#knittingforpeace

#nanowrimo They took down the towers with box cutters, terrifying and paralyzing a nation.  Once the feeling returned, emotions ran high.  To anger.  And to war.  A war that continues and no one much likes to talk or think about anymore.

She remembered cleaning out a box in her apartment years later and finding articles from _Time_ and _Newsweek_ which she had collected as part of a college research project.  Bin Laden looked up at her from the cover.  So we already knew he was dangerous, right?  I mean, if the mainstream press was covering him, surely the government knew, too.  She shook her head at the memory.

The articles went into the recycling bin.

Ever since, there had been "incidents."  How many she had no idea.  The news tended to make her angry, frightened, and depressed, so she didn't listen or watch if she could help it.  If people were so dangerous and evil, why wasn't more being done to protect the bystanders?  Was protection even possible?

She rocked back and forth in her chair as her needles slid across each other.  The motion was calm, meditative, soothing, and yet hinted at her anxiety.  She searched for solace in the yarn, the pattern, and the stitches.  She concentrated on her own breathing.  She gave thanks for the roof over her head, the food in her kitchen, the hot running water in the pipes.

There was the bombing at the Boston marathon.  The day she heard a gleeful cable "news" reporter tell a worldwide audience that we were going to kill the bomber, she was knitting in the Salt Lake City airport during a layover on her way home from a business trip.  Add drone strikes and retaliatory bombings of Isis, and she wasn't sure whether to scream or cry.

Peace, she thought.  I must knit for peace.  Somehow I have to stop the madness one stitch at a time.  And if I can't stop it, I will stand against it.  Calmly and quietly.  No one may ever know that I am making a stand.  No one may ever see it, but it doesn't matter.  I will knit, and I will offer warmth and love and peace to those with less, to those I don't even know, to those at home and across the world.  Someone out there needs a hat or a scarf or a pair of mittens or a blanket.  Everyone needs a piece of comfort.

I will knit for peace.  I will send my little knitted things to the poor, the angry, the disenfranchised.  I will even send them to the great and powerful who are fueling this anger and hatred to line their own coffers and advance their own causes.

But how?  How do I break out of my own small little life and make a difference?  I will figure that out later.  For now, I will knit.

She brought home a bag full of luxurious wool from that trip, but she had no regrets about the extravagant purchase.  All her life, she had never really fit in, never really felt comfortable around other people.  She felt different and disconnected.  She preferred the company of her cat, her books, and her imagination.  She didn't remember what first compelled her to pick up knitting needles and yarn, and it was years before the habit really stuck and became a habit, but even from the beginning there was a connection.  She picked up the tools, followed the directions, and the result looked like the picture in the pattern.  It was ... magical.

As she did with most things, she went through phases with knitting.  She spent a lot of time writing and typing, so her elbow and shoulder didn't much care for another repetitive motion endeavor.  Eventually she discovered the larger world of fiber and fiber enthusiasts.  She learned that wool didn't have to be scratchy and irritating, and as with so many things, quality makes a difference.  And then she discovered her tribe.  She discovered that she got excited about knitting -- about the possibilities of what a piece of string could become when looped around a couple of sticks.

She loved the process.  She loved reading about patterns, looking at other people's projects, learning about the properties of different fibers -- whether from animal or vegetable.  She even came across yarn made out of steel.  Maybe I should start knitting chain mail, she thought, smiling to herself when she made the discovery.

Fiber folk are by and large generous, interesting, passionate people.  They tend animals and land, protecting them from weather and predators and illness.  Spring brings shearing, producing pounds and miles of fleece which must be cleaned and processed and carded before it can become something ready to be turned into some sort of fabric, be it felt or yarn to be woven, knitted, or crochet.

"I turn grass into sweaters.  What's your superpower?" asked the picture of a sheep she remembered seeing posted on a social networking site somewhere.

I want a superpower, she thought to herself.  I can't make the yarn, but I can turn it into things.  Can that still be a superpower?

The cat didn't look like she was inclined to offer much of an answer.  Her superpower seemed to be expecting worship in exchange for doing nothing at all.  Well, providing companionship was hardly nothing.

How is it that a girl ... a woman ... can be so alone in a city teeming with people. 

