NaBloPoMo Day 3

Writing 1667 words a day is pretty tough. I only managed to surpass that number yesterday, and just by about 70 words, and the day before I was over 400 words shy of the daily goal. Like I said before, I don't want these posts to be all fluff and filler, I want them to actually be worth reading. I want at least part of each post to be about knitting. That desire is making it harder to write enough words to hit the quota. I check my word count obsessively. After every few sentences, I copy and paste the entire post into an online word count tool, and cross my fingers that I have made a significant dent. I try to keep myself from doing it so often, but I am just impatient, I guess. I think I might also feel like the words will somehow reproduce between the two pages, and add to my total. I don't know, I could just be crazy.

I woke up fairly early, for me anyway, this morning. Most days I'm in bed until 10:30, and today I was up just after 9:00. It's strange, how I sleep. It seems the later I stay up (I was up till about 2:00 when I'm usually in bed by 12:30) the earlier I can wake up. I don't understand at all. I'm going to try going to bed late again tonight to see if I can wake up at a reasonable hour. If that works, I'll be staying up late every night! I started my day off right with some scrambled eggs with mushrooms and shredded cheese on small tortillas. A nice filling breakfast that got me going. I don't often make a real breakfast, especially the past few weeks. I usually just settle for cereal and almond/soy/rice/hemp milk, if anything at all. I used to be so good at eating breakfast every day. I would make oatmeal or quinoa or toast with peanut butter, and honey or bananas.

I've been plugging away at the YarnYarnYarnYarn blog for a while today. It's easy work, just repetitive. Because I use Tumblr as a blogging platform, I can add tons of items to a queue, and have them post as frequently as I choose. I have it set so there are 11 new posts a day, which I think is a good amount. Lots of new stuff, but not so many that followers miss out on some of them. I have about two weeks worth of posts ready to go, and another month and a half worth that are saved as drafts to be posted at much later dates. It's going really well overall, I just want to find more yarn related Etsy shops to share, as well as cool patterns on Ravelry. Those seem to be the most popular posts so far. That's most of what I have been posting, but I have shared photos from Instagram, blogs, and Facebook pages. I went through some tumblrs that follow Y4, and reblogged a few photos from some of them. I also have some ad space through PassionFruit Ads available. It would be awesome if I could fill some of those, but I'm not holding my breath for it. I need to build up the audience before the sponsors come, that I already know. Once I've been posting for a month or more, I will be able to improve the ad description with the number of visitors and followers and what not.

I spent most of the time working on the Y4 blog knitting as well. I continued the teal shawl I posted yesterday, and got almost to the end of the first skein. I kind of got tired of the plain worsted weight, so I switched it up. I put in quite a few rows on a purple and white vertically striped shawl. Both yarns are from the huge stash I purchased from the older lady last winter. They're a sport weight 70/15/15 blend of acrylic, wool and mohair. Super soft, and slightly fuzzy. I really like the way this one is turning out. It's a looser knit than the other shawls I've done like this, but I'm sure it will still be cozy and warm due to the wool/mohair content.

If you've been eyeing something in my Etsy shop, now is the time to buy! You can get 25% off your entire purchase with the code Blog25. I want to get some older stock cleared out this season, so that in the spring and summer, I can really go at it, and knit lots of new things. Some of my stock has been floating around for a couple years, and that's what I really want to sell. Of course, selling anything would be great, but the older stuff is definitely higher on the priority list.
I'm going to be honest, and say that I haven't had any sales in a while. I don't want to complain on here, but it's getting discouraging that I can't seem to sell anything. I promote quite a bit, I have a mailing list, I do giveaways, I have a Facebook page, I comment on other blogs with a link to my shop, I have lots of "hearts" on Etsy, I just can't seem to get people to put stuff in their shopping cart! Do you have any suggestions for what else to do? I'll do just about anything!

Yesterday, I mentioned the Made In Windsor Show. It's coming up in just two short weeks, and I wish it could come sooner! There are going to be over 30 amazing vendors, some of whom have dome a MiW event before, and some that have not. It is a show that is 100% handmade, there is not ONE vendor who is a "consultant" or whatever for a big national company. I love this about these shows. It's a true craft show, and not a vendor market, which is often, in my experience anyway, synonymous with yard sale. If Facebook is any indication on how good this show will be, it's going to be great. There are already about 250 confirmed as going, and another 100 saying maybe. I know this won't necessarily be accurate, but it will hopefully be close. There will certainly be other people who haven't confirmed on Facebook who are out and about for the Walkerville Holiday Walk. This is an annual event where most of the businesses in the Walkerville BIA team together and have fun things going on for all the customers/visitors to the area. The craft show itself is going to be in Walkerville Brewery, and I can't wait to check out that place. It's going to be awesome! I've had a sample of one of their beers recently, and I liked it. I have a feeling I'll be spending some of my profit there! You can see a quick recap of last years show Here. I'll try to get more, and better, pictures this year.

My 365 photo for the day is just a simple close up of a Ferrero Rocher chocolate. These have always been one of my favourite types of chocolate, or really any sweet in general. I got quite a few a little while back, so I've been stashing them away and having one every now and again. I had a couple this afternoon when I was writing this post.

I haven't done much of anything today, other than knit, read blogs, chat on Facebook, and work on this. I'm worried that on the days I have to work eight hours, I'll come up short for words. I'll just have to get into a rhythm for writing, and then  hopefully the words will come more easily. I was also thinking about trying some of the word/theme prompts every few days, and write some sort of anecdote relating to it. Maybe I'll take suggestions for themes or answer questions you guys have. There are lots of options for stuff to write about, just nothing that can help me in the present moment.

I didn't really think this NaBloPoMo thing through very well. Normally, I try to at least plan out a little bit in advance. I'm not the most organized person, but I don't usually jump without a safety net. I am absolutely determined to make it to at least 25k words by the 15th. I will count that as a personal victory if I do. If I can actually make the full month, and 50k words I'll probably faint. I can yammer on about just about anything, but to have it be all coherent and organized is a whole other matter. Hopefully, I can make it!

I have a few ideas for the next couple days, but I doubt any of them will translate to 1667 words or more, no matter how overly flowery I get with my adjectives and adverbs. Some of the ideas are: 100 things I like, which would be split into groupings of 10 things posted every day for 10 days, 50 things I dislike (I don't want to do 100, because I don't want to get too negative and complain-y!) 100 facts about me, which would also be split up into groupings of 10 or 20, why I started eating meat again after 8 years of being vegetarian, simple knitting pseudo patterns I have in my head, and of course, more about the knitting projects I currently have on the go.

Now, this is where you folks come in! I want questions, word prompts or topic suggestions, or anything else you would really like to see. Want me to do a tutorial? Post pictures of specific things? Talk about Winston? Knit using a particular colour? Pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time, while whistling twinkle twinkle little star? Okay, I've run out of crazy suggestions. I hope you get the idea. I want YOU to tell ME what you want to see! Just leave a comment on here, send me a message on Facebook, or send me an email with anything you would like to see. If you want to be anonymous, you can send me a message on Tumblr here.

I hope you found something of interest in this post! Please come back tomorrow to see what else I have to say in an overly verbose fashion.

This post has 1716 words.

I am at 4686 total words for this month.