The little twists, called cables, on this mitten pattern made me want to learn just like the detectives in my novel made me want to write about murder.
Day 10- My writing teacher used to turn to me and with that knowing look in her eyes proclaim that yet again, I had made a point of view violation. Yes, a violation! I didn't fully understand this part of writing craft. Was I telling the story in first person? I picked up the knitting needles and cast on Or am I the omniscient narrator?
Kelly was terrified of losing a stitch on her knitting project. She glanced over at Josie. Lenny who was just getting used to holding his needles gripped even tighter when he saw Josie's look of disapproval. My final choice for writing my novel was the limited third person narrator. It allowed me to go deeper into each character and still change point of view with a simple line break. Kelly felt her sweaty hands tighten on the knitting needle. If she lost a stitch and it started to unravel she would have to quit. ********* Josie noticed Kelly struggle to get her needle into the loop on her needle. Why was she so tense?
A knit designer must choose a point of view, too. She holds the big picture in her head of how the knitted object will look when finished but at the same time she must write the instructions in a piece meal fashion to keep the knitter secure in each section of the pattern. My favorite knit designer, Victorious Wool, chooses several approaches to communicate her directions. She uses words but also pictures and diagrams. So again, writing a novel is like knitting if you compare how each pursuit uses words and pictures to tell a story. Go To Next Day Click here to get an index page.
This is like certain stitches in knitting. If the first experience torques our wrist in an awkward way, we tread with dread.
Day 9
I don't read murder mysteries because I'm fascinated with death. Murder is abhorrent to me. This genre draws me in because of the detective. She is the source of bringing to light what is hidden. She makes deductions that reveal the disguised motives of those she interviews. She, he, they together, solve a puzzle of someone'e early demise.
What I didn't know before I decided to write a murder mystery was:
Who killed my victim?
Why did they come to this horrible decision?
How did they do it in a way that would involve detective skill to solve?
What are plausible police procedurals in my setting?
If anyone had looked at the search history on my computer they would have suspected I was up to no good. After days and weeks of revising I think I made my case.
And...
Making a cable knitting stitch really isn't as drastic as plotting a murder but I had zero knowledge of how to go about twisting stitches over each other to create this pattern I really liked.
The little twists on this mitten pattern made me want to learn just like the detectives in my novel made me want to write about murder.
The Zever Mittens were designed by my daughter. I made two pair with a thing called 'grit'.
The preparatory work often saves time and frustration.
Day 8-
There are stitches I really dislike to work. They feel awkward and I still get confused every time I find one in a pattern. Especially the "make one" stitch which is an increase. I am a tight, tense knitter so if I must get my needle in a snug hole I feel the strain in my wrist and up my arm. I would prefer doing only stitches that are spacious and free. I have two choices. Either I learn to relax and move with ease into the stitches that add definition and width or I can make rectangular scarves the rest of my life.
In writing a novel there are some characters that at first glance are unlikable.
As a reader we are attracted to characters that are most like us. It would be unfortunate to have a story populated by only likable personalities. Alexander Patchett is a gruff, anti-social man. I had a purpose for him in my novel but his first appearance needed to be unpleasant. To give you some context, Reggie Watts and Stevie Dangerfield are homicide detectives investigating the death of pianist and teacher, Judith Whitesides. Alexander was her neighbor.
The oak front had two large imposing doors and no windows. It made the house seemed shuttered. Where the piano teacher’s home was open and light-filled, the neighbor signaled privacy, at all costs. They rang the doorbell.
“Who is it?” a gruff, low voice asked from inside.
“Detectives Watts and Dangerfield. May we have a word with you?”
The door opened a crack and an older man, unshaven, looked at them.
“What do you want?”
“We would like to ask some questions about your neighbor, Judith Whitesides. Can we come in?”
He opened the door wider. “Is she in trouble? Is…it.. drugs? Are those supposed piano students really her buyers?”
“Can we talk inside?” Reggie cleared his throat with impatience.
He stepped aside and moved his arm across his body to show them in. A receding hairline left bushy gray hair at the crown and around the back of his head. His long blue velour robe covered black sweatpants and a yellowed white t-shirt.
The entry opened to a high ceiling where a fan slowly moved the air around. The living room was busy but not dirty. Books were stacked on end tables and next to chairs. Newspapers and magazines in tall piles on the floor teetered next to the wall. A collection of shoes, boots, and slippers were piled this way and that along the inside of the door. Stevie slipped off her loafers and moved them to the side with her feet. She looked at Reggie. He was not going to budge to remove his shoes. He kept his eyes on the man and proceeded with his questions.
“May I ask your name and how long you have lived here?”
“My name is Alexander Patchett and I’ve lived here long enough to know what is going on.”
“Do you know your neighbor Judith Whitesides very well?”