Where does she live?  She has to live in a city.  In an apartment, either over a business or in a large house which has been converted to several units.  There is a clawfoot tub in her bathroom.  She makes a modest, but adequate living ... doing what?  Not sure.  Sometimes she works too much, but she still has time for knitting and the yarn shop.  She does fairly well drawing the line between work and life.  I know that I am planning more than writing, but I can't quite seem to figure out my way forward, so a little back story might be in order.

A small but comfortable urban apartment.  Hardwood floors with big carpets, double layered for warmth.  The building is a bit drafty and not all the well insulated.  Made of stone.  Rough stone foundation, granite front steps, and brick the rest of the way up.  Slate roof?  I think that there should be a garden up there.  Or nearby.  Or the residents just grow as much as they can on their windowsills and balconies.  An old Victorian in Boston?  Something.

My character knits to keep warm initially -- slippers, draft stoppers, hats, wraps, lap blankets and throws.  Sometimes she doesn't want to finish a sweater because she loves the warmth that comes from sitting with a lap full of wool.

The walls are solid enough that she doesn't hear too much of her neighbors other than occasional sounds of movement, so she doesn't worry about filling her apartment with the sounds of classical music and opera -- the drama, the emotion, the comfort, the energy and the serenity.  Maybe she lives above the yarn shop.  I am having a brief moment of considering that she owns a yarn shop, but that adds a level of complexity that I am pretty sure that I don't know how to try to work into the rest of the story.  I want her to be able to travel, to move, to leave, to stay home.  I don't know how to make that work with the shop.  Okay, so she does something else to earn her living.  It is tempting to have her work from home, but if she is anti-social, that is just too much time at home.  Unless she goes to the yarn shop to be able to get out of the house.  She could work at the local coffee shop, too.  They could sell the knitted, reusable coffee cozies that she makes.

#nanowrimo  Well, life seriously got in the way of various and sundry writing plans, so I have gotten a whole lot of nowhere since day two, and here we are already at the halfway mark, which means I need approximately twenty-one thousand, five hundred words to get caught up.  I would say that it not a realistic goal, and probably even falls outside of the realm of a delusional goal ("I'm out of it for a little while, and everyone gets delusions of grandeur."), but I am feeling a burst of creativity and inspiration.  Not so much novel writing creativity, but creativity all the same, and I am going to pretend that if I start writing it all out, I will (a) be able to channel some of that creative energy into productivity, (b) bring some sort of order to the chaos of ideas swirling around in my head, and (c) pretend that the resulting word count, well, counts, because there is the possibility that it will turn into some sort of a story somehow someday.

My compulsion to write used to come from all of the voices in my head.  Several years ago I found a way to quiet a lot of the voices, which was definitely a good thing because that level of madness and insanity makes it challenging to be a productive member of society, or even get a decent night's sleep.  The downside is that the writing compulsion largely went away.  My journals go unfilled.  National Novel Writing Month attempts fizzle after a few thousand words.

But then there is this whole "knitting for peace" idea that I keep carrying around with me, grasping at it, clutching it, snuggling up to it when the world insists on being a scary place (which is most of the time) and people insist on being horrible to each other (which is probably less often than whoever is running the media would like us to think).  I visit with this idea almost daily.  As I meditate my way through knit and purl stitches, yarn overs, slip slip knits, and knits two together (knit twos together?), increases and decreases, cast-ons and bind-offs, I wonder why the systems are so broken, why does it seem so difficult for so many people to get by, why the answer and response to violence has to be more violence.  I face challenges of my own every day, but I make a diligent and conscious effort to give thanks for all of the blessings in my life because there are many.  So very many.

I find rejuvenation, inspiration, and perspective at my local yarn shop.  Visiting with that community never fails to remind me that everyone has problems and challenges and sources of stress, but it is all just life, and we are all still very lucky in the grand scheme of things.  The country may be at war, but for the most part our sacrifices are minimal.  Our cities are not occupied or invaded.  Drone strikes are not targeting our leaders.

When I hear about remote-controlled assassinations and bombings and fleeing refugees, I am frightened by the frailty of the fabric of humanity.  I want to knit it back together.  I want us all to be human and realize that all of the rest of us are human.  I want the light to outshine the darkness, even though we need the darkness to contrast to the light.

A while ago I watched a video about a year in the life of a little Syrian girl as she transformed from a happy child on one birthday to a haunted looking waif on her next as she lost her home and stability and safety.  I only watched it once, but it plays over and over and over in my head.  It breaks my heart every time.

