The Stripey Afghan

I had a lot of yarn left over from the hexagon afghan. It’s now going into the stripey afghan which is due to be about a third stripes and two thirds the charcoal gray I love so much. But I’m ending up with a lot more stripes than I thought I’d have, so I’m now just striving for having it not equally stripes and charcoal gray. But I really love it. This may be the best batch of color picking I’ve ever done. Anyway, for those of you playing along at home, it’s just a basket weave made with a single crochet and a chain with the single crochet the other way going where the chain is. It lets you end up, when you’re using a hook this big, with a fairly solid blanket with a really nice drape and some give to it. It’s super easy and looks fantastic.

Snow and Thoughts

The snow blew the dog’s mind this morning. He kept putting his whole face in it and I could tell he kind of wanted to roll around in it but wasn’t sure how that would go. He kept looking back at me like “Is this really real?”

Then he got himself stuck on the porch, so it wasn’t his most shining moment. But it was still, for him, obviously, pretty cool.

I know you guys don’t really care why I’d move on to another novel without having sold either of my other two. First, if only for one reason–my writing has taken a dramatic leap forward in many ways from novel-writing. Two, though I would read a book like the Ben & Sue book and love it as it is right now, clearly it needs something more/else that I’m not in a position to identify.

If I have a book that works, that someone wants, maybe that someone will feel compelled to help me figure out how to make the Ben & Sue project cross the finish line.

Or maybe not.

The truth is that I don’t know. And I’ve talked to a lot of writers and no one knows. There isn’t a path. You don’t do x,y, and then z in order to make “being a writer” happen. Even if a bunch of people all look like they’re doing or have done x,y, and z, the other things they did that didn’t work but that they still needed to do in order to do the things that look like a “typical” writing career aren’t visible.

Plus, I can’t really move forward on the Nashvillains book until I’ve reckoned with how much Isaac Franklin bothers me.