Casting on Birch

Bug and I have a new knitting project: the birch shawl from Rowan 34. Just google "birch shawl" and you will find proud knitters showing off their finished products, dedicated knitters tracking their progress, or frustrated knitters plodding their way, with caution, through the very long first rows.

The initial cast-on is 299 stitches. There it is. I did it yesterday. I have been swatching for birch for a couple of weeks (since one morning during the residency when Bug and I met for this purpose at Starbuck's). I know from the flower petal shawl that I completed in November that lace patterns are confusing for me until I figure out their logic and find the rhythm. Each one has its own. I had to start over and over on the swatch because I seemed to be ending up with the wrong number of stitches. Lace knitting looks just awful if the pattern goes off kilter. I think that, in the end, it was more a matter of not knowing exactly where to put the stitch markers. I still haven't quite figured that out, but I do know that with 299 stitches, markers are a must. I placed one purple stitch marker every 20 stitches to start with this time.

Though the idea of a challenging knitting project is a little bit daunting, mostly becuase I've been feeling oversubscribed lately, I think that a contributing factor to my elevated stress level has been the lack of a knitting project (there are two sweaters in partial states of completeness, but somehow they are not moving me). I can no longer resist the allure of kidsilk haze and the promise of a wispy birch to call my own.

The Writing Group

We had our first organizational meeting last night and I feel so good about the group. Only four of us could make it, and we are levelling off at six to begin with. Everyone is working on different kinds of things, including short stories, personal essays and memoir, and plays. We'd all like to see our work in print, but recognize the challenges of literary markets. We bring a range of life experiences and writing experience. One member has had a successful career freelancing in the magazine market -- of course I am full of admiration for her. (She decided she wanted to freelance so that she could stay home with her newborn daughter nine years ago, spent four months reading about markets, and then went to it. She said she new she'd made it when she got $1000 for a half an hour of work.) We're all committed to being helpful and constructive as we workshop our work-in-progress. One member brought a two-page hand-out that she recently received at an editing workshop, and it is full of great questions to ask yourself, as a writer, to see whether your story is working. It's equally good to apply the same questions to others' work (maybe even easier, since it is quite a overwhelming list to apply to your own work!).

Here's what we decided last night:

• We'll meet every other week on Tuesday evening from 7-9 p.m.
  
• For now, we're going to meet in public space, possibly a study room at the public library. Once we are all comfortable with one another, we'll change venue and start rotating hosting the meetings at homes. We feel that a small group lends itself to that.
• Each week, we'll look at two members' work.
• We're hoping to have a secure website where we can post our manuscripts rather than circulating them by e-mail.
• Ideally, manuscripts will be circulated two weeks ahead of time, but for now we're settling for one week.
• We're not looking for new members right now.
• Next meeting: February 6, 2007.

I'm excited about having a local writing community to call my own!

Because It Works

It's only 2 p.m., and already I have done so much today. I even got together with someone for lunch. And I've got loads of energy left for what lies ahead. I even walked in to work (40 minutes).

My new writing, a personal essay, is still in the running start stage. I am going to trust in the process of showing up at the page in the early mornings. What a perfect time of day. This morning, it wasn't even difficult to get up (aiming for 5:30 I seem to have hit it).

So I've figured it out: established writers get up before everyone else and go straight to their desks because ... it works.

Diagnostic Report of the Week

I'm not one for reverse psychology or other sorts of psychological games, but I have to say that aiming for a 5 a.m. start-time has made 6 a.m. easier than tying my shoes. 6 a.m. feels positively reasonable. So that's something. I don't know whether aiming for 4 will have the same impact on 5. I'm not quite ready to try it. This week's wake-up goal: continue aiming for 5 but be satisfied with 5:30. Sounds like such a game.

I completed my easiest MFA assignment: read C.S. Lewis's essay, "A Grief Observed." It's supposed to help me think about how to include reflection in my non-fiction (a funny thing for a philosopher to need to work on, I know). The thing that I learned from this beautiful and human meditation on grief is that reflective writing can be concrete. It does not need to remain abstract. I've got to run through it one more time to isolate one or two ways that he achieves this. The main question behind one of these craft annotations is "how did the author do that?" Second question: "How can I do that in my own writing (if I want to, and in this case I do!)?"

This week involved its share of panic and pacing, but I think I can attribute that to three things (1) re-entry from a month of being away from my life as I know it; (2) looking at my life as I know it beside the list of things I need to do to stay on task for the MFA, and seeing that heroic measures are called for. This had the undesirable effect of hurling me into wheel-spinning mode for just about the entire week; (3) a mid-week, early morning, very lengthy interview by an enormous committee for a position that I really, really want. Logistically, large committees have lots of questions, even if each person asks only 2-3. So it felt like quite the grilling. Anyway, within 24 hours I received a phone call saying that they have recommended me for the position. What this means is that things will get more complicated on July 1, 2007. In a good way, I hope.

I don't think I need to use the past six days as a benchmark for anything that is to come. Things will settle.

Flowers and Socks...and a Rhinoceros

When I was in South Africa, I learned that it has some of the most exotic and varied wild flowers in the world. We saw these growing in abundance on our mountain hike.

And of course, I don't travel without my knitting. I managed to complete these socks, here modelled by my mother, the lucky recipient, whom they fit perfectly (after I had to unravel the toe on one and try again), on her 70th birthday. Happy Birthday, Mum! Lookin' good!


