Inspiration

The Write Life
Inspiration can come from the strangest places. Writing wise it can come from things like books short stories, poems, magazine articles, newspaper articles, pictures etc. Some of my strange sources of inspiration have been from things like video games. I admit I like play simulation games like the Sims, Virtual Villagers, Civilization III, etc.

Just yesterday after trying a demo of Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers on my iPod iTouch. Okay summary of the beginning is necessary. One of your little villagers has found a unfamiliar mask on a forbidden path (got to love those f words forbidden even unfamiliar) so the chief sends 5 people to explore the path. Your people get captured by heathens. So one goal is to convert the heathens to believe in the guiding hand (you). But I thought what if they get captured for something else. Maybe the heathens are getting old and dying off maybe they need new blood to reproduce? That's what it inspired me to think.  Well that and another idea I have. But I still have to get some more inspiration before I can even outline that idea. I don't think it's quite ready yet.

On and Off the needles
Still working on niece's poncho. I hope the weather stays warm for her for awhile. the poncho seems to be a bit slow going. maybe I should find something else to work on to relieve the boredom of stockinet stitches.

Behind the Wheel
Finally spun up the Kool Aid dyed wool. It is a bit faded but still looks pretty great.

In the Dyepot
During some rain we had about 2 weeks ago I had an idea for dye job. First all green and then some drops of blue and purple like rain on evergreens. Though might require me to spin, knit stockinet stitch like those things of sock yarn (which I am doing with some white wool, might need to spin some more up for this idea) then dye it up. Hopefully this sunny warm weather will continue so I can try and do it this week before fall actually sets in.

Editing

On and Off the Needles

I am still working on my niece's poncho, knitting the edging. I need to start working on the main part sometime soon. 

Some grey and aqua wool spun and plied together. 

Behind the wheel

I have been busy spinning some last few weeks. spun and plied the gray and aqua. just love the look. the silver shines and the aqua looks like a pond. also plied the blue and green, wool and silk. need to take a picture of that. now I am spinning the greens that I plan to use on my nieces poncho as mentioned above.

The Write Life

August and Camp NaNoWriMo are almost over and I am trying to catch up to the word count now. Also checked out Self Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King. I probably should have checked it out later because it has caused me to delete a few words. No more spitting and growling lines for my characters. 

But I am using exercises from Writer's Digest to try and get my word count up, along with adding scenes and description.

September I am going to be taking a break from writing. October is going to be outlining for November's Nanowrimo and maybe editing then.

Crossing the Finishing Line and Second Wind

The Write Life
Well Camp NaNoWriMo is over with for the year. Yesterday I had a number of ideas with long outlines hopefully good indicators that when written out that it would give me a lot of words. I had something like 5000 words to get to the 50000. And instead of posting my word count every few hundred words I decided to do it when I passed the various thousand letter marks, 47k, 48k, 49k and then the victorious 50000 words I copied the words and then pasted it in for verification.

Though truth be told about 6 minutes to midnight I was almost at 49k so I simply copied and pasted over a thousand of the previous words and put it in for verification. Yes I know that was cheating but I was pretty sure what I had in mind would fill in when I cut out the copy.

The other night I watched a movie my little sister had recommended to me, Lost in Austen. Girl of our time finds an entrance to the Bennett's house in Regency England. And do not ask me who are the Bennets. Alright I will refresh your memory, they are the family father, mother and five sisters in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I love how the writer L. Hamre looks at what might make some of the characters tick, explaining their behavior.