much fun doing it. I haven't been able to set aside time to bake in so long, I forgot how much I like doing it.
Added bonus? Giant bakery-sized cookies for dessert all last week. Made from whole white wheat flour. Yum.

Nanowrimo, or how I will never write a novel in one month

Nanowrimo is one of those buzzwords I hear every year. I'm not sure when it was exactly that the nation decided as a whole it needed a month dedicated to writing novels, but by this point, it's a fairly common term that anyone with a net connection understands. In fact, one of my close friends in college was a Nano diehard. She committed, she wrote, and she completed. It was all very impressive from the vantage point of my 20-year-old self, trying like mad to finish my thesis for my BA in Creative Writing. I couldn't fathom how anyone could pump out a decent novel in a month when I had a hard time getting a chapter done in that same amount of time.

This is my gripe with Nanowrimo, because the answer to that question (How can anyone pump out a decent novel in a month?) is "They can't."

The process of writing a novel takes time, not only to prewrite, write, and revise, but also just the sheer need to gather information and experiences out of life. The act of writing, at least in my mind, is the practice by which the experiences that the writer lives, reads about, and sees happen to others is melded together in the brain and then extracted by osmosis from the writer's fingertips. There is value in writing every day, but there is also value is sitting with an idea and working through it without ever bringing thought to paper. Some of my best paragraphs were mulled over several weeks while I worked over the nuances, the hidden agendas, the interpretations. Not all of writing happens on the page, so rushing through for a deadline so loomingly close is only going to produce what all procrastination produces: something that, though it might even have merit and good ideas, is not going to fulfill the potential for what it could have been if someone had taken more time and care to produce it.

I'm not going to say Nanowrimo is evil or that no one should do it. If that's how you get your kicks or motivation, feel free, but realize that most of the high-quality writing existing in our world today is the labor of years, not days. If you really want to work on your craft and become a novelist, don't expect to get far if you cram all your writing time into one month of the year. Writing is every day of the year. It's what occupies the mind of a writer while s/he iswaiting for a green light during the morning commute. It is what happens when a writer considers the connection between a newscast from when s/he was twelve and the old man holding a political sign on the corner last tuesday and discovers a book hidden there.

I considered taking the nanowrimo leap this year, but the ridiculousness of it hit me full on. That's not the way I want to write my next novel, all rushed and sloppy-sentenced. For those dedicated every- month-of-the-year writers, I propose this. Let the amateurs have their novel-in-a-month fun and we'll continue working at our same dogged pace and finish our masterpeices in our own good time.

Knitting Post-Production

My first mother bear is has reached completion.

If you are wondering why its legs are stubby, the reason is that I missed a line in the pattern that would have added an additional 14 rows to both legs. I sort of love the stubby legged version of a mother bear, and I have it confirmed by the mother bear organization that they are okay with the change. Still, this may be the only dwarf-sized bear I make, if only because it was created due to mishap rather than intention. The pattern itself is simple (barring missing entire lines of instruction), but it does necessitate a lot of finishing, namely grafting or faux grafting, picking up stitches, a running stitch along the neck, “pinching” the ears, and embroidering the face, as well as stuffing the bear through its head opening before the rest of finishing can proceed.

Finishing

There are books out there about the gloriousness of finishing, and I’m half convinced the authors of those books are on psychotropic medication. I don’t see how else they could think finishing is anything but a necessary evil.

Finishing is something I don’t really spend a lot of time thinking about when knitting. Generally, I despise seaming, picking up stitches (though not as much as I hate seaming), and blocking. Essentially, the only part of knitting that I actively enjoy is the actual knitting. I also love seeing a finished object I have cared enough about to go through the tedium and time-consuming task of finishing. Oddly, I have a fondness for embroidery and duplicate stitch, nonetheless.

Even so, finishing is just as important as the knitting itself. I have botched more than enough instances of grafting to know that no matter how lovely your stitch definition is, your sweater will look plain bad if you don’t have patience in the sewing up and picking up at seams and collars. I’ve had to frog many a hasty arm hole sleeve starts due to speedy negligence. I cringe to think how my sweaters would have turned out if I had simply went with the first finishing attempt.

Here’s the right way to do it: Knit all the pieces, and then, do not sew them up right after you get done. Wait a day and start the task with a fresh rather than frantic mind. Learn the technique required, and if you miss up, rip it out and start again.

