Oddments

I'm heading into one of those wacky-busy weeks (it involves papers coming in in five out of five classes and two trans-continental flights in February), so this post is going to be an assortment of oddments.

1) I'm doing some knitting for charity, which is awesome (how much do I love organizations who appreciate support demonstrated in yarn?). What is slightly less awesome is that the knitting has to be done with yarn that was given to me for the project, and the yarn is not pleasant to knit with. If the same event happens next year, I'm going to try to find a way to suggest that knitters may also wish to make a donation of yarn, too (which may save on the basic cost of the endeavor as well as entice more knitters to take part). I know that many knitters' love of natural fibers and such can pose issues with regard to allergies, but perhaps some careful labeling could help.

2) The object of the trans-continental flights is the Associated Writing Programs conference. Four days of writerly and readerly chaos. I'm looking forward to seeing some old friends and some new ones, as well as possibly finding plenty of good reads.

3) I'll be within a long walk of Fahrney's Pens. I don't have much hope of having enough free time to make the trip there, but it is terribly tempting. Of course, I'm planning that my next fountain pen purchase will be an Edison Mina, so I should probably resist that temptation.

4) I write my fiction long-hand for several reasons. The most immediate of those reasons is that I occasionally have problems paying attention when I'm at the computer. The less immediate, but likely more substantial of these reasons is that I find that I feel much closer to a scene, to a character when my hand is forming the words, the curves of letters. I think my access to my vocabulary improves, too (which is key when I do most of my writing between 5:45 and 6:45 a.m.). And so while I really loathe the act of typing up my hand-written process, the system works for me, and that typing gives me a chance to do a very rough first edit.

5) Writing my fiction by hand is also a pleasant sensory experience with the advent of my fountain pen interest.

6) Have a photo. This is from the end of June, above Alcova Dam, somewhere in the vicinity of eight-thirty in the evening. I miss summer. I miss it terribly.