stories come out in the knitting

I'm still waiting for the bound copies of my novel/thesis from the book binding company. I have to get two copies to the university by May 22nd, so still plenty of time.

While waiting, I've been gorging on yarn projects and reading and exercise.

I have four projects on the needles, plus Angel's babette blanket, which is crocheted, so not on needles (I find I crochet blankets and knit everything else). The thing with the babette blanket is that it's all different-sized squares, and when you seam them all together, they make one giant rectangle, so it's a bit of a thinker to arrange squares to not only get some variety in sizes next to each other but to also make sure that the whole thing comes out in the overall rectangle shape. A good workout for the brain.

The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is at the beginning of next month. I thought it might be nice to actually go there with something I've knitted, but rather than a sweater or a vest or something like that, I thought I'd make a cabled messenger bag, which will also serve to hold the yarn that I will inevitably buy. So that is one of the projects on the needles.

While knitting, I've been listening to podcast episodes of Sticks and String, which is put together by "an Australian bloke who knits." He's an astrophysicist who teaches at a Catholic boys' school. Fun stuff. And I may attempt an Alice Starmore "jumper" at some point after seeing the one he did. However, I've got enough on the needles at the moment, so the fair isle on steroids can wait.

As far as books go, I've been getting installments of The Age of Innocence from DailyLit via e-mail. I enjoyed reading Edith Wharton in high school and college, so it's nice to revisit her books. I just got a copy of The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl, and I may read Drood by Dan Simmons right after that. These two books are about Dickens' last uncompleted work. I finished The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry, which I enjoyed, as well as The Adventures of Sally by P.G. Wodehouse. Wodehouse often wrote about women as the exasperating troublemakers in his stories, but in this one, roles are refreshingly reversed, and it's Sally who comes to the rescue time and again.

I have a story simmering in my head, and I've been working out details while knitting. It's a variation on a screenplay that I wrote for my screenwriting grad class. It didn't quite work as a screenplay, and I should have stuck by my original instinct and done it as a novel. So my next novel will be what I should have done with the story in the first place. And it's a children's story, so a bit of a change from the grown-up story I wrote for my novel/thesis. Does anyone have any opinions on writing for children? I've read a lot of essays and articles that say you should not write down to children and you should use words they're familiar with. I'm going to try and keep those two things in mind with this next story.

Exercise has been a lot of cardio and weight lifting, and now that the weather is slowly getting nicer, walking. Although I've heard vicious rumors that there may be snow flurries tomorrow. Someone remind the people in charge that it IS April and we're just supposed to be dealing with rain right now to green things up. Appreciate it.