Turning Stash to Treasure

When I wrote HOOKED ON MURDER I didn't know what a stash was let alone have one.  To those not in the know stash refers to a supply of yarn.  By the time I wrote HOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING I had an overwhelming stash of yarn.  It had taken a long time to realize that it took a lot less time to buy yarn than to make something out of it.  And it was dangerous to walk across the room the yarn had taken over.  So many things to catch my foot on.

I began going through the yarn I had and following the idea of the Marie Kondo method started to give away the yarn that didn't bring me joy.  I brought bags to my knit and crochet group and gave some charity.  I also looked for ways to use up the yarn  kept.   I knitted wash clothes, started cowls I could work on in the car (when I was a passenger, of course).  But the project that I like making the best are granny square afghans.  For me it is all about mixing the colors and textures.  I like to separate the colors with black yarn which it turns out I have a really lot of.

I included the actual pattern for them colorful blankets in ON THE HOOK.  As I was looking at the

ones I've finished, I noticed  they reminded me of the seasons.

Winter

Spring

Summer

Fall

They are easy and relaxing to make and best of all are turning my stash into something useful.

Life's Plot Points

Have you ever thought about the plot points in your life? Some happening, possibly small that forever changed your life. Maybe its because I’m going to Vegas soon, but I started thinking of how an innocuous decision I made some years ago on a trip there that forever changed my life.

I was basically wandering around aimlessly when I went to the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace. For anyone unfamiliar, it an indoor area of stores that looks like it’s outside. The ceiling even looks like the sky and dims to twilight and then brightens again. The ground give the illusion of being cobblestone. The stores are mostly high end designer and my wandering was not about shopping.

By chance I went into the FAO Schwartz toy store. It wasn’t as if I was looking for a gift or anything. I had no destination in mind and simply rode up the escalator. To get to the escalator to the next level required walking across the second floor. And then by chance I happened to look to the side and saw the kids’ crochet granny square kit.

If I hadn’t gone in that store and decided to go to the top floor, I would not have seen that kit or probably ever known about it. Though I’d had an interest in learning how to make granny squares for a long time, it wasn’t even close to uppermost in my mind. In fact it wasn’t on my mind at all. What I’m saying is that if I hadn’t gone into the store and seen the little blue suitcase, it’s not like I would have come across it somewhere else.

But that kids’ kit changed my life. I bought it of course and once I used it and learned how to make a granny square, the crochet world opened to me. Because of that kit, I thought I could figure out how to crochet all different sorts of things. And somewhere in the mix I got the idea of mixing mystery with crochet.

What if I’d gone across the street to the Venetian hotel instead. They have a fake indoor street of shops, too. Actually even nicer as there is a canal running through it. Or if I hadn’t been alone, I might not have gone in a toy store.

I am going through the first pass pages of the thirteenth Crochet Mystery HOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING. It is crazy to think that but for that random stop in a toy store, the whole series would never have happened.

A Correction.  I'm afraid I read an email too fast and thought that Amazon's special $l.99 promotion for ON THE HOOK

was June 25, but it's actually July 25.  You can see how the mistake could happen.  Both months start with JU and have four letters.

Still Learning

It figures, it’s the first day of summer and jacket weather in Chicago.  I’m not complaining.  It was a millions times better than the awful heat a few days ago.  I stayed inside with everything closed up trying to keep what little bit of cool was inside.  By the time the heat broke, it was 89 degrees in my living room and that was with one air conditioner pumping in cool air from the back of the apartment along with numerous fans.

When the sky is this gloomy and I need to turn on lights during the day, it is hard to judge the time.  It’s like the whole day looks the same until it fades to night.

Somebody said it on facebook -- writing is a sitting business.  I keep having to remind myself to get up every hour or so and walk up and down the long hall a few times as try to finish this rewrite.

I have finally developed a more casual relationship with my laptop.  I no longer have to work with it plugged in which means I’m mobile. It finally got through to me that the battery works for a long time.  Nor do I have to have it sitting on a table, in my lap is just fine.  I also stopped treating it like it was so fragile.  I just leave it where I leave it without too much concern. This morning I had a thought about something I wrote last night and all I had to do was grab my MacBook off the couch where I left it, sign in and my manuscript was in front of me.

I’m still not happy with the way Mac shows files but I’ve mostly made friends with Word for Mac.  Whenever I find myself grumbling, I think back to carbon paper, and typewriter erasers that tore the paper.  Even when I had an electric typewriter and used correction tape and Liquid Paper it was a pain.   One small correction could mean pages of retyping.  Now I can try on sentences like clothes in a store dressing room.  If I don’t like it, I don’t have to keep it.

The big news is that Amazon is running a one day promotion on June 25, offering the Kindle edition of ON THE HOOK for $1.99.