“Well, she moved here a year ago and paid an ungodly price for that house. She is a bit prissy with her six foot grand piano and fancy paintings. Her constant playing drives me bonkers. All day long students come and go. I hate the coming and going of cars. We have limited parking as you can tell.” Mr. Patchett sat on the edge of a bright red chair. “You know, she might actually be a drug dealer!”
“Are you saying that she has students coming everyday?” Stevie asked unbelievingly. It would be unusual to have that many private piano students.
“Well, she really only teaches Wednesdays through Saturdays. The other days she is at the university.” He reached for a cup of tea sitting on an oval end table next to the chair.
“You seem to know a good deal about her affairs.” Stevie said snidely. She took a seat next to him on a floral couch. It had large red and pink flowers with entwined greenery.
“I’m a good neighbor. We talk about things.” He sipped his tea slowly. “I know she has some kind of master’s degree in music. Why are you asking me so many questions?”
“I am sorry to say that your neighbor was found dead at home this morning.” His eyes opened wide in genuine concern. True surprise was hard to manufacture.
“What?…..” He moved back in his seat slowly putting the cup of tea down and placed his hands on his knees. “You’re kidding me? Is that why the ambulance is there?”
“Yes.” Stevie couldn’t believe he hadn’t known what was going on outside. “Have you seen any visitors that seemed new in the last few days? Has her husband been at home lately?”
“That foreigner? He is a piece of work. He comes and stays a few weeks and acts like he is master of the household.” Mr. Patchett lowered his voice. “I think he is here illegally.”
Stevie ignored his provocative comments. “Has he been here this week?”
“I did see him yesterday and I wrote down the license plate number of his fancy car. Just a minute, I will get the slip of paper.” Alexander walked over to a desk and moved some books until he found a pad of paper. “Here it is.” He handed the note to Reggie who was still standing near the door. “Excuse my bad manners but would either of you like a cup of tea?”
“No, thank you.” Reggie replied.
“Why did you write down his license plate number?” Stevie wondered what the neighbor thought was going on next door.
“I have a basic distrust of people. Most people are up to no good. He was driving a new, dark blue, Toyota Camry. When he arrived he unloaded a bunch of boxes. I didn’t see him later in the afternoon or evening.” Alexander went back to the chair and repositioned himself with his cup of tea. “Did someone murder her? Is her husband a suspect?” He began to look more excited than alarmed. Perhaps a death next door was an interesting distraction.
Reggie answered with irritation in his voice.“The cause of death is still unknown, sir.”
"Characters like people, make good or bad first impressions. When characters first show up in a story, we start to like them-or dislike them-right away."
To be entirely honest, my default thinking is always improvisational. However, I know that following instructions will make the process simpler and more successful.
October 7-
In both writing fiction and knitting you must choose to grow something from raw materials. My daughter taught me about making a swatch with my choice of yarn and practicing the stitch pattern I intend to use. I wasn't convinced at first. It seemed like unnecessary work. But when I made my first sweater I used a yarn made by Woolfolk called Luft which had a cotton core with Merino Wool blown around that core. Getting the right gauge was important if I wanted a garment that fit. And it did!
Here is what my daughter says about swatching. You can find her knitting helps at Victorious Wool. "I often see the advice that you will be saving time by being more precise in your preparations and won’t hit major problems if you swatch first, then knit. That’s always been the case in my experience. I think a bigger issue is that somehow our knitting community has a collective feeling that knitting is suppose to be easy and fun. That its a pleasure based experience and shouldn’t be frustrating or difficult. But you’re taking string and making it into a fabric while often shaping it to a body, expecting it to fit just so. That’s not a simple thing, made more complicated by the unique shapes of all of our bodies." So, how do we liken this to writing a novel? To me the swatch is like a character sketch; string made into fabric and characters made into a story. To write a sketch I had to think of a back story and motivational outline for the character's thoughts and actions. I was surprised how this exercise revealed things I had never considered. My favorite character sketch is the one I wrote for an object. The original music of a Franz Liszt Rhapsody was found by my character Judith in Budapest, Hungary. The autograph manuscript, as it is called, was a catalyst to the whole story. It was an object but nonetheless a character.
The Manuscript As a Character
The Hungarian Rhapsody No. 8 in F# minor 172 Years Old
Goal- An Autograph manuscript is very valuable because it holds information about how a composer truly intended their music to be played and felt, no editor marks or suggestions, just the original notation.
Physical Description- When Judith first finds the manuscript it has adhered to the back of a booklet of Chopin music. Judith protects it by putting it into an archival clear, plastic sleeve. It looked like a very old, yellowed piece of parchment, somewhat marked and soiled. Groups of blackish, brown musical notes ascended and turned back down on the musical staff. These were the notes of a master composer. Liszt’s handwriting leaned a slight bit to the right. His treble clef’s extended far below the last line of the staff. The eighth rests seemed to be more like a grace note in shape.