Oh, and one more thing. Check out this rhinoceros.


It was really easy to get up at 5:30 for the early morning game drive!

Crash, Burn, Pick Yourself Up

I had a bit of a crash and burn this morning. There is just so much to do! The prospect of what lay ahead of me when I opened my eyes this morning kept me in bed past the 5 a.m. start time. I didn't get up until 6, at which time I had just half an hour to make it to yoga (great class -- hard work).

Upon coming home, things started to unravel. The inner critic crept up on me when I wasn't looking and started first whispering, then shouting, all sorts of garbage in my head. I won't go into particulars because the critic doesn't even deserve to be given a public voice. Let's just say that it was a series of crushing and demoralizing verbal assaults and leave it at that. At breakfast (pancakes were absolutely required today), I cried.

Phase two: morning had not yet turned to afternoon, so there was still time to salvage the a.m. I did the morning pages. I strongly believe that if I had done them FIRST, I would have had a good chance of fending off the meltdown. But I have gotten in the Tuesday habit of waiting until after yoga and breakfast. NOTE: consider revisiting that routine. Somehow, from morning pages to morning e-mail to morning news checking, it was time to shower and go to a 12:30 meeting.

Phase three: The day-job. I had a plan: I would attend the meeting and then leave. Come home and do some MFA-related work. Forever the optimist despite the morning tirade from my unwelcome critic. It's not so easy to duck out of the workplace early once you show your face.

Phase four: Library books needed to be picked up, a friend needed to be met for tea.

Phase five: Very, very hungry. With my beloved out of town for the day, I decided that dinner in front of the TV (Golden Globes best and worst dressed report) was in order, even if not exactly "earned."

Phase Six: Important meeting tomorrow morning. Better make some quick notes. Two hours later, I am at...

Phase Seven: Blog.

It will be quite some time before a blog entry is complete without a photo or two from South Africa. Here's the view from the highest of the Twelve Apostles (a hike to end all hikes), looking towards Cape Town. The pointy peak in the distance is Lion's Head.


The Lagoon at Langebaan from West Coast National Park, about 90 minutes drive out of Cape Town:



Mountains and sea, mountains and sea. I'll look for some variety over the next few posts.

Phase Eight: Bed time.

Day One: Done

Okay, Day One of the new schedule is behind me. I was up, writing, at 5 a.m. as planned. It feels good to write at that time (and did the meditation, morning pages, and yoga), but it does make for a long day. My eyes started to feel heavy at about 3:30 and there was no way I could stay at work and be productive. When I got to my car I had to scrape a thick layer of ice (don't you just love freezing rain) off of my windows for the second time today. That unwelcome exertion really took it out of me. By the time I got home, the rain had turned to snow. A small snack was followed by an afternoon nap. That was the boost I needed. Gave me enough energy to spend some time logging tape for the radio production (I need to have a written account of what, roughly, is in each track of the 500 minutes of tape I now have). I am ready to call it a night, and it's only 9 p.m. At one point, around noon, I started to convince myself that maybe, just maybe, I have been mistaken about how much sleep I need. Not so.

Tomorrow: writing at 5 a.m.; yoga class at 6:30, meditation and morning pages after breakfast.

I also want to find some time this week to post about South Africa. The picture up there is at the Heads in Knysna, a coastal town in the Western Cape on the Garden Route where we spent three days unwinding, just before Christmas. The Heads are where the open sea meets the Lagoon.

Get Ready, Get Set

I'm back from my second MFA residency, ready to start the new semester. The residency was inspiring and overwhelming at the same time. It was great to connect with my cohort again in person, and to get excited about writing by being immersed in all-things-writing for 8 days. Back to the day job tomorrow. I'm experimenting with a new schedule, which involves getting up at 5 a.m. and writing from 5-6:30 before doing anything else (including the morning pages -- they will have to wait). At 6:30, I meditate, followed by morning pages (3 longhand pages, as always), followed by yoga and a shower. I expect to be at the breakfast table by 8:15 and out of the house by 8:45. That's for Mondays and Fridays, when I want to be at work half an hour before my 9:30 commitment. I have selected Tuesdays as a dedicated MFA day (writing and reading). Wednesdays and Thursdays I can be a bit more leisurely about getting out the house, allowing me to add an extra half hour to the early morning writing session.

I'm excited about trying something different, both in the schedule and in the writing (working on an essay for the first submission). Haven't yet figured out where knitting is going to fit into the picture -- 15 minute breaks, maybe?

Fellow MFA-ers, please feel free to share how you plan to balance the day-job with the writing/reading for each submission this semester. I'd love to hear your strategies.

Ready, set....GO!

It Was Amazing

I'm back on Canadian soil and it feels good (but where's the snow?). South Africa was an experience to remember. We used Cape Town as our base. It's a beautiful coastal city set amidst mountains, most predominantly Table Mountain.

Right now, I am doing my best to prepare for the January MFA residency, which begins with a kick-off reception on Friday evening. I hate to admit that I am behind in the reading: far, far behind. So far behind that the highlights of the trip are going to have to wait. For now, I'll just leave you with a photo of a dung beetle making its little dung house in which the female will lay eggs. These are fascinating creatures.



And here's an elephant:
The safari at Sabi Sabi was quite an experience. We stayed at Little Bush Camp. If you ever have the opportunity, take it.

Not likely to be back to regular posting until after the residency.

Happy New Year everyone!