I feel like I'm back in college!

I did it, but it just about killed me. I spent the past week whipping the book into shape. I didn't eat much, I didn't get dressed in the morning (except on the days when I absolutely had to because I wasn't quite at the point of dropping the kids off for school in my pj's), and towards the end I couldn't really hold up my end of a coherent conversation, but the first draft is off to the tech editors and proofers. Whew! What a job!

The nice thing is that it seemed to kind of take on a life of its own. Once I got past a certain point, it just kind of happened (and took me along for the ride). I still have a boat-load of work to do, but it's looking more and more like it could happen before Sock Summit. Yay!

I had several mini-freakouts this week. In addition to having the deadline of getting the book off to the editors so they had a reasonable amount of time to look at it before the book designer needs it, I had a huge order to ship out, a bunch of patterns to tweak slightly before I could ship said order, a sock design that's due at the end of the month and a birthday party to throw that involved hosting a dozen squealing five and six-year-old girls. Add to that the fact that I'd been completely neglecting the house in favor of the book and so needed to do some major cleaning before having a bunch of kids over (and then, of course, having to clean again after they all left), and I was in meltdown city around Thursday. I managed to survive (I always seem to time my meltdowns for the peak and then everything resolves itself less painfully than I'd imagined), and now I'm looking forward to a relatively relaxing week before things start to get crazy again.

Speaking of Sock Summit, have you seen the teacher list? I've resigned myself to working that weekend but boy would I like to be able to just take a bunch of classes. I'm pretty psyched that I made that list, though - I just hope that there are a few people out there who want to take my classes! I mean, I'm no Barbara Walker or Meg Swanson (or Anna Zilbourg, or Lucy Neatby, or Cat Bordhi, or Priscilla Gibson-Roberts...) but somehow I managed to fool somebody somewhere into thinking I might have something to add to the mix. If you're reading this and coming to Sock Summit, please take my class! Pretty please? I'll be your BFF!

Finding my name on a list with such august company makes me flail with total insecurity (what the heck are they thinking? I can't ever hope to compare to such greatness!), which is how I've been feeling about my book as well. I really, really hope that someone will buy it once I have it printed. It's such a huge leap of faith. People buy my patterns, sure, but there are so many great sock books out there (and more are flooding the market every day). Am I crazy to be putting out a surplus good in a bad economy? Of course, those other sock books won't have my designs in them, so I'm hoping that counts for something. But then I wonder who in the heck I think I am to think that people will buy a book for my designs (the book will have plenty of stuff in it besides designs, but I can't be sure that it's stuff that isn't concurrently being written about by someone else whose book will come out two months before mine...). Am I completely crazy? At least I know my mom will buy one (but I doubt she wants to pay $20k for it, so I'll have to sell a few to other people as well...). Does everyone feel this way before a book they've written comes out?

Now that I've totally revealed the depths of my insecurities, I wanted to mention something funny but totally unrelated to knitting. We've been watching Weeds on DVD and quickly realized during the first episode that the made-up suburb of Agrestic is actually the community that we lived in right before we moved to Oregon from So. Cal. It's a riot trying to spot places we recognize (like the park that I used to take Sydney to all the time when she was a baby, and the little shopping center that was down the hill from us). We keep trying to spot our house, but everything looks so similar that we can't always tell if it's our street or not. When we were driving to San Diego for TNNA we actually drove through the neighborhood and almost missed our house because the street looked so homogeneous. Boy do I not miss the suburbs!

Am I procrastinating?

Of course! But I'm still not going to tell you about the Addi Clicks. Yesterday my life was changed - I still don't know if it's for the better or for the worse - by a little lunchtime field trip instigated by my husband. My brother-in-law was home from work yesterday and we headed over to his house to play a couple quick games of Rock Band. It's here that I discovered that I've missed my calling, and I really should be a drummer in a band. But definitely NOT a lead singer.

We were just going to go for 45 minutes or so, but before we knew it, it was 2:30 and time to pick up the kids. Talk about crazy addicting. I'm not a big video game person but I could play this one 24/7. Even though we're still on our spartan spend-nothing plan for the next few months, I'm trying to figure out how we can justify buying our own version. It's amazingly fun! If you get a chance to try it, do (or don't, depending on whether or not you want a new obsession in your life). I have decided, however, that I need to wait until the book is at the designer before we bring that monster into our house...

Knitterly Utopia

So I've been fortunate enough to spend the last week in the intense company of some incredible knitters. Yes, folks, it was Cat Bordhi's Visionary Retreat and once again it was an amazing week. The difference this time is that I think I'm finally going to get a book out of it. I am officially drawing a line in the sand, and that line is that my book will be back from the printer to make its debut at Sock Summit in August.

I met with my book designer for an hour on Monday, and I thought it was promising that he didn't laugh at me when I told him my lofty goal. He was quite helpful in drawing up a plan with me that will enable my boxes of books to be in my dining room by early August. Now I've got some work to do...

I'd been procrastinating on the book project most of the fall, and it was really surprising to me when I sat down to look at everything I've done. I've still got plenty to do but for the most part, I've got a book! It's sort of shocking. My to-do list is drafted, my test knitters and proofreaders have been warned to expect a flurry of activity over the next month, and most importantly, I feel like I'm finally mentally prepared to git 'er done.

