food for thought

Wow! Thanks so much everyone for all your input! I promise I’ve read every comment, tweet and email and certainly have much food for thought. I’ve been musing on, and acting on many of your suggestions, however incidental (for example, remarks Kristine and Lou made about the typeface on this blog have now caused me to change it) and Tom and I have been mulling over everything, and considering our priorities for the coming year and beyond. What I’ve found most helpful is thinking (as many of you pointed out) that this is in no way an ‘either / or’ situation. At the moment I confess I don’t have much inclination to pursue the publishers proposal: this is partly because of personal concerns (health, editorial control, and other issues) and partly because we already have a few (very exciting) projects in the pipeline that demand immediate attention. Working on these projects will certainly occupy me for the majority of the coming year, but what I’m going to do is to set aside one day a week, outside of other projects and tasks, and keep this day purely for new research and writing. I will see how things go, and if, toward the end of the year I feel I have satisfied my concerns and have the will, inclination, and indeed material to consider making my own proposal to the publisher, I will reconsider the situation. In the meantime, the publisher may well approach another writer to complete the project they have already envisaged and this is absolutely fine by me. The bottom line is that I really am very happy with the way things are, pursuing and developing my own publishing projects with Tom and my team. But it may be that, in a year or two, I would consider writing something along the lines that many of you have suggested — a project which would better suit the commercial context of the proposal I recently received. We shall see.

In the meantime, life goes on: Bruce is happily much improved and should (I hope) be ready to abandon the awful cone and join me, once more, on my walks. During yesterday’s Bruce-less excursion, Tom had a chance to photograph my new Jazz Hands mittens, which are worked up in Buachaille shades Ptarmigan and Squall.

I really like the way Buachaille knits up at a dense mitten-y gauge (this pair is worked at 8 sts to the inch)

. . . and I think there’s something particularly pleasing about this graphic pattern when worked in monochrome natural shades.

The weather at last seems to have a nip in it, and I have to say I’m looking forward to more mitten-wearing opportunities.

Thanks so much again for all your input, support and advice. It means a lot to me and I really do appreciate it.
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