She Knits By The Seashore

Out of Hibernation, Part Two

August is just flying by! I'm trying not to get too sad that the summer is nearly over. I wait for it all year. The September issues of all of the fashion magazines are out, and it's hard looking at dark colors, thick furry coats and sweaters, and boots!

While I'm starting to think about possible fall projects, I'm still working on my WIPs. My pink skirt is still in the mix, though it's too cumbersome to work on in the car. I started the embroidery:

I'm finishing up the bottom white stripe (these photos were taken earlier). Three Two more white borders left to do:

 

The crocheted border is giving me fits:

I took it to the LYS because I'm not experienced with crochet. I simply cannot do 19 single crochets into the hole below in the first row, and neither could the LYS owner. Jodi was more helpful, and sent me some suggestions, which I will try.Then I have to do the fold-over waistband, and a million embroidered daisies, and it will be done.

For about two years now, I've been writing articles on cat care for my local Examiner.com page. I've never seen any payment (they pay .01 per two views of the article, but you have to hit a minimum before they send out a payment of any kind!). While I'm all about education and providing helpful information to cat owners, and having an opportunity to publish my work, I've just about decided that I'm going stop writing for them. I'm curious to know if any of you read any Examiner articles at all, by any person on any topic, and what your impressions are of the site. All feedback is helpful! Here is a link to my latest article, if you are not familiar with the Examiner.

Have a wonderful weekend! What are your plans?

The Writing Life: Hartford Cat Care Examiner

For a long time, I've been wanting to get back to writing. My college undergraduate degree is in journalism, though I don't tend to use those reporting skills as much anymore.

About a month ago, Examiner.com posted a request for freelance writers for their Hartford edition, and I signed on to be the "Hartford Cat Care Examiner." I'm thrilled to have an excuse to choose my topics, take photos, research, interview, and write to my heart's content. The fee per article is, well, not enough to keep my own cats supplied with canned food for a few days, but I am hoping that the new publishing credits will lead to other writing opportunities. The library journal articles I used to write are probably not appealing to anyone outside the field.

One of my passions is education. I feel as if I'll never have enough time in one life to learn all the things I want to explore, and I love sharing what I learn with others who are interested. I love when they teach me. Writing for the Examiner allows me to interview people to learn more, and gives me a format where I can share that information in an easily accessible way. And you all know that one of my biggest passions is humane education.

Working at a shelter for over three years has given me more exposure to cat health and behavior issues than you can possibly imagine. My own crew has trained me quite well, but the shelter cats take up the slack. I've met lots of amazing people that work in rescue, and people that work on a legislative level for animal protections, and sometimes I get so fired up thinking about it all I can't sleep. So I am hoping that as I write about all different feline subjects, that readers will find helpful insights, and share their knowledge with me too.

Here is my first article: http://www.examiner.com/cat-care-in-hartford/connecticut-votes-for-animals-promotes-animal-friendly-legislation-hartford

My next article, coming shortly, will be more generic, about cats and vacation plans. Please consider subscribing to my page, and share with your cat-loving friends. Thank you!

  

This means we get even less playtime and attention. But maybe I can convince her to write a review of cat treats...I'd be happy to serve as the taste-tester!

P.S. I apologize for taking so long to reply to emails and comments. Life has been a bit crazy-stressful with some job issues and a weird schedule, but I don't ever want to appear rude or seem like I'm ignoring anyone!

A New Venture

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

When God closes a door, he opens a window.

As some of you know, I've been unemployed for over a year now. Publishing is a difficult field at the moment, especially when you live outside of a daily commuting distance of two major cities. 

While I am still looking for a full-time job in my field, I thought it might be time to try something else. I've spent my whole life working with words and people, first as a librarian, and then as an editor, and also write my own articles and essays. There is nothing so satisfying for me as when I can help an author, be they student or adult, find and polish his or her voice. Holding the finished paper, essay, or published book in their hands is no small achievement!

