For my NaNoWriMo Writerly friends

Nearly every writer friend seems to’ve joined the NaNoWriMo challenge this year – November being a drear month of dreich weather what could be more attractive than sitting down at a computer and banging out a story? (I think they’re using it to try out fiction writing, see if they can do it for the long haul … real novel production takes a lot more work and time than this!)

Here’s a poem I wrote to celebrate Writers’ Month:

(illustrated by our elderly cat, Moppet, who’s become a bit ‘Nanna-like’ lately) 

Moppet takes up knitting

Nana’s nicked my pencil, she’s casting on her words
Nana’s doing Wry-Mo, that knitting fun for nerds
She thought it was a needle, she was in such rush,
To get her novel started while there was quiet and hush.

Nana’s cast on lots of words, and she’s working really hard
Nana wants to win this year, she’s really quite a bard.
We creep around like mouses, and make her cups of tea,
We tell her ‘don’t procrastinate!’ when she goes for a wee.

We’re buying all her shopping, we’re making all our beds,
We’re being very very good, and keeping down our heads,
‘Cos otherwise, as Nana said, we’ll get put in her book,
And then we might get deaded, all drownded in the brook.

She’s reading up policing, she calls it ’cosy crime’,
She writing, writing, writing, creating all the time,
The words just grow an’ grow an’ grow, a long long trailing scarf,
We’re not allowed to read it yet, we hope it makes us laugh.

When at last the WryMo’s over, and we get our Nana back,
We’ll know that it’s been worth it, despite the sweat and flack,
And the cheesecake for our breakfast, and the prayers for something else!
And she’s done her fifty-thousand, so her banner will unfurl
With ‘I’m a Winner!’ on it, in plain and rib and purl,
(Though cable’s really suited to her wry and twisted style.)

For Nana’s knitted up a book, which we never thought she could
Without the NaNoWriMo to keep her working like she should
And I shall need my pencil back because you see
I’m knitting up a novel now, as wry as it can be.

CMHW 11/15

For non-writers, YOU CAN READ ABOUT NANOWRIMO