Snow, Sweaters, and "Failure"

I'll admit it.  I gracefully dropped out of NaNo a few days ago at 21k words.  I just really wasn't feeling the story at all, and there's no shame in realizing that.  Is there a part of me that wishes that this wasn't my first non-win?  Of course.  But as I didn't enjoy writing this story most of the time, pushing through to 50k would have just been a waste of my mental energy, which I've been lacking in lately anyway.

It's December, which marks the third round of Nerd Wars on Ravelry.  I don't know if I've posted about it before.  One of the challenges this round is to finish a WIP.  So I'm digging out my "Obnoxious Christmas Sweater".  The sweater I've only got a front finished on.  Hey, I've seen people start and finish sweaters within a month, so I'm going for it.  Back and sleeves.  I want to get it done in time to wear for Christmas, but I'll be happy with just finishing it.

 What do you think?  I love it, which is why I want it done.

We've also just had the first snow of the year.  A piddly little dusting overnight that barely did anything and melted by noon.  But still, first snow of the year baby!  I'm ready for snow and cold for some reason.  I'm tired of it bouncing around between 60 and 40, I'm tired of rain, and I just love snow.

So happy December everyone!  Only 25 days until Christmas.

It's that December time of year!

Let there be snow

We've got our first real snowfall out of the way. Nature had great timing this year. It started snowing on December 1. How's that for awesome? It didn't really accumulate until a few days later (ground too warm I bet) and now it's wonderfully snowy when I look out the window. The video clip I linked to is how I've been feeling the last few days (when I'm not sniffling, darn head cold...). It's from an old Christmas movie called "Frosty Returns", which has pretty much nothing in common with the original Frosty movie, but the song tends to get stuck in my head from time to time. :P

If you've seen the counter on the right side column, you'll see I beat NaNo once again! I'm quite impressed with myself this year. I wrote more than half of it by hand, though that took me until pretty much the beginning of week 4. And when I realized that I'd need to rush like crazy? I managed like 20k over the course of 4 days. Including the last day where I wrote over 7k! Can't you believe that? I still can't. I've still got a bit of story to go of course, which means I'll have to find some energy to actually pound out a conclusion. I want that free proof copy this year.

Only downside to hitting December is that it means I really need to start focusing on any Christmas knitting I want to get done. I have one item that I have to get done because the recipient knows about it. This person is rather picky, so it was just safer to ask about colors and patterns. Of course, that was months ago and there's not a lot that's been done on it since then. Thank goodness it's technically being worked on by two people, but I've done the most. Then again, the amount of work done total is rather pitiful so I guess it doesn't count. Other than that, I'm probably going to stick with small things for everyone. My hands actually still ache a bit from my 20k sprint, not to mention like 3 weeks of writing with a pen when I'm so not used to that.

I've also decided to start an "Obnoxious Christmas Sweater" for myself. There's been a few threads on Ravelry that were talking about them, and I just couldn't get it out of my head. I'm not going to stress about finishing it in time, but it would be cool to wear the thing to Christmas breakfast with the family. I'm not following a pattern, just basing it off a store bought sweater I love.