To that end, I am happy to announce the opening of my new writing, coaching, and editing business. I hope you will visit my website when you get a chance, and if you know of anyone who is interested in writing help, I hope you will forward them my information. I am able to work online as well as locally, just as I did in my previous position, so distance is not a problem.

You may notice I have not added a link in the paragraph above to the site. If possible in today's world, I'd like to keep my personal blog separate from my work life. Things I share with you here are not things I necessarily want to share with new clients, and chances are they aren't interested in my knitting anyway. So, in order to avoid my blog posts coming up in search results when new clients google the company name, I'll tell you how to find it: type in the words "shoreline" and "writing" with no space and add ".com" in your browser.

I cannot thank or praise Sarah of Class and Coffee enough for the amazing work she did designing my site. Though she is still in grad school, she is truly a professional, and her knowledge and encouragement sustained me through the most challenging parts of this process. I highly recommend her for any web projects you may have!

I'm hopeful that doing something I love will blossom into a new career I truly enjoy. Such sweet lemonade that would be.

NaNoWriMo

Early yesterday afternoon, I completed 50,046 words, and earned my blog badge and certificate!

I wasn't sure if I would finish. With about five days left, I hit a wall at 36,000 words, and didn't know what to do. Remembering my writing group leader's urging to "don't think, just write," I kept adding scenes, which may or may not fit somewhere into a later draft. It worked! The "novel" needs lots of revision, but I learned so much from the experience.

I want to give special thanks to Chris, for all his support and encouragement this past month. If it were not for him, I wouldn't have been able to write half as much as I did. In addition to his taking on more of the daily chores, and our preparing for Thanksgiving company, we've also been dealing with a lot of stress from Rainy's "litter box aversion." For some reason, her anti-anxiety medication no longer works, and she's been using various rugs and carpets around the house in addition to her boxes. We took her to a specialist last Saturday, and we are going to be trying some different experiments to see how we can help her. Nothing kills the creative mood faster than the lingering scent of cat urine after you have already cleaned the same spot on the carpet three times. So, thank you, Chris, for keeping me writing, despite everything!

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends, and are taking time to enjoy the plans and preparations for winter, Christmas, and Hanukkah. New England has been unusually warm for this time of year, but that could change quickly!

New England Authors

National Novel Writing Month began last weekend. In a happy coincidence, Chris and I had already made plans to visit a few famous authors' homes.

On Halloween, we took a day trip to Cape Cod to visit Edward Gorey's house. He's probably most familiar as the illustrator who created the opening scenes of PBS' Mystery! show. Here is one version of the video. Gorey is known for his perhaps gothic sense of humor, but what I did not know is that he was a great supporter of animals. One of my favorite things about his house was the couch:

Yes, Edward Gorey was a big fan of cats, though it doesn't seem like he was able to train them very well!

 

The next day, the first of November, we could not have started NaNoWriMo off any better than to visit Walden Pond, where Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden. Our friends Hobgoblin and Dorothy, English professors, were the perfect companions to make the pilgrimage with us to Concord, MA. Walden Pond is (1) large, and probably really a lake (2) incredibly clear -- you can see to the bottom. We walked the mile or so around the perimeter and admired the view from different directions.

Chris, Henry, and I, with a replica of Henry's cabin in the background.

Site of the actual cabin, marked by stones.
 

After Walden, we went into Concord proper and visited the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, final resting place of practically everyone who is anyone in American literature: Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott, Emerson. The first three and their families are all neighbors, and Emerson is a little further along the path. People left pumpkins, gourds, and pens at the gravesites in honor of their mentors and heroes. I only recently read about the Dead Poets Society of America, and the search to find and document dead poets, so perhaps I should join?

Henry's grave, left middle, has gourds and pens next to it.

Mr. Hawthorn and family.

 Louisa has two markers, and there is a larger family marker outside of this photo as well.

Mr. Emerson.

 
A close-up. All images other than knitting taken by Chris.
 

