Knitting - the abcedaria of a writer

Knitting! Who are you kidding! She's going to talk about knitting and make it have something to do with writing?
What about your attitude?
Get your bums in seats
and listen with compassion

while I discipline
you on the elegance
of knitting, my friends,
and how a generous
spirit will see, heck
yes, that with a little imagination
and putting all jealousy
aside - you can compare writing to knitting.

Whew! I'll never be able to do that again, so I hope you noticed!

I've been knitting for much less time than I've been writing. I've been writing since I was a young sprout and while I learned to knit in Girl Scouts, from my mother, it didn't take until about six years ago. Now, I'm not a brilliant knitter - mostly hats and scarves - but occasionally I'll break out and try something different. While I was on my writing retreat, a few weeks ago, I took along a lace scarf I was attempting. Most of my knitting I can do while I watch television but not this thing. No, this was like writing a sonnet! You had to count and pay attention for every stitch.  I finished it a couple of days ago and it is a thing of beauty. No one will ever know how beautiful it is to me, except another knitter AND that is one way writing is like knitting.

1. Writing appears easy to those who don't write - so does knitting.

You work your head off on those projects that are most complicated - things that are tied to a certain time period, or with complicated plots, or with a certain style that requires each word to be very carefully considered.  Or, you're learning to write, and you really have to pay attention and it makes your head hurt and you want to go back to something easier - say your job as an air traffic control person. Like I'd like to go back to knitting easy hats that allow me to still watch television while the needles fly. Only, I don't. I want another HARDER lace project, or I want to learn how to knit socks (hard for me).  And even though I've now written three books start to finish - I have plans for a much more complicated one - one that is even harder to write than those last ones. Because I like the challenge, I like the feeling of having my writing muscles get stronger.

2. Getting better at writing means you can do more complicated pieces just like knitting.

When knitting a big piece, like a sweater, it is sometimes hard to realize that it'll ever come together and be a useful garment. But it will. I've knit a few sweaters and while they weren't complicated designs they took a long time and it would freak me out that I was spending lots of time doing something that might not work. Then suddenly I got to this place where I saw it was going to work - some magic point where I got that I was actually going to knit something that I could wear with pride. Writing a novel is similar. Big and scary and out of control and the only way to learn to do it is to do it.

3. Big writing projects, like a novel or a play, seem unwieldy and terrifying until you get a certain amount done - then you realize you can do this thing; just like knitting a sweater!

I could go on but I'm not going to. Why? Because I'm starting another big scary knitting project. I'm addicted to big projects that seem beyond my grasp. I'm a knitting writing warrior queen!

How about you?