As much as I worry about over-population, I don't want people to suffer.  It's a contradiction I have yet to reconcile.  I want to value all life equally, but the earth can't support everyone forever.  Growth is not sustainable.  An overtaxed system has to break down.

Where was I going with this line of thought?  It was supposed to be about creativity and hope.  Now I am just kind of depressed.

Yesterday was a rejuvenating day for me, although it started out somewhat stressfully.  I wasn't organized enough about getting my act together and getting myself out of the house, so I was embarrassingly late for a knitting class I was scheduled to take, but I got there, and the ladies were so gracious and welcoming -- as I generally find fiber folk to be.  For the next hour and a half after I arrived, I learned to thrum mittens, which is something I have wanted to do for quite a while.  I wasn't quite sure what to expect, even though I have seen it done on more than one occasion, but it is a grand an glorious thing.  Some might find it tedious, but I love it.  And I love it not just for the end product or the process, but for the process of learning how to do it.  The teacher got me from "what do I do with these building blocks" into the basic concepts of the process, and from there I have been able to feel myself learning and improving, taking what I already know about knitting and fiber and applying it and broadening my horizons, forging new neural pathways in my brain.  Making the connections has the feeling of a physical sensation.  It's amazing and inspiring.

I found (and continue to find) myself not only improving my own process but having a mental discussion about how to pass this information onto other people because I want to teach other people to thrum, and I want to write thrumming patterns.  The one used in the class is okay for getting started, but as is often the case, I find myself using it as a launching pad.  What if I knit two rows instead of three?  What if I stagger the thrums?  What if I felt the mittens?  What if I use the thrums to make designs on the mittens?  How will that affect the rest of the mitten?  How warm will a partially thrummed mitten be?  How do I incorporate thrums into a hat?  Which thrummed slipper pattern do I want to try first?  How many pairs of thrummed slippers can I make before Christmas?  Can the outside wool be superwash?  Can I use Noro?  What about really thick, almost single ply yarn?  What about bulky yarn?  What about fingerless mitts?  Or boot toppers or leg warmers?  What about pencil roving?  When is the next local fiber festival so that I can get my hands on more of these kinds of materials?

Looking through ravelry, my favorite knitting site, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of variety for patterns which include thrumming.  I can't decide whether it is an untapped market, or an undiscovered adventure, or people just can't be bothered.  I find it interesting what hand knitters and other fiber enthusiasts find to be "too much work," when these people are creating lovely things which can easily be purchased.  Even my insta-hats take longer to make than it generally does to buy a hat in a store.

Somehow the knitting of hats seems like a good segue into to the rest of the rejuvenation story.  So I learned to thrum.  I am not sure what all I am going to thrum next, and I am trying to contain myself on the thrumming supplies acquisition front, but it is very difficult.  It's just so exciting to find something new and interesting and fun and that I can actually do and feel like I might be able to actually do well.  I'm getting off track again.  I can feel it.

So thrumming.  Yay.  And thrumming supplies (for inspiration, of course).  Also yay.  Plus yarn for the next hat in my hat knit along which will produce twelve hats in (approximately) twelve weeks.  Seven patterns have been released.  I have finished five of the hats.  The sixth is on the needles, and now I have yarn for the seventh.  It makes me feel all sorts of organized and productive.  It helps that so far I have liked all of the patterns enough to get excited about making the hats.  I am pretty sure that I am going to donate all of the hats to charity.  The folks at my local yarn shop are knitting for the local homeless community this year.  I confirmed that the items need not be superwash and don't have to have been made from yarn purchased at the shop and then came home and went through my bin of cowls and hats and scarves and filled a reusable shopping bag with things.  I enjoyed making them.  They are lovely to wear, but I don't need thirty hats by any means, and, as with most things, when I have several similar items, only one or two get worn frequently.  They turn into the favorites.  And in the case of small hand knitted things, I can certainly make more.  In the meantime, some homeless folks of various shapes and sizes and needs can be a little bit warmer.  It felt good to be able to pour that bag full of items into the donation basket.  And I know that I have more things to donate.  Some need to be finished or rewashed, but they need to not sit in a bin in my closet or hang on a hanger under a coat.  They exist to bring warmth, so that is what they should do.

