NaNoWriMo NoNo

I am at the stage where I am roaring away at writing the impossible novel and also running away from it by getting distracted as frequently as possiible.  I write for an hour or two, then do something else.  Eat.  Go on Facebook.  Knit.  Blog.  Fiddle with gadgets, like a counter for my blog which will prove to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that nobody, not even my own children or mate reads the thing.  Well, Laura does read it, because she leaves comments. 

I have added another couple of thousand words to the novel today, so far, and a few inches to the slipper sock pictured at the top.  It now has nine rows of color on the end where the needles are, and about an inch of solid red and a half-inch of what will be a heel flap.

The heel is my favorite part of the sock.  Most of a sock is pretty much knitting around and around, following the same sequence of stitiches until the piece is long enough.  The heel, however, is fun.  You make a flap about two inches square, and then you start knitting back and forth in short rows until there is a little curved pocket at the bottom of the flap.  That's called turning the heel.  Then you pick up stitches along the edges of the flap on either side and knit all the way around the whole sock again, decreasing the number of stitches at either side of the heel flap until you have the same number of stitches you you started out with.  And then you're back to knitting a tube again until you "toe off."  It's a form of engineering, and a form of sculpture, and it makes something practical.  I love knitting. 

I also love writing, so I think of what I'm going to write while I knit.  Sometimes I'm surprised to find that I write something I had not intention of writing or my story takes a turn I never foresaw.  I have no idea where this novel is taking me, but I can see a few clear patterns.  There are two children born "out of wedlock" (as if that were meaningful anymore) who turn out to have a very heavy impact on each other's lives without knowing it.  There are at least four people running away from something -- themselves, marriage, potential physical harm, from existentially repeating a life others see as a model and they no longer see as useful.   There are cooks.  Three, at least, and I think one of them hasn't realized it yet.  There are gay people, straight people, kids, a former saint, a talking raven, even a kitchen sink or two.  Plenty of clams and chicken pie for everybody. 

What a mess.  Guess I'd better get back to it.

photo credit:MAJ's camera phone