After lunch, we found the Old Manse, home of Nathaniel Hawthorne for a time. Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldon Emerson also had connections to the house. Creative energy was palpable. In what is literally the backyard sits the Old North Bridge, home of "shot heard around the world," aka the beginning of the American Revolution. I am not much of an enthusiast, but for those who love history, Concord is teeming with it.

The Old Manse.

The Old North Bridge.

 The marker near the bridge.
 

We didn't make it to Louisa May Alcott's house, or some of the other historic houses in the area associated with these gentlemen, but hope to get back there again sometime. I personally want to learn more about Louisa; there is a Pulitzer prize winning book about her and her father, and a new documentary of her life which will air on PBS next month.

So how is *my* writing going? I'm keeping up with the daily word counts. The writing is incredibly rough, but NaNoWriMo is about word counts and producing a first draft, not about the quality of said draft. And that's a good thing. It's a terrific exercise for those of us who normally want to edit so much we end up stifling the creativity and not finishing anything at all.

 

You'd write and knit more if you'd stay home with me on the weekend! -- Rosie

My purple cardigan aka Mr. Greenjeans continues to grow ever downward. I've separated the sleeves and am almost ready to begin the ribbed cabling portion.

I wanted to finish this before the end of the year, but with NaNoWriMo as a priority, and wanting to knit some beaded ornaments for Christmas, I think I'm going to have to give up on that idea. Or sleeping. :)

New Yarn & Creative Writing No. 7

Thank you for your input on a color for our front door! Red and blue seem to be the top two suggestions, and at the moment, I'm leaning toward a cranberry/raspberry that would look good with the hall when the door is open. I promise to get some paint swatches soon to share with you.

The early knitter gets the yarn.

On Saturday, I got up early and drove the distance to Creative Fibers for their summer sale.  The night before, I did my homework, gathering up some patterns to take with me to match with yarn. Right inside the door was Louisa Harding's Impression yarn, in a lovely shade of blue-green, enough to make Sophie, or Beatrix. Swoon! I also bought two skeins of her ribbon yarn because they were pretty, and an extra skein of the Nashua June for the Lace Ribbon Scarf I hope to do. Mrs. SDC met me at the sale and we had fun doing something just for us -- usually we are at the bike races together in support of our misters.

 

Sophie. I love that these are fall sweaters, but don't look like fall sweaters!

 

Beatrix needs Glisten yarn for the trim, which no one seems to sell anymore.

The third session of my writing class started last Wednesday. As a writing prompt, we had to make a list of five interesting settings, as general or specific as we liked. Try it! List five places you enjoy reading about, or visiting, that you think would be interesting settings for stories. I'll share two of mine: an all-night diner, and a small village in France.

We talked about the process from idea to outlining; the latter will be covered next week. Brainstorming and listmaking is a great first step, then gathering, where you sort out the ideas you think will actually work. Finally, you can use post-its, one idea per post-it, and sort them out on a table or wallboard to start to organize your story. Class ended with a fairy-tale; taking a story and writing a list of alternate endings. Our homework is to pick one of those endings and brainstorm it. This is helping to remove a lot of the mystery from the process of idea to page (or screen).

As to knitting, I've had to work on one sleeve at a time for Breton Girl, because I only have one ball of the white yarn left. I'm not sure it's enough, but a very sweet Raveler in the UK has offered to send me some of her yarn if I need it. I am going to finish this sweater by Labor Day or else!!

Marcella and Writing Class No. 5

Last Sunday, a kitty tried to break in to the shelter where I volunteer. She was weak, full of fleas and ticks, and starving. I guess the other cats on the catio told her it was a great place to be, because she scratched and scratched until a volunteer found her and let her in.

 

Marcella was worn out from her vet visit and car trip back, and looks like she's taking a little cat nap. ;) Her cozy bed is on the other side of the partial left-hand wall.