Making that donation is pretty much where my rejuvenating day ended, at least in terms of being out in the world.  Shortly thereafter I was home and in my jammies prepared to go nowhere today except the grocery store.

In between thrumming and knitted item donation, I made a stop to donate yarn and needles which will be used by incarcerated women to make items for their loved ones and for charity.  After spending a day about a week ago with people who do all sorts of good work in their community and around the world, I was inspired to get rid of a bunch of yarn which really needs to be put to good use.  Plenty of it had planned projects, but those projects have been planned for years, and all of a sudden it seemed to make far more sense to turn it over to someone who would actually use it soon than to hold onto it.  They took it all.  No questions asked.  No worries about what kind it was or how much.  It was liberating to drop it off.

The "drawback," however is that the drop off point is a yarn shop, so I came home with a bit of yarn, but it was one small bag, compared to the three large bags and one box I left behind.

All of which brings me back in a roundabout way to story ideas.

If the knitting is magical, if the blanket really protects the child ... I want to figure out where to go with that story -- spin it out somewhere where the child grows up never knowing what really happened, how he or she came to have the blanket in the first place, where his or her mother got it.  Maybe the child is adopted, but always has the blanket.  Does the blanket make the child a superhero?  A super villain?  Maybe it all starts off well until whatever path the child follows as a teenager and eventually as an adult comes full circle and somehow starts hurting people, and it comes back to the knitter.  The activist (the child) has become the politician or entrepreneur who becomes the terrorist or the mogul/executive.  And then sees the light?  Sounds a little trite and contrived, but there is such a thing as redemption.

If the knitting is magical in a good way, where is the conflict?  Who is the adversary?  Does the knitter teach?  How does it all unravel, as it were?  Can it be knit back together again?  Is the blanket passed down?

If the blanket saves the child more than once, does the child seek the source of the blanket?  Does the child seek to duplicate or emulate?  Do recipients of the magical items somehow come together?  Is magic the wrong way to go?

Maybe the knitter is like the fates who spin the threads of life.  She knits a square.  And then another.  She builds a blanket.  She binds us all together.

Maybe the blanket is family, each member with a voice, but I prefer the idea of strangers.

#nanowrimo If I am going to write a story about knitting, then I think that I am going to include a few patterns.  I am not much of a pattern writer.  I tend to start with someone else's pattern for a basic framework and then use it to go off into my own direction(s).  I mess with stitch counts, yarn weights, measurements, needles sizes and so forth.  So maybe now is the time to put some focus into writing up new patterns of my own.  I worry about stealing someone else's work, but so many patterns I see are so similar, and the fundamentals (how many stitches you probably need to start a worsted weight hat, for example) are public domain.  There are dictionaries of stitch patterns for crying out loud, and people incorporate those all the time.

If I take a free pattern which calls for two strands of worsted weight yarn in contrasting colors, change it to dk weight using a solid and a self striping, keep the stitch count, go down a needle size, and add crown decreases, do I have a new pattern I can send out into the world without being accused of plagiarism?  Something to think about.

Mittens with Seed Stitch Cuffs (first size tested, other sizes are mere conjecture at this point)

Mittens are one of those great, fun accessories where you can use wild and crazy colorways which you would not ordinarily wear.  I lovingly refer to the yarn I used for the sample as the "carrot" yarn because of the bright orange.  But from skein to cake to mitten, the yarn went through quite a transformation.  The mittens are still bright and fun, but I think most anyone could wear them.

The pattern is designed to go with the Republic Hat, or any hat, really, with a seed stitch brim.

Materials: US Size 6 needles -- double points, two circulars, or one long circular for magic loop -- whatever tickles your fancy or makes you a happy knitter.

One skein Ella Rae Lace Merino Aran (why do they call it Lace Merino when it comes in, like, half a dozen different weights, and I am not even sure that lace is one of them?) -- 180 yards (165 meters) per hundred grams (3.5 ounces).

Stitch markers

Scrap yarn or stitch holder for thumb stitches when the time comes

Tapestry needle for weaving in ends

Scissors for cutting yarn (Why does no one ever list scissors in the materials list for knitting patterns?  I think that it is about as obvious a need as a tapestry needle for weaving in ends, but maybe that's just me.)