Habits/Mannerisms It was nicknamed Capriccio which is a name given music that has a lively, free form. The word is also used to describe a work of art that represents fantasy or a mixture of real or imagined features.
External Conflicts- The knowledge of the autograph manuscript sets in motion greed and jealousy in many of the characters in the book. It splinters Dominik and Judith’s marriage. The lack of honesty about the manuscript creates a desperate struggle to protect their own motivations and deep desires. These desires are in conflict and ultimately force both parties to lie and plot against each other.
My point is to let you know that we can carry over skills from previous projects and even bring along life skills from being mothers, husbands, teachers, students to help us accomplish our goals.
Day 6-
I have such a bad habit. I arrogantly believe that I can improve on someone else's instruction. Better yet, I sometimes discard the directions completely. I am moved to improvisation in all my learning pursuits. That's a bad thing. NO! Sometimes it's a good thing. I can improvise music on the piano. I've been improving on other people's compositions since I was eight years old.
But.......
In knitting, if you want to produce an object that looks exactly like the picture you have to follow the pattern.
"Oh dear, I only have 99 stitches on the needle and my pattern says I should have 110."
First Response:
"That's okay. I'll decrease by 11 stitches on the next row.
Better Response:
I'll take out the stitches until I have the correct amount.
TAKE OUT?
Now let's compare that to writing a novel.
I knew the story. It was all in my head. The first day I launched into chapter one. It wasn't until I was in chapter four that I realized I didn't know where I was going. Should I go back and outline my book?
GO BACK?
"An outline is the road map to your book. You wouldn’t think of driving anywhere without getting a list of all the roads and highways you need to take to get to your destination. The same is true with an outline for a book. A complete outline will be your road map to writing—and, more importantly, finishing—your book fast."
TCK Publishing
To be entirely honest, my default thinking is always improvisational. However, I know that following instructions will make the process simpler and more successful. Next Day
As the honeymoon wore off I found I needed to assess my commitment. When new stitch patterns turned out to be difficult would I lay them aside? When the words on my computer screen stopped coming would I shut the lid and quit?
It dawned on me that I had skills to bring to the table this time around.
I have learned to finish what I start after years of abandoning my plans when I lost interest.
I have learned to breathe through moments of screaming in frustration.
I have learned to ask for help and feel like a child again.
I have learned to feel grateful for small successes and celebrate in a large way.
I have learned that I don't need to be better than anyone else just willing to improve myself.
These are big skills and it took many years to grow them.
I will admit that I had crocheted before so holding yarn in my hand was not entirely new.
I have been writing, mostly blog posts, so writing is a skill I've been working on.
My point is to let you know that we can carry over skills from previous projects and even bring along life skills from being mothers, husbands, teachers, students to help us accomplish our goals.
Therefore,
Writing a novel is like learning to knit. Next Day
The cake of yarn came like this, slightly different hue, and I was so excited to see the gradient changes.
The Pattern I used was on U-Tube and I watched it so many times.
Since I'm comparing my knitting honeymoon to the writing of my first novel I'll share the idyllic first chapter of 'Rubato'.
I had such a juicy story idea and the first chapter seemed to write itself.
Chapter One
“Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.”
Franz Liszt
Judith sat at the piano in her music room, her curly hair ruffling around her face. The sun streaming in the window scattered dapples of light over the hardwood floor, bleeding on the thick rug under the piano. Scattered around her on the floor were sheets of typewritten pages, music scores, and in an archival see-through plastic sleeve the worn and carefully guarded fragment of the first 34 measures of The Rhapsody No.8 by Franz Liszt, the great Hungarian composer. She gently picked it off the floor and placed it on the music stand. This piece of manuscript was her secret treasure, brought from Europe, hidden among her music. The word mesto was written at the beginning of the piece. Sad and pensive was what she felt and obviously it was what Liszt wanted her to feel when she played the beginning. She brushed the plastic sleeve with her palm and allowed herself the great risk of taking it out of it’s protective environment. As she touched the delicate page she traced the word mesto with her finger tip. The ink was black, the notes boldly written with determination and fervor. The first strong notes cascaded up the octaves and culminated with ten repeated C sharps, all in a row. The sound of it in her head was rich with color and texture. It gave her the greatest joy to play the F Sharp minor section with it’s melancholy announcement and then shift into the sudden change of a major key. The minor section of this Rhapsody reflected her life presently and when the major section opened up to the rapid energetic notes, Judith hoped her life would change direction with the same positive intensity,
Judith knew there were autograph fragments of the rest of the Rhapsody in the Library Of Congress, Franz Liszt Collection, in Washington D.C. but no one knew she possessed the first page. Carefully, reverently, she put it back into the plastic sleeve. No one needed to know what she had in her possession, at least until she could verify her find with another scholar. It must most assuredly never again, come into his hands.
