What I did today instead of NaNoWriMo

Today the South Coast Writers Centre ran a booth at the Viva La Gong festival. In part it was to promote the Centre, in part to give a few writers a place to promote their own books (alas, not yet relevant to me), and in part to offer a service to the public, whereby they could, for a very modest fee, procure customized writing on demand. A few of us were poised and ready to write poems and stories on any subject, in any genre, for our impromptu clients.

I wrote two stories and two poems. The only parameter for one story was "moving house"; for the other, "science fiction." The poems were a bit more specific. One, heartbreakingly, was requested as a gift for the client's friend, who had recently lost a baby. That one was hard to write.

The other was completely the opposite in tone. There is (you may already know) such a thing as "guerilla knitting": putting hand-knit sleeves and covers and other decorations on unlikely items in the public space. Here's an example from today's festival:



A woman who's intensely into guerilla knitting (here's her blog) handed me a tag with some beautiful little streamers of all kinds of fantastic yarn tied to one corner. The tag read, "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." This is a sentiment with which I happen to agree wholeheartedly. I offered to write her a poem in exchange. "About guerilla knitting," she said. "I want a poem about guerilla knitting."

Here is what I wrote:

Guerilla Knitting

It's secret signals, guidelines to coax your dreams into your heads,
into your hearts.
It's strings and yarn tying you to the person next to you,
reminding you
of what you are.

And what you can become.

(As you can guess, I have instantly become completely enamored of the idea of guerilla knitting, even though the likelihood I will ever engage in it myself approaches zero.)

Anyway, the Guerilla Knitter said she loved it, which was really cool. I wrote on the poem that I authorize its reproduction in any form as long as it's attributed to me, so if you dig guerilla knitting, you're welcome to use the poem if it's meaningful to you. Just keep my name along with it, and don't change any of the words (thanks).

Here's me at the booth, being a Writer in Residence (yet another Writing Dream coming true!):



And finally, I can't think of one single thing that isn't made immeasurably better by the addition of kites, and here are some I saw today at Viva La Gong: