Pausing midknit

Having set aside my socks for a priority item I am offering you today a breathless hello, and a cute autumnal jug:

This little beauty was waiting for me on the china table at my favourite twice-a-year rummage sale last weekend, and was my first choice of many! I went back later the same day and bought a pretty cake plate and seven china plates tipped with gold which almost matched it, and for which I had no use but a few ideas which proved fruitful. The cake plate now has a giftee lined up and the plates have already been used for birthday cake at another friend's house. 

I just love that rummage sale! I always find such treasures.

In the before and after, though, and especially the after, I have been writing both furiously and joyfully, trying to lock down the first draft of a novel I've been mulling for months and months. Historical suspense, kind of a departure for me, but so fun! And also, intense. I have been locked into the chair from which I am currently composing this Hug for about ten hours a day, barely drifting over to news sites or Netflix or even Instagram, and writing an average of 4,000 words before I crawl back to bed at night. That's quite fast for fiction writing in general, but to do that for days at a time is what I would consider a breakneck pace.

I am reminded of that old saw about a marathon runner talking to a top five finalist in the same race:

Runner A: How can you run a whole marathon in 2 hours?

Runner B: How can you run for 5 hours?

I mean, if I'm going to write this thing at last, I might as well get all of it out into a draft before I forget the little threads and bits of dialogue I keep coming up with overnight.

Pausing to show you another dish I found at the sale.

 

Isn't it gorgeous? It's for the same friend who's getting the cake plate, and I trust she'll find something perfect to do with both of them. As for me, I got that jug home and had no clue how to use it. It's too big for gravy and too small for milk or lemonade. Finally I realized it's perfect for filling with cooled leftover water from my kettle, freshly dechlorinated to please my houseplants. In practise it drips, but with a cloth held under the spout it's bearable, and I get to look at it a lot.  

So... that's it for me today, because I have two exciting scenes to write before supper! Naturally the weather outside is gorgeous - a perfect fall day - and I hate missing it. Despite the need to finish this manuscript I might sneak out for an hour or so, just because October is so fantastic and fleeting. 

Hope you're having a lovely weekend and I'll see you next week with a progress report! And maybe even some more sock and a decision about the heel flap, if I get through enough of my story to pick up the needles again.