Switching Projects

I think I've given up on crochet, for the time being. I got some yarn for my blanket project and the appropriate hook, but it turned out that this yarn didn't work so well to crochet with (the pattern said any yarn would work, but apparently that depends on your skill level). I got frustrated, and the more frustrated I got, the worse the results and the more I had the death grip going, so my hand started hurting. Then I found myself thinking that this yarn would knit beautifully. It's so very soft that I wanted to knit something just so I could snuggle up in it. So I got out my knitting needles and started playing. And I was right, it's lovely to knit with. I've now found a pattern for a lacy knitted throw, and I've been practicing the fancy stitchwork involved. I think I can do this. But I will have to get a set of circular needles to hold a big project. I'll also need more yarn because I just got one skein to test with before I really went nuts. Fortunately, this yarn is on sale this week, and the craft store is next to the grocery store I must visit today (if I want to eat the rest of the week). I may buy a bunch because I really love the way this yarn feels, and the color goes perfectly in my bedroom.

And now all the knitters out there are nodding and saying, "Yes, that's how the yarn stash begins."

There's definitely less hand cramping with the knitting. I was doing a lot of it yesterday because I was using that as a mental break while editing (edit a chapter, knit a row, etc.) and my hand isn't at all sore this morning. I think it also goes faster and is a little less tedious, though with this pattern I'll have to be careful to stay focused and not lose my place. I haven't ever knitted anything from a pattern before. I've just made up my own things. This, though, involves fiddly stuff like slipped stitches, knitting two together and yarn over (which turns out to be more like yarn under, the way I was thinking of it, so I was doing it wrong for a while until I looked it up). When/if I get it all done, I'll have to post a picture.

I'm doing the final round of edits on Enchanted Inc. book 7, which I'm currently calling Kiss and Spell. It goes off to the Japanese publisher at the end of this week. Then I suppose we'll set things in motion to get it ready for US publication, though I haven't yet talked to my agent about that. A lot of it will depend on the queue of other projects for both me and the agency. I would guess that a summer release date is likely.

I'm finding that yet again I have weird parallels with the TV series Haven, with stuff I noticed on this round of edits that turned out to be similar to things that happened on the series after I wrote the first draft. That seems to be a habit, where I write something, and then something similar appears on the series, but before it's been published anywhere. There was already the premise of the woman immune to "magic" (which I got to way before they did, but apparently they were already working on ideas for the series before the first book in my series was published). Then those who've read book 5 may have noticed a certain similarity to a revelation in the first season finale and a scene that came after that. I'd already written that book and turned it in to the Japanese publisher earlier that year, before that episode aired in the subsequent autumn. It seems like we get the same ideas around the same time. We must be tapping into the same things in the collective unconscious.

Maybe I can figure out how that impossible season cliffhanger will resolve based on what I write this spring. I don't know if that will work, though, as I'll most likely be revising something, not coming up with new ideas. And nothing spinning around in my head at the moment involves disappearing barns or meteor storms.

After this book is done, I have final edits to do on another book so it can be submitted to publishers and maybe find a home (but I've already decided to self-publish if it doesn't). Once that's done, I'll get back to organizing my office and do a big spring cleaning of the house while I let some ideas percolate and see which one bobs up first.