Have a rough idea of crab stitch and plan to make your best guess? Back off. Instead, research the technique until you understand it thoroughly. Take the time to practice if it has the potential to ruin all your hard work if you do it wrong the first time.

And by Thor, if there is a noticeable mistake you can’t live with, go back and redo that bit before finishing. You can’t go back after, and you will never forgive yourself later, no matter how much you want to hold a finished object in your grasp.

As for my mother bear, I stuffed it and I sewed up the head. I threaded thin strands of black yarn on a sharp tapestry needle and I used satin stitch to embroider pupils and nose and backstitch to do the outline of the eyes and the smile. I loved the stubby legs so I didn’t worry about my bear’s dwarfism. Every bear’s unique, after all, just like every person is.

Then, I rushed the ears. I didn’t sit and really get what was implied in “pinching” them, despite my prep work before I started in on the bear pattern in the first place. I admit that they didn’t turn out like a lot of the ears I see in the mother bear website pictures, but they do look like ears. Plus, I have learned a valuable ear-making lesson for when I start in on my second bear.

Even so, I’m happy I didn’t rush the finishing on the Austen baby bonnet. It is all finished now, right down to the string that ties at the baby’s chin. I sat on the instructions for making that string and just thought it out until I got it. Then, it hit me. I was trying to figure out how to attach the string to the base of the bonnet, near the neckline, but the instructions clearly say it goes at the cast-on edge. You may recall, as I did then, that the main section of the bonnet was done top down, starting with the faux-picot edge eyelet trim. I twisted three sections of the yarn until they plied together, then I knotted them together at both ends and slipped the whole string through the empty space between the eyelets and the caston edge. That cast on was made for that string to fit right in, like the string in a sweatshirt hood. To the very end, I was thrilled with the level of genius incorporated into that hat.

Finshing: I may not like it, but I like the look of a finished object when it's done right.

Oatmeal. OATMEAL!? (Insta and Burgerized)

(Points if you too noted that the title is a shoutout to Frosty the Snowman.) With sadness I convey the reality of my cooking dejection. I only have these two small endeavors to report: homemade instead oatmeal and from-scratch vegetarian oat and bean burgers. While they are healthy and not from a box, their existence strikes me as lacking in luster blog-wise. You see, I have blogged of from-scratch whole-oat oatmeal and veggie burgers before. Nonetheless, this is what I’ve been making. I have come to a cross-roads with my desk job. It is lovely to go there and work my time and then go home and not take my work with me. However, sitting in a desk does have its downsides, namely on the volume of my hind quarters and thighs. My solution: oatmeal. I am on the oatmeal-for-lunch diet. for the moment, until I can think of a better cource of action that isn't diety in nature. Oatmeal is filling and fiber-filled, and it means that I eat its small portion and am sated until two thirty, when I have my usual snack of Greek yogurt. It means that I don’t overeat out of boredom while sitting at a desk all day, only to go home and feast on dinner-portions. It means I stand some chance of maintaining my figure.   Instant Cinnamon-Raison Oatmeal 1 48 oz canister instant oats ¼ c raw sugar ¼ c brown sugar 1 T cinnamon 1 t nutmeg a few shakes of salt flax seeds (as much or as little as you want. I eyeballed it) 1 c raisins 14 snack-sized plastic bags (feel free to reuse repeatedly after a good rinsing) Mix all the ingredients well in a large bowl and divide the whole into ½ c portions into the 14 plastic snackbags. Of course, feel free to make substitutions for the fruits, seeds, spices, etc.   This works rather well as a filling but light lunch. And one batch makes enough for two weeks. Moreover, making the mix from scratch costs less and gives you complete control over the ingredients list. No extra sugar. Flax seeds for Omega 3s. No preservatives. Not too shabby.     Oat and Bean Burgers   These babies were made using the Vegetarian Lunchbox burger recipe. This was the second time I used it and didn't turn out as well as the first. It calls for way too many seeds. Next time, I will cut them by at last half. Those burgers were drowning in flax seeds. I mixed all the ingredients together, rice, oats, beans, carrots, flaxseeds, spices. Then I smashed them into eight patties and baked them.   They were still tasty, though a little bland and overloaded with tiny seeds. But heck, a burger's a burger. You slap it between bread, add cheese, and it's a meal. Hopefully, I can get into the habit of making several meals on the weekend and then put then in the fridge to reheat during the rest of the week. I'd rather be wowed by dinner than plop a lackluster oat burger in a bun.