Yarn notes: Ella Rae Lace Merino (in any weight) tends to be rather tightly plied, so I think that you can easily substitute a worsted weight and use the same needle size and stitch count.  If you have smaller yarn (dk or sport), make a bigger size and use smaller needles.  Or you could double strand (which I think would look really cool) and use the size 6 needles to get a nice, thick, warm mitten.

Cast on 36 (42, 48) stitches.  Join to knit in the round. Round 1: K1, P1

Round 2: P1, K1

Repeat for three inches, ending after round 2.

Knit 8 rounds.

Left mitten: Knit 12 (14, 16), pm, M1R, K1, M1L, pm, knit to end

Knit 1 round.

Knit 12 (14,16), sm, M1R, K to m, M1L, sm, knit to end

Repeat last 2 rows until there are 15 (17, 17) stitches between markers.

Knit to marker.  Remove marker.  Place 15 (17, 17) stitches on waste yarn. Remove second marker.  Cast on one stitch using the backwards loop method. (I have used backwards loop and cable cast on for "replacing" the thumb stitch.  While I find it difficult to get the backwards loop cast on stitch tight enough, I think that I just end up with too much yarn with the cable cast-on which makes picking up stitches difficult when working the thumb.  If you have a strong preference for one over the other, or a completely different cast-on, by all means use whatever works for you.)  Knit to end of round.

Continue to knit every round until piece measures three inches from the thumb hole.  I like to knit until the mitten just about reaches the end of my pinky finger.

Decreases:

Round 1: [K4, K2tog] around (30, 35, 40 stitches remaining)

Round 2: Knit

Round 3: [K3, K2tog] around (24, 28, 32 stitches remaining)

Round 4: Knit

Round 5: [K2, K2tog] around (18, 21, 24 stitches remaining)

Round 6: Knit

Round 7: [K1, K2tog] around (12, 14, 16 stitches remaining)

Round 8: Knit

Round 9: [K2tog] around (6, 7, 8 stitches remaining)

Cut yarn, leaving a long enough tail to thread through stiches and pull tight from the inside.

Thumb: Place 15 (17, 17) reserved stitches on needles.  Pick up one stitch in the gap.  Start knitting the round with the picked up stitch.  Knit 13 rounds, until the end of your thumb is barely visible.

Decreases:

Round 1: [K2tog] around

Round 2: Knit

Round 3: [K2tog] around (for larger sizes, knit last stitch)

Cut yarn, leaving a long enough tail to thread through stitches and pull tight from the inside.

Weave in ends.  Wash and block.  If using a superwash wool, a few minutes in the dryer can help the mittens "snap back" into shape a bit.

#nanowrimo Okay, I'm back.  I have been thinking NaNoWriMo thoughts pretty much all day.  I did a lot of driving, so I had plenty of time to think ... and talk.  I tend to find it more productive to actually talk out loud.  To the point that more than once I have considered keeping some sort of recording device in the car because I think that I would get a whole lot more "written," although I would still have to transcribe it all.  I suppose that if I really decided that I didn't have time to do the transcription, I could always pay someone.  But I am getting off topic, which I know is allowed, but it is not necessarily all that helpful.

So meanwhile, back at the ranch, Tonto not knowing the Lone Rangers was disguised as a cactus ...

This knitting for peace idea is really starting to grow on me, and it might even be starting to take shape, although I haven't even decided whether to tell the story in the first or third person.  I think that third person would lend itself to telling the story from different points of view.  Get that whole omniscient narrator thing going.  We can see the world and the story from Therese's (Teresa's?) point of view but also from the point of view of the recipients of the knitted things.  Or the chapters can just have headings of the names of the people, and it can all be third person.  Or I can switch back and forth until I figure out which one actually works.

While part of me wants this endeavor to be a practical exercise to figure out how to actually knit for peace and actually get individual items into the hands of individual people without just knitting a bunch of things and donating them to a charity -- although following each item after it has been donated might not be a bad way to go -- another part of me wants there to be a magical element.  It took me a while to figure it out, but I think that the knitting can be magical in and of itself.  It is an art, a craft, and a science (if you get into the mathematical nerdiness of complex lace patterns and the physics of how fiber behaves under different circumstances), and, yes, it can be done with a machine, but true hand knitting, done with intent, is magical.  The intent is key.  And with intent comes belief and faith.  Intent, belief, and faith -- similar but different.  The three Fates?  The three witches?  A different kind of holy trinity?