After a visit to the vet for an exam, fluids, antibiotics, and flea medication, Marcella is looking so much better already. Some of her beautiful orange fur had to be shaved, for all the mats in it, but she has such a sweet face that you'd melt in a minute if you saw her in person. I was asked to pick her up from her vet visit since it was my night to work. I know once she starts to feel better, she is going to find her new family pretty quickly. Can you tell I adore her?

More Creative Writing Class Notes

During writing class last week, our first exercise was to write a piece in which two characters pretend to get along, but secretly despise one another. I'm sure many people in class drew from some real-life experiences, and names were changed to protect themselves! This generated a discussion of interior, exterior, or omniscient viewpoints. In the interior view, you see what the person is thinking, usually the protagonist. With an exterior view, you can't see what people are thinking. You only see what the narrator sees people doing. An omniscient view is all-knowing -- you know everything multiple characters think and do.

We also did a fun, if complicated exercise. First, we were asked to make up three non-related diary entries on three different sheets of paper that were spread on the floor. Second, we had to choose a character, and write on a piece of paper their name, age, and gender. Then we passed the page to the person on the left. We wrote down the next character's marital status, and some detail about that, and passed the paper again. Three more times we added a detail and passed the paper: their biggest achievement, a big disappointment, and a remarkable physical feature.

With the final character paper in our hands, we picked up three diary entries and chose one that would fit with the character on our paper. We had to then write a short story around "what happened that day" in the character's life to generate that diary entry.

My character was a seven-year-old girl who was a pianist. Two of the diary entries were definitely adult in nature, one about traveling and one about a weekend party in Las Vegas, so I chose the one that described someone wearing a sequined dress. I wrote a story about the girl attending a piano recital and watching another young girl in a too-adult dress finish her piece. It was challenging to write from the perspective of a young child since I'm not familiar with dialogue for that age group.

A Personality Meme

My friend Dorothy tagged me for a blog award/meme in which I must reveal seven of my personality traits. Please click here to see her blog for more details -- I won't tag anyone, but consider yourself tagged if you would like to play along!

1. I am a perfectionist, much harder on myself than other people. Whether it's knitting, writing, cycling, having company, decorating my home or how I dress, I want everything to be perfect, and wear myself out worrying about details. We will not discuss hair or cooking, for both of which I need remedial classes.

2. Stubborn. Tell me I can't do something, and I'll usually want to do it all the more. This trait means I fight with knitting projects perhaps much longer than I should. But it's a good trait when I'm trying to learn something new or achieve a goal.

3. I am super sensitive, feel things intensely, and can pick up on other people's moods even if I'm not sure what is happening with them. I worry if they are happy or having a good time if I am with them. I cry easily at movies or while reading books. I'm also sensitive to weather. The forecast determines how my day will go -- sunshine and warmth make a huge difference!

4. I cannot stand injustice or unfairness. When people "get away with murder," it eats away at me for days. I'm not advocating eye-for-an-eye justice, but if you abuse a child or an animal, or steal from people, or treat your loved ones or co-workers like garbage, there is a price that should be paid.

5. Curious. I'm interested in learning most everything, except maybe mathematical and engineering concepts, or how cars/bikes work. I enjoy learning about other people's passions.

6. I'm a night person, more creative and productive after 5pm.

7. Contrarian tendencies. If everyone else is reading/knitting/watching or wearing it, then I can usually be counted on to avoid it. I don't know why...but I've been like that since I was a little kid. Harry Potter, Twilight, sock knitting, Facebook, empire waist tops...please don't be offended if you love any of those things. They are popular for a reason, but for whatever other reason, they just don't appeal to me. 

What are seven of your personality traits?

P.S. Since this post is already too long, I'll save my review of A Rather Lovely Inheritance for next time.

Creative Writing Class, Part 3

I am very behind in my posts, so I hope to post a lot more this week and catch up!

The first installment of my creative writing class ended the Wednesday before last. For our last session's first exercise, we had to pick a letter from a page in the book, and write a story using the letter as much as possible within five minutes. I picked B, and wrote about the beach. It was pretty nonsensical; some people had fun with it, but it's not the type of exercise I find helpful.

