The Magical Knowledge of Knitters

Yesterday I attended a crafting afternoon I'd been invited to, even though I am not a crafter. Not sure what I would do with myself for several hours among strangers (though one person who would be there I've known for years, and used to write-in with), I grabbed my old, original notebooks for my story, thinking I could at the very least spend some time rereading my old notes and such. The semi-dreaded event, because STRANGERS, turned into a heck of a lot of fun and very entertaining. Everyone else there is involved either as artists (milliner!) or actors/teachers of Scarborough Renaissance Fair, which I've never been to (but will now - I comped a freebie ticket to go with a solemn promise I would come next year). Through my friend who plays one of the characters there, I know a little bit about the training and devotion these people have. They were so much fun! And heck no, not interested in becoming involved - I have never wanted to act, thanks (and the TIME involved is outrageous, but they love it so), but it was fun to just listen to the stories, learn about quilting (I'm gonna!) and just...be with creative people, many of whom also write fiction(yay).

While one person worked on a costume, another worked on really cool microwave bowl holders (I want one now), others knitted. Watching one of my new acquaintances frog her entire piece of knitting because she found several errors, it truly struck me how casual she was about it. "Oh well! Happens!" Someone else stated that sometimes, you have to take a project to a certain point to realize the right path to take with it, then rip it apart and start it all over again. Her words hit me like getting struck with a case of lightbulbs.

Knitters are fearless, in other words. They know that a whole project scrapped is a bit of a pain, but only means better is to come next time. I watched not just this person, but two other people frog their work back to a certain point before continuing onward. Just part of knitting, I was told, and I had a sudden burst of envy for this attitude, then realized -- why not adopt it for myself?

And so I have. Rereading my old notebooks, all geared toward the YA I ended up merging with the big fantasy story, made me realize that it is possible I took that path for a reason -- and that it is also possible that I will be going back down that path again, armed with the new understanding of the behind-the-ya-scenes of what is happening in Aneli's world, but that I don't necessarily need to show it all. I needed to go through it, yes, I needed to knit all that information together, but to tell Aneli's story, as I had originally planned - and which I honestly, truly love -- I don't need to share everything I've written.

This doesn't mean I have deleted a thing. Instead, I made a new Scrivener, made a copy of the conjoined version, and removed everything but Aneli's storyline. I'm going to finish her storyline and then at that point decide -- keep her separate? Or go ahead and finish the other storylines and mesh together? Or, what I am feeling strongly is the right thing to do (for me), finish the other storylines for myself, sharing later perhaps on a Patreon.

Or at the very end I may decide hey to put them all back together again which is easily enough done! For now though I am excited to finish Aneli's storyline. Then we will see what happens!