Today was a test. Jon walked down the cobblestone pathway towards his teacher’s house on the edge of the island. He was nervous, like butterflies playing volleyball in his belly. Lances of light blinded him as he tried to hop from stone to stone. He stopped to look at the saffron-yellow sunlight dancing on the water. Beautiful things always captured his attention. What would it be like to see the water all the time? His home was inland so he often forgot he lived on an island. He longed for a day of adventure but instead he was going to a weekly piano lesson with his mother. He liked his teacher, but she was moody. Last week she attacked his ability to read notes. It was true that he memorized his music easily. It was just faster using his ear than trying to figure out all the notes. The test today was whether she could tell if he had been practicing his sight reading exercises.
“Don’t bother coming back if you don’t seriously buckle down and learn to read music!” The sting of her words still made him uncomfortable. After the last lesson he told his mother he wanted to quit. She raised her eyebrows at him. She knew he loved playing too much to quit. So, Jon practiced all week, endlessly drilling with computer flash cards. It was working. Relationships between the lines and spaces started looking like patterns. He went from sight reading short lines to picking up the Waltz in A Minor. Judith would be amazed that he was playing Chopin.
Jon reached the front door and turned the knob. It was sticky and didn’t open right away. Every week he felt weird just walking in without knocking but that is how Judith liked it. His mother was right behind him.
“I don’t hear anyone playing. Let’s go through.” Then his mother stopped. “It sounds really quiet in here. I wonder where Judith is?”
Jon walked through to the music room and on the way touched the statue of Liszt on the table. The marble felt cold. His mother settled onto the couch. “Go ahead and warm up with your scales. She’ll be down in a few minutes.”
He approached the piano, fingering the Steinway ivory keys. This was the only piano he had ever played with real ivory. He wondered how many elephant tusks it took to make ivory key tops. Above the keyboard the ever present plate of black licorice next to the music stand tempted him. He tried a piece once when she wasn’t looking and hated the taste. She never really offered it to him; he just assumed it was for her students. Above the piano his eyes scanned the water off the bluff through the picture window. He wished suddenly that he could just go to the beach.
“You’ve worked really hard this week. Judith will be impressed,” his mother said.
“I know. I just want it over with.”
“But you are doing so well and I’m proud of you, no matter what she says.”
Jon opened his music and started playing. Judith’s Steinway piano had a “mellow tone”, or so his mother said. It made the minor chords softer, adding a dark color to the sound. Today Chopin’s notes seemed to reach the ceiling mysteriously and then float down mixing with the beams of light from the window. Jon lost his awareness of time. He played the waltz through again, letting his body sway to the motion of the music.
“Where can she be?” His mother interrupted his reverie. She began pacing around the room looking out the windows. The garage door was open and an older, gold Mercedes was visible inside. It was unusual for Judith to keep them waiting this long. She was a bit eccentric but not unreliable.
“Maybe she’s outside,” his mother said. Jon heard the door off the deck open and her loud footsteps matched the rhythm of the bass line in his music. She was calling Judith’s name.
Jon played the next piece faster, stumbling over the scales going up and then down.
His mother reappeared in the music room. “There is no sign of her in the yard. This is kind of bizarre. I’m going to look in the kitchen.”
“I don’t think…I don’t think she would want us looking around her house, Mom.” He called after her.
“Play that harmonic minor scale one more time and go up two octaves this time.”
Jon heard a door creak open and then shut with a loud bang.
“Mom? Are you snooping?”
His mother came back, this time with her cell phone in hand.
“I’m calling her number to see if it rings somewhere in the house.” Jon closed the lid of the piano. He felt like going home. Then they both heard the ringing of classical music very close by.
“It’s her phone under the piano.” Jon got on his knees and crawled towards the phone.
“Don’t touch it Jon! I have a funny feeling about this.”
“What…, what do you mean, Mom?” His head came up too soon and it hit the frame of the piano. “Ouch!” He crawled out, rubbing his head.
“She must be here somewhere. I’m going upstairs to the bedrooms.” His mother moved towards the staircase.
“No! Mom, let’s just go home.” Jon followed his mother.
She mounted the stairs tentatively but determined to solve the mystery. Jon waited at the bottom. When his mother disappeared down the hall, the strange feeling he felt earlier started a slow boil in the pit of his stomach making him feel sick.
“Judith?” His mother’s voice faltered. He heard her come back and from the top of the stairs she looked down at him with a look of shock. “Jon, something is wrong. Stay downstairs. I’m calling the police.”
So, by now you are wondering how long the honeymoon lasted?
No long enough.
Tomorrow I write about the skills I brought to the table and the skills that were missing.