Most of the session was spent on another exercise from our pasts. First we had to make a list of our five most life-changing events, and second, pick one of those and write about it for five. Lastly, we had to pick a character from a list in the book (for example, an FBI agent, a six year old, a traveler..) and then write what their reaction might be to our life-changing event, for another five minutes. I wrote about not pursuing art in college, and chose the traveler who observed me in Italy, longing to paint what I saw on my trip. All of these little exercises produce "scraps" of writing that some of us may someday use in a story, or we may not. Mostly, they are designed to get us to overcome the blank page. I'm not a fan of using timers, but I can see how they help other writers, the idea being that you can do anything for five or ten minutes, and if you like it, you can keep writing.

The next sessions start July 1st, and will address things like plot, characters, and setting, which is what I really want to study. I've already signed up. I did speak to someone at the company where I had an interview. She told me they are behind schedule due to unforeseen circumstances, but at least the position is still open. So I'm thinking I might as well take the classes I really want while I still have the chance! I struggle with enjoying my time off from work. I haven't had a summer off since I was maybe fifteen years old, am so happy for the break, but it doesn't stop me from feeling guilty.

I finally finished The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It is a twelve-week self-guided course, with weekly reading, exercises, an artist's date, and daily journaling. I took longer with some of the weeks, but it was a tremendously helpful study. I highly recommend it to anyone who is longing to be more creative, but feels a block of some kind. Sometimes you may know the art or craft you want to pursue, and other times not, but either way, this book works.

When I started the study in January, I felt empty because I wasn't doing much of anything creative, other than my knitting. But through the months, I did a little drawing, started to learn scrapbooking, and am now writing again. Slowly I realized how important it was for me to do things I used to do in high school and college, that I'd dropped when my life became too busy with work and taking care of a house and all that other necessary, but not necessarily fulfilling, stuff. Julia made it safe to start again, knowing my first efforts were going to be so rusty, and that it would be easy to just give up. But having finished the program, I feel much happier making creative pursuits a priority every day, even if it is writing or knitting for only ten minutes. Visiting museums last summer and fall was a part of this, and when I do find another job someday, I'm going to take art classes and more knitting classes. My friend L who taught the knitted ornament class last fall at my LYS is teaching a course on the Elizabeth Zimmerman method. That would really stretch my creative wings! The math terrifies me.

There are several sequels to The Artist's Way, including Finding Water and The Vein of Gold, and a separate book called The Right to Write. I want to read them all. But for the rest of the summer, I want to concentrate on the writing class and get into the habit of doing a little each day, maybe send some articles out and see if I can't get something published. And if it *ever* stops raining in New England, I really want to go to the beach!!

...And then one day, two people walked in to the shelter, and I just knew they were meant to be my people. So I walked right up and introduced myself: "Hi, I'm Rainy." I knew they wanted a chatty kitty. They could not stop thinking about me, so before they knew it, I had a new home! And we all live happily ever after. [Once they all stopped fighting! -- ed.]

THE END

Creative Writing Class and Beach, Part 2

On Saturday, the sun came out. This has become so rare, it's an Event. One must respond to Events appropriately; that is, immediately scrap the "to do" list and hit the road once more. Chris took some gorgeous photos of a beach scene in a different part of Rhode Island that I thought you might like to see:

 

 

The sun came out on Sunday too, after a particularly violent early morning rainstorm. We were able to go to Chris' race and then join up with friends for some dinner and bookstore hopping. I'll share my new books with you in the next post!

My second of third writing classes was last Wednesday. We opened the class with a warm up exercise. First we had to list, in two minutes, things that made us happy as a child. Then in another two minutes, we listed things that make us happy as an adult. Our group leader pointed out that typically, things that make us happy as a child are objects, like a doll or cookies or toys, while adults tend to list more philosophical ideas like "health," "travel," etc. It's a fun exercise to do even if you're not planning to write anything; try it!

