Not in cyberspace yet

My third knitting project, a pair of slippers made from Patons Canadiana yarn. I have enough yarn left to add cuffs, but for now I'm turning to other knitting projects.


Tendril is lost in the ether. At the end of NaNoWriMo 2003, having written Tendril Through Cyberspace, I was befuddled by my ignorance with respect to internet technology and sociology. The work couldn't proceed without considerable research. Two years later I've made little progress.

This fall I read three cyberpunk novels I didn't like, and now a fourth, Gibson's Pattern Recognition, which I'm enjoying immensely. But even though Gibson didn't start as a computer geek, he obvisouly educated himself. No way could I write a novel so savvy, not yet.

I'm growing impatient with searching, waiting. My creative steed is bracing at the bit, but my brain throws up its hands in dismay, saying "I don't know how to ride." After hours spent carefully crafting chapter one, I have only a few hundred overwrought words to show.

I need to buy my bewildered brain a ticket to Arizona. While it's away, I shall set raw, instinctive creativity loose. I'll open one fresh notebook to an empty page and apply my pen to the method practised for years, turning it to a larger endeavour, trusting this small cloud of ideas to evolve into a thunderstorm.

This is what I'm telling myself.