Of course, as soon as I say that I have to admit that I haven't done any writing today. Instead a purchased a block of ISBN numbers, registered the fictitious business name statement for my publishing company (Sydwillow Press), rented a PO box and sent a skein of Blue Moon Seduction off to my patient sample knitter for one of the remaining designs. One of the issues keeping me from book work is this pesky pattern business I'm trying to run! I've got two projects that needed my post-editing review, a couple orders to ship out and some other miscellaneous busywork. In fact, I should be getting that second pattern reviewed instead of blogging...

I know I promised a review of the Addi Clicks, but that's going to have to wait until next time. I've got a book to finish, folks!

Quickly, quickly...

Just a brief post tonight so as not to leave you all feeling too darn neglected (I know I have a tendency to do that)... I'm busily getting ready to head off to Cat Bordhi's self-publishing retreat (the party van leaves bright and early tomorrow morning, destination northern Washington) and thought I'd better check in before I leave.

I've managed to get all my post-TNNA work done, for the most part. Patterns have shipped and now various design obligations are being slowly knocked out. I've totally become a list fanatic recently in an effort to actually get done what needs to be done (rather than just what I feel like doing). The huge list of tasks that I made for myself after I got back from San Diego has been whittled down to just a few of the less urgent items (such as making up a design calendar for myself and putting together an "exclusive design" program for shops who want to pay a little more to get a design all to themselves for 6-12 months). I'm also working to get my patterns up on Patternfish (they're not all there yet because Julia, the PF mastermind, writes up such delightful descriptions of each pattern so she can't knock off two dozen in an afternoon).

One of the balancing acts I'm currently struggling with is the whole issue of electronic availability of patterns. I keep saying that I'm not going to add any more pdf vendors, but then another great one comes along and talks me into it. I worry that adding a new vendor is going to take sales away from my existing vendors, but when I look at the sales figures objectively I can't tell that that's actually happening. The sales are really all over the place for all of my online vendors. It's hard to say how many of those customers are going to a vendor's website from my retailer page (I know some of them are because I get e-mails from people looking to buy a certain pattern who don't have a shop near them), and how many are stumbling across my patterns while browsing the retailer's site with no relation to my website or advertising whatsoever. It's so hard to say, and so for now, I've decided to take the attitude of plenty rather than scarcity with my pdf vendors (as in, there are plenty of customers to go around, so I don't need to worry myself sick about taking sales from one vendor when I add another).

These are the exciting things I think about while I'm knitting, now that I don't have television to keep my brain occupied.

Speaking of television, our one-month experiment with no cable has gone swimmingly. I'm able to get so much more done! It's hard for me to sit down and knit without the tv to keep me company, but I just need to get into the habit of loading up my ipod with podcasts or turning on NPR. Tonight, for example, instead of plunking down in front of the television for the evening I instead cooked beans, baked bread, made an apple cake and tray of brownies (I'm bringing goodies for dinner tomorrow night up at the lodge), printed up a pattern order to send off, and read Sydney the second half of Bella the Bunny Fairy before Bill put the kids to bed. I also got all my retreat stuff packed up, including a bunch of kitchen stuff so I can take my food obsession on the road with me. I'm not going too crazy, but I am making quinoa chili for everyone for dinner tomorrow night and I'm bringing some popcorn and coconut oil to cook up for snacking. I've become completely enamored of popcorn cooked on the stovetop in coconut oil. It's a great arm workout!

The end of January also concluded our month of not spending on anything but necessities. All in all, we pretty much stuck to our budget (well, I was $200 over on food, but Bill's theory is that I set the original amount unattainably low). What's really surprising is when you keep track of everything and think that you're cutting way, way back, when you add it all up at the end of the month you realize that cutting way, way back means you get pretty close to your budget (as in, close but definitely not under). It makes me wonder how far we've been blowing our budget out of the water when we don't keep track. I know it kind of defeats the purpose of having a budget when you don't track it, but that's a topic for another day.

Today I went to Target to pick up a few things and was surprised at how difficult it is to control myself in that place, even after training myself for a month. I did pretty well (I escaped under $75, which is almost unheard of for me), but I still didn't turn around and walk out the door when I discovered that the pot I went there to buy was more expensive than I'd hoped. Ironically, if I would've just ponied up for the stupid pot and left, I would've gotten out of there for less than what I ended up spending. Instead I bought some Pyrex baking dishes that I've been wanting, a natural-bristle pot scrubber for our cast-iron, a birthday present for an upcoming party and some art supplies that Sydney has been asking for. I resisted buying the $7.99 waffle iron, the $15 knife sharpener, the Hello Kitty rain boots, the electronic version of Trivial Pursuit, the soft-sided cooler, the new coffee grinder and about a gajillion other things that I momentarily thought I "needed". All in all, I think my tightwaddery has been a success.

Now I'm off to clean up the kitchen (wouldn't want to leave a mess of dirty bowls in the sink for Bill to deal with, especially since I'm not leaving him the good stuff to eat while I'm gone!) and finish the last bits of packing. Next time I promise to finally get around to a review of my new Addi Click set - but I'll leave you with one hint: even Bill thinks it's cool! Have a great week!