...I am steadfastly ignoring the scarf. It's too short. End of story.

Instead, have this dream one of my NaNoWriMo characters just had:

( 1,494 words of dream, behind the cut. )

By the way, my novel so far? 10,124 words by the end of day 4, huzzah.

( Just the progress picture. )

Related post here.

( Scarf picture behind this cut. )

That's it. Not much to say today. Scarf, woo.

( Pictures and pattern link under here. )

In unrelated news, the yarn I have ordered from overseas, for the scarf, has arrived. I plan to find the best colour matches once I'm finished with the Mark I scarf.

Plugging away at my apparently half backwards scarf anyway, I'll figure out what to do with it when I get halfway. Leaning towards just continuing onwards, and trying to ignore that both the colours and the pattern are wrong.

( Image behind the cut. )

Rereading the pattern, and I come across this line: The following pattern starts at the bottom left and ends on the bottom right.

Guess where I started?

...

Top left.

Argh!

No photo today (scarf update: almost twice as long as the previous photo) but I have now ordered in a few recommended colours from overseas.

* Red - Nashua "Julia" (0178 - "Harvest Spice")
* Purple - Nashua "Julia" (4345 - "Coleus")
* Gray - Nashua "Julia" (0122 - "Steel Grey")
* Beige - Nashua "Creative Focus Superwash" (10 - "Taupe")
* Brown - Rowan "Pure Wool DK" (016)
* Green - Lion "Cotton Ease" (125 - "Hazelnut")
* Yellow - Patons "Classic Wool Merino" (00204 - "Old Gold")

I plan to find the best locally available matches, which I realise is just matching to colours that were matched to the scarf, so another step removed from the actual colours, but this lot - one ball of each - cost me nearly $150 including postage, so, yeah. I can sacrifice a little accuracy in this case.

Not so much with the writing lately, but I've been keeping busy. Learning new skills, taking up new hobbies, fun stuff like that.

For example, knitting.

( Pictures and such after the cut! )

A couple of progress report widgets... The first seems to update more than the others. (Posted as December 01 to keep them on top.)







(Lots of red now... Raised my goal to 60,000 after winning, thought I should update these widgets to reflect that.)

Now that November is over, I've rehosted the now static images to my photobucket, so they won't disappear when the NaNoWriMo site resets next year.

I have 50,000 words.

That is all.

I've uploaded a new avatar.

But, since I will probably change/delete it in future, here it is on my photobucket:

I hit 10,000 words by the deadline for that particular milestone, so I treated myself. I made a cover image!


(This is the small version, click to see a larger image!)

Sure enough, next morning, after a light breakfast, Hayley moved off to her study, and sat cross-legged on the floor, with the bag of books beside her. She settled in, then moved the bag over until it was in her lap, and started to rummage through it, looking for that one title the other mother had been after. 'The Princess and... and... What was that title?' she thought to herself, finding no less than three 'The Princes and' titled tales in her bag of strikingly similar children's books. 'Well, I guess I'll just have to read all three...' she mused to herself, plucking 'The Princess and the Golden Staircase' from the pile, because it looked shorter, and was on top. The first thing she read was the title, "The Princess, and the Golden Staircase." she said, grimacing at herself, thinking 'I sound weird, my baby girl is going to think I'm weird, why am I doing this again? It's weird and wrong and not right and not normal, and whyyy?' But, she took a moment, and shook herself, forcing a more confident tone, or trying to.

"The Princess and the Golden Staircase." she read, running her fingers along the title on the cover of the book, before opening it. The artwork was actually quite nice, clear and crisp, in pastel shades. There was the princess, in a beautifully flowing princess like kind of gown, of the palest purple, and long white gloves on her long slender hands, and dainty heeled slippers on her delicate feet, with a pretty little rose bud mouth, and wide blue eyes, and flowing locks of the finest blonde. Hayley grimaced, and ran her hand through her own mousy brown hair. Such unrealistic images! Pretty, though, oh so pretty. Hayley shook herself yet again, she just kept getting carried away and that just wouldn't do, but somehow she continued to read. "Once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a wise old king, and he had a beautiful wife, the most beautiful in all the land, to be his queen." Hayley grimaced at the wording, of course the king's wife would be the queen, what kind of story is this? Also, wise old king with a beautiful wife of child-bearing age? Robbing the cradle much? She shuddered, but continued, maybe the princess could redeem this story, though she rather doubted it, it was seeming less and less likely with every word she read.

"Where were we? Right. Once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a wise old king, and he had a beautiful wife, the most beautiful in all the land, to be his queen. Life was good for the king and queen, though quiet, and lonely, until the day that the stork..." she trailed off, and looked downwards. "Look, kid, there's no such thing as a stork that delivers babies, midwives deliver babies, doctors deliver babies, but storks... Storks do not deliver babies." the mother to be chuckled softly, then added, "I'll explain when you're older. Way way older. Like, a hundred and three." before turning her attention back to the book, "Alright. Yes. Life was good for the king and queen, though quiet, and lonely, until the day that the stork blessed them... blessed them? Oh, come on... Alright... Until the day that the stork blessed them with a beautiful baby girl, named Cressida Oriana Golden Soul? Gah, that's a stupid name, this is a stupid book, forget this!" she shook her head, closing the book with a decisive snap and stuffing it back into the bag. Cressida Oriana Golden Soul? Man, where do you even start with a name like that? Stupid book. She could write something better... Wait, she could write something better! That was a brilliant idea!

( More Nationstates crap... )

In other news, I saw Iron Man the other day and will say no more than this: I had my doubts going in, but, it was awesome.