4 More Ways That Knitting Is Like Writing

bc obviously u didn't get enough the first time

1.  Surprise patterns

If you’re knitting with multiple colors, there will probably come a time where you mess up (it’s difficult to juggle multiple strings without a mistake or two), and sometimes it takes a while for you to figure it out.  Sometimes that results in surprise patterns, which can be surprisingly beautiful and make you decide to change the direction of your current project, or can be horrifyingly ugly and make you want to burn everything everywhere forever.

Writing a book is the same; in the course of writing your story, you’ll find things happening that you didn’t expect.  New plot complications will arrive, new side stories will unravel, new characters will reveal themselves from betwixt the luminous petaled asscheeks of a flower man; sometimes these little things will add up to make great new structures within your novel that you never expected and cherish all the more for it!  Other times it’ll take you down the windy road to tangent city, and you’ll need to take a bulldozer to the mountain pass.  

2.  You usually want a tight knit, sometimes tighter than others

When you knit a blanket or scarf or what-have-you, you want the knit to be tight, to keep the water or snow or just general elements out, to keep body-heat in, and to keep the thing from falling apart.  Sometimes the knit needs to be tighter than others, depending on what you’re making and for what kind of weather it was made for.  You wouldn’t want to be caught in a snowstorm with a summer t-shirt!  

Likewise, the weave of your story needs to be tight, to prevent plot from spilling out or characters being inappropriately exposed.  When you read a story, the flow should appear seamless, as if every last word is inextricable, and to remove a single one would be like removing a keystone from a jenga tower.  

Sometimes, depending on your genre and tone, the knit can be a little more breathable than others--to pull from television, no one asks why Bugs Bunny can pull a carrot from nowhere, or how Brian Griffin could possibly have a human son older than he is, because it’s just accepted that that’s how that world works; once the structure is set up, you can safely function within those parameters.

You also need to beware of going too tight, leaving yourself no leeway with which to make the next stitch.  You need to leave yourself room to breathe, or you’ll inevitably reach an impasse and have to go back.

3.  Pattern or no--everyone has a way to get the job done

Some people can only work with a pattern; some people absolutely CANNOT work with a pattern; and some people bounce between the two, or go half-and-half.  

But whether you start out with an outline, or just go by the seat of your pants, in knitting or writing, all that matters is that you get it done.  Whatever gets you there best, that’s the way you take the journey.  

4.  It may turn into something else, and that’s okay

Sometimes a scarf becomes a shirt; sometimes a dress becomes a blanket, or a blanket becomes a snuggie.

Sometimes you start out with a novel, and end up with a screenplay, or a podcast, or a musical, or a webcomic, or an experimental new artform that can’t quite be described.  

And that’s fine.  No, in fact, it’s better than fine, it’s GREAT!  Some of the best plot twists and turns come about organically, or else blindside you while you’re taking a nap, the same way that some of the best patterns you develop in your knitting could be the result of a screw-up; the failure of one project can be the success of another.

Follow new leads; let them take you where they want, and don’t be afraid to explore alternative routes.  Sometimes you need to take the mega super highway, but other times the scenic backroute, while longer, is just better.  Even if you do fall into a couple bear traps on the way.

Story or tapestry, you’ll be happy you took the risk.

Things I Learned Making My First Two Podcasts

1.  Websites are dicks

     Before I put up my podcast I tried to make a website, and I bought a one dollar domain from GoDaddy, because I'm a broke idiot with stars in my eyes who didn't realize that you had to pay extra money to attach that domain to a website, and since I have no steady income right now I basically can't use my own domain.  Lesson learned.

2.  No one cares

     As with any project placed into the public realm, it's an uphill battle to get anyone besides yourself to care.  My first podcast sat for an entire month before anyone deigned to listen to it once, and I didn't honestly expect much different--my writing persona is relatively new and no one is going to be as interested in your work as you are, at least not for a long time.  Sometimes you're an overnight hit, but much much more often, it'll take a lot of work to get yourself off the ground.
     (But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.  You just have to push harder.)

3.  You'll put in more hours than you'll get out

     I knew this going into it, of course, but I didn't realize quite how much time would go into it.  I figured I might have to spend two hours on a half hour episode, and I was wrong; between writing and rewriting the script, rehearsing and recording it, and editing it all together, I'm fairly certain I put somewhere between seven and fifteen hours into that first episode.  The second episode took me nearly ten hours, and it was only seven minutes long!
     The time you put into it will increase the quality, of course--if I didn't want to put in the time, I wouldn't have started the podcast in the first place.

4.  There's no need to be afraid to show your kith and kin

     In general, I feel better about sharing things I care about with strangers than with people I know.  Part of this is because, yes, I know, consciously, that we are allowed to ask for attention, but I grew up in a society (and environment) where it was frowned upon, and it's a lesson I've internalized very deeply, so I try not to talk too much about what I'm working on except in passing.
     Another part is that disapproval from people you care about hurts more than it does from strangers.  And, the biggest deterrent for me, I grew up in a small mostly-white farm town in upstate New York, which means I know a lot of conservatives, which, if you've spent a lot of time on my blog (or any time on my twitter), you know I'm not.  By a long shot.  To that end, I write a lot of not-conservative things, with a lot of liberal themes and characters.
     My mother's family is also extremely religious, so they frown on things like cursing, which I do often, both as a matter of neurology and as a conscious mood/character choice.  To that end, I'm often reluctant to share anything I write with them.
     But in order to show the podcast to one of my friends who wanted to listen to it (and who co-starred in the most recent episode), I had to post it on facebook, where all of those fears were just waiting to come screaming up to devour me!  ... and didn't.  Actually, I got a pretty positive response from my friends, both the ones I've made out here and the ones I left back home.  It's really nice to know that my efforts are appreciated, and no one's said anything negative at all.  Just goes to show that sometimes people can surprise you for the better!

5.  My voice is higher than I thought

     This makes sense, since I'm hearing my own voice as it sounds echoing inside my skull, but it's still jarring, and since my MC is supposed to have a deeper, more gruff voice, I have to keep that in mind whenever I record.  It helps to listen to do a test recording or listen to each take once its finished to remind myself that I need to go higher/lower.
     Basically, as a general tip when listening to yourself in recording, be prepared for your voice to sound different from the way it usually is.

6.  Screwing around with Audacity is sometimes the best way to get stuff done

     Honestly, sometimes tutorials won't give you what you need.  I found a number of tutorials for creating a robot voice effect when I went looking for it, and none of it worked--they all sounded like robots, to be sure, but they weren't clear enough, and I wanted the character to be well-understood, and also to retain some of the flavor of her voice--not too robotic, in other words, just robotic enough.  So I had to mess around with things until I did, and it turned out great!
     Never be afraid to mess with your equipment--just make sure you save the pre-editted version, just in case.

And that's some of the stuff I've learned podcasting so far!  It's an adventure.