The pattern is a chant, a recipe, a charm.  It is a code.  It contains instructions ... which might only be suggestions or options.  There isn't just one pattern, or even just one hat pattern.  There are thousands ... and they can all be modified yet again into something else.

It all begins with a couple of sticks, some string, and a single stitch.  Actually, it begins with a knot.  You need that knot to hold the first stitch.  And then you build.  One loop at a time.  The building blocks are so simple.  A knit and a purl.  That's really all you need.  You can go through the front or the back of the loop.  You can turn one stitch into two or three.  You can combine them to become one.  You can even create a stitch where there was none before by making an extra wrap or borrowing a bit between stitches.  Loop after loop, you build fabric with texture and pattern and drape.  A single thread becomes a hat, a mitten, a scarf, a sweater, a blanket, a little stuffed friend.  And as she knit, transforming string into fabric, she added love and hope and warmth and a message.  A message which went beyond instructions for care of the knitted thing.  A message that said, "We may be worlds apart, separated by geography, money, religion, politics, and fear, but we are still each a person, a magical being.  We live and laugh and love and hurt and cry and believe that our view is the right one.  We see the world as we are or perhaps even as we want to be.  I want to be love and peace and light, and I want to share it with the world, so I send it to you.  May it protect your and keep you warm and give you strength to face the challenges in your own life.  May it bring you peace."

Peace in every stitch.  Love and life and light.  There was so much anger, so much hatred, so much misunderstanding, so much energy pouring into negativity.  She didn't understand it.  She couldn't understand it.  It frightened and hurt her every day.  She knew that there had to be love in the world.  There had to be hope.  But why was it so difficult to find?  Why must we instead hear about murder and fire and theft and violence.  So much violence.  So many wounded people, frightened and alone, feeling as if they have no hope, no help, no one to reach out to, no one to understand.  The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and eventually you have a revolution.

*****

A hat sent to a soldier keeps him warm, and even protects him ... for a while.  And then he falls on the battle field (do soldiers even fall on battlefields anymore?  is there such a thing as a battlefield?  They get shot out of the sky, blown up by rpgs and pipe boms.  Battlefields are streets and neighborhoods.).  He gives the hat to his buddy, and it protects him for a while.  Or it gets sent home with the rest of his things to tell his family that he fought and died for his cause and his country, that he loved them, and that a stranger sent him this small knitted thing to give him hope and strength.

A baby blanket is sent to a young Syrian mother who has fled her country with her baby.  She wraps the baby in the blanket.  Something happens.  Something terrible.  The mother is hurt or maybe killed or maybe they are just briefly separated, but the baby survives -- protected by the blanket.  The mother finds a way to send a skein of yarn -- perhaps the mother is a spinner -- back to the knitter of the blanket, and another item is made and sent.

One story?  Many stories?  The recipients are clearly in situations of conflict and stress.  What is the conflict for the knitter?  What is happening in her life that she needs to resolve?  Where does her story lead?  I will see if I can find out tomorrow.

In the meantime, some pattern notes.

Mittens with seed stitch cuffs.

Cast on 36 (40, 44, 32?) stitches.  Join to knit in the round.

Round 1: K1, P1

Round 2: P1, K1

Repeat for three inches, ending after row 2. Knit 8 rows.

Left mitten: Knit 12 (14, 16), pm, M1R, K1, M1L, pm, knit to end

Knit 1 round.

Knit 12 (14,16), sm, M1R, K to m, M1L, sm, knit to end

Repeat last 2 rows until there are 13 (15, 15) stitches between markers.

#nanowrimo #nanoprep So here it is, day one of National Novel Writing Month, and while I am eager to start, I still don't know for sure where to start or what to write or what I want to write, so I am just going to start writing and spinning out ideas and see if one or more of them takes hold and takes me somewhere.

Several years ago, one of my NaNoWriMo attempts was the story of the tempestuous relationship between an naiad and an ifrit.  I forget how far I got.  I even forget what I named the characters, although I remember doing research to try to find something appropriately water- and fire-themed for each.  I have a vague recollection of the opening scene, and I know that I at least sort of had a plan, but I don't remember what it was.  So I have been thinking that I might give that story another shot -- start with the same opening scene and then head off in (probably) a completely different direction than where I was going originally because I'm in a different place than where I was when I first started writing it.