Re-vision Surprise

There seems to be a consensus among writers that one surefire way to write an interesting story is to make sure that the writer surprises himself/herself. The idea behind this is that if the writer already knows how the story goes from start to finish, that writer won’t add the same type of energy into it. It will simply be a retelling, and everyone knows that the more times a person retells the same word-for-word story, the duller it sounds. The storyteller loses interest. Everything has already been said and it just becomes a chore.

Of course, few writers know how a story should progress from start to finish, so surprise just happens. Say, like me, the writer usually knows the end and the beginning. Well, that means the middle is just a surprise waiting to happen. In the novel “The Good Thief,” Hannah Tinti had a vision of a scene in the middle of the novel. That means everything leading up to that point and everything that comes after it were a surprise to some extent. That’s how surprising yourself when you write works.

Likewise, most writers will talk about the importance of revision, but not many writers talk about the process of revision. More to the point, how they keep that sense of surprise in the writing. There are a lot of post-MFA student writers out there who get criticized for lifeless and/or boring MFA-style stories. The idea is that the MFA teaches a certain kind of writing that tends to be lifeless and boring. That may well be, but I think the larger issue is that an MFA shows you how to write and better ways and techniques of writing, not how to revise to retain that initial spark that made the writer want to write the story in the first place. This spark, inevitably, will always be that the writer has an idea for a character or a scene or a beginning, and that writer is curious to see where it all goes.

Revision lacks that curiosity. The story is more or less laid out, so when an MFA story gets criticized for being an MFA story, chances are that means it has been over-revised with no sense of surprise. Often, the aspects of my writing that surprise me are the things I fall in love with. That means, I find ways to retain them and this, I think, helps keep some of that surprise in the mix. (Others, of course, might disagree. And if so, I apologize for my MFA stories, but I did just get an MFA.)

I am not a proponent of the “Murder Your Darlings” School of Writing, as my darlings are one of the joys that keep me writing. Take, for example, my revision yesterday of one of the stories in my novel called “Sandwich Earl.” It was one of the stories more peripherally connected and I’d been struggling to make it work with the rest of the book. The entire story itself was a darling whose first person narrator just started talking to me one day and wouldn’t stop until I’d finished his story, and it did connect to the rest of the novel in a very definite, if more remote way. I was tasked to increase the level of that connection, perhaps by changing narrative points of view (one advisee suggested adding the element of “It’s a Wonderful Life” style omniscience), or perhaps by extending the duration of its narrative. I didn’t like either of these ideas. The story felt done when it ended and I just love the voice of the narrator, bright but colloquial.

I had no idea how to fix this problem. It was unplanned when I sat done to work on it and then, I got an idea. I could sandwich “Sandwich” in an omniscient third point of view. This would broaden out the perspective to fit better with the rest of the book but also retain that voice I so enjoyed crafting. Of course, the real surprise came when I started writing that third person scene, in which the reader sees the first person narrator from an outside perspective. It’s all of about five sentences, so it wasn’t a lengthy revision. It didn’t change much of anything to the rest of the story, and yet, I felt like I’d really added depth to the story with the suggested revision, like I’d made that revision work for me. Moreover, I’m fairly sure it happened because I didn’t know what would happen. That, and I allowed myself to consider outside advice about a movie made in the 1940s.

What I’m saying here for other new writers like myself, especially if you come with an MFA background, is this: Don’t plan it all out. Allow the happy accidents even when you feel like the story is “done.” Open yourself up to the possibility that there is more to say, another piece to the puzzle that you didn’t even know existed.

I’m as guilty of thinking my work was beyond reproach as much as the next writer, but listening to new ideas, trying out outside suggestions, pushing  your “finished” story just a little bit farther than you thought it could go. These are the risks that, when taken, just might make your story beyond MFA-style and become your style. Revision isn’t just about cutting pages and chopping sentences and rewriting sentences to reduce syntactical confusion. It’s about being willing to see your story from a new angle.

Suggested reads that come from unique POVS (i.e. new angles) that I’ve been reading lately: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks (not the best writing style wise but some interesting true-story psychological accounts nonetheless) and God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens (insightful view on how religion negatively affects our culture and our lives). I’m also a chapter or two into Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine, the first in the lengthy saga of the Kashpaws and the Lamartines. So far, I’m loving it. Interestingly enough, it is a book told in a combination of first and third POVs.