The rest of the class focused on an exercise in the book where there is a photograph of stairs. You are to pretend you are walking down the stairs into your past, and for five minutes write about your earliest childhood memory. We then broke up into small groups to share our stories. Mine was a description of my great-grandparents' farm, with the dusty road to the barn, and some wildflowers growing nearby. I think I was only about four years old at the time.

Finally, we took two minutes to write about what was in the box, another illustration in our workbook.
It looked exactly like the box that contained the wheelbags I bought Chris for his bicycle, for our anniversary that day, so that's what I wrote. Other people who shared described things from their childhood that were packed in the box.

Our group leader said that she is hoping to offer more writing classes through the bookstore, and I would love to take them, though I'm still out of work. I went for an interview about three weeks ago, but haven't heard anything yet. So it's hard for me to decide about the classes right now.

...Then this nice lady named Virginia came out and found me. She took me back to the shelter, and to the vet for a checkup. I hated that part. But then they started to give me medicine for something called hyperthyroidism, and I began to gain weight. I wanted to look healthier so that I could find a new home...

Creative Writing Class, Part 1

 

Once upon a time, there was a kitty named Rainy. She was wandering outside looking for food, when a kind person called the local shelter...

On Wednesday morning, I attended the first of three creative writing classes at our local independent book store.

The class had twenty students, and I was probably the youngest there, other than the group leader. Some students write for their day jobs, but not the fun kind of writing. Others had always wanted to write, but did not know where to begin, or write occasionally for themselves but want to be more disciplined. One or two mentioned wanting to write a memoir.

As an introductory exercise, we had to write three facts about ourselves. Two are true, and one is a lie. The other students had to guess which was the lie. Here are mine, but I know you can guess the lie!*

• I volunteer at my Local Cat Shelter
• My favorite color is green
• I love to read mysteries

Our class is using The Playful Way to Serious Writing by Roberta Allen as our textbook. It focuses on jumpstarting your creativity, with exercises to help you generate ideas. Its primary goal is to remove the "fear factor" in writing, to just start writing without worrying about correcting grammar, revising, etc. The leader's motto is "Don't think; just write."

I'm not sure that works for me, because I don't have any trouble coming up with ideas. It's the mechanics of writing I was hoping to learn -- how to improve plot, dialogue, setting, structure/pacing. In other words, once you have a story in your head, how to you begin to put it down on paper?

Our first writing exercise was to look at this Jackson Pollock-like image of lines and spatters in the book, and write the first six words that come to mind, in under two minutes. I only could think of five, and the first one was "spirograph." Then we had five minutes to write a little story using that word. My story came out OK, but I really wasn't interested in pursuing it. Our leader said that it is helpful to know what exercises don't work, as it is to know which do work for you.

The second and last exercise was fun. We were given a sentence and had to write the beginning of a story. Then after five minutes we passed our papers to the left and the next person had to pick up where we left off. We did this two more times. The sentence was something like, "I was stuck under the mattress and the dead body above me was beginning to smell..." (Doesn't that remind you of junior high?) The teacher picked this from a list because it would be the most challenging. I chose to write from the perspective of an amateur actress who had to take whatever part she could to get her start in the theater, no matter how unglamorous it was! The few stories I was passed to work on were more literal, with a person trapped in a thriller-like situation.

The group seems very enthusiastic and supportive, and there's something about attending a class like this that makes your intentions to write very real. I had taken creative writing classes in high school and college and loved them, and once had an essay published in the NY Times. But as life happens, sometimes you lose touch with your interests and make a creative U-turn, as the author of the Artist's Way calls them. This class is one of the ways I can get back on my path. Now if only I had a map!

Have you ever made a creative U-turn? What interests would you like to go back to and pursue again?

*The fact that I wore a pink top and shoes to class, and had a pink purse (but with green trim!) might have given this away.