I am also considering going back to my very first NaNoWriMo endeavor.  I got to fifty thousand words that first year, but the story was nowhere near complete.  I haven't even looked at it in I don't know how long.  I don't know if pulling it up and continuing it makes sense, or if it might be more fun to start that story again and see how different it ends up being the second time around.

Then there is the idea of visiting the adoption thread on the NaNoWriMo web site.  I have started looking through those ideas, and some of them sound like fun.  I especially like the retelling of the Wizard of Oz, in part because I like the idea, and in part because I saw a post recently which essentially reframed Glinda as the true baddy of the story.  Someone really ought to write that book, although I am not sure that I am the one to do it.

I do a lot of knitting, and I have read quite a few books and stories about knitting, and I hang out at a local yarn shop, and there are plenty of stories there, but a lot of them seem to mirror stories which I have already read.

And then there is the Jersey Devil.  About as close as I get to a Halloween tradition is to watch Brice Springsteen's "A Night with the Jersey Devil" video.  Preacher man Bruce on a horse is a thing of beauty for sure, and there should certainly be a story there -- or in any of his songs.  I could write the stories behind "Jungleland" or "Thunder Road."

I could go back to my Mystery of Grace screenplay.

I could.  I could.  I could.  Oh, the things I could do (and write) and the places I could go.  But I would like to decide what *kind* of story I want to write before I start writing -- a mystery, a romance, a quest, a rambling monologue about what I might want to write, a how-to book?  Oooh!  I have at least two knitting patterns that I need to write up.  Maybe I could write a knitting book in thirty days -- write up my notes on a bunch of knitting projects that I have done where I modified the pattern, turn my ravelry page into a thing of beauty, a reference for the ages.

I could bring Madame Defarge into the modern age.  She could be a terrorist recordkeeper of sorts.  She is the lover of the leader of a terrorist cell, and her knitting is a record of their fight against the infidels and the oppressors.  But how?  What is her code?  Does each item represent an act? A death?  Or is it the stitch pattern?  For every righteous death, she knits a hat or a scarf or a cowl for a soldier or a child or someone in need.  Maybe one for each person who died in the twin towers.

Or perhaps she is not a baddy (although I am firmly convinced that terrorism is simply a matter of perspective -- the "terrorists" believe just as strongly that their actions are acts of justice as their victims believe that they are acts of terror).  Maybe her husband, brother, lover, someone is a soldier fighting for a cause in which she does not believe.  She wants peace.  She believes in love and sharing and everyone having enough, but the people around her insist on anger and hatred and fighting.  They believe that the only path to change is violence.  We have to hurt 'them" as much as they have hurt "us."  Make them pay.  Every time she turns on the television or sees a magazine or newspaper, there is violence, and where there is violence there is pain and loss and hunger and poverty.  And as far as she can tell, those in power are not interested in a true solution which benefits the most people.  If the rich and powerful stand to lose even the slightest bit of ground, they are not interested.  They squabble amongst each other.

And so she decides to knit for peace -- for her own peace of mind and for peace in the world.  She doesn't want to just knit a bunch of items and send them off to a faceless charity to be distributed, although she knows that there are plenty of lovely causes out there and she wishes that she could support all of them, but she really wants to make an impact on individual people.  She wants to knit peace and love and warmth into each item and then give it to someone -- a homeless person, a soldier, a child on a playground, a mother with a new baby, even a powerful politician, just to make a point.

She can't end world hunger or stop the spread of AIDS, but she can give someone a hat or a cowl or a pair of gloves or a little stuffed rabbit.  She can start with her family and her local community, and then she can broaden her reach.  She can find a way to send her little items to soldiers in Afghanistan (and not necessarily U.S. soldiers) and refugees in Syria.  And somehow she makes a connection on the other side.  Someone who should be her enemy or for whom she should be an enemy becomes her friend.  Maybe a young middle eastern mother receives a blanket for her baby's crib, and she decides to return the favor or pay it forward.  Maybe she learns to knit.  Or she already knits, or weaves, or crochets, or felts, and she gets together with the women in her community and they start doing the same thing.  The chain and the network grows.  And the world is saved by knitting!

Okay, so the last bit is rather far fetched, but I like the beginning.  I like the knitting for peace idea.  It's actually something I want to do, and maybe by writing a story about it, I can figure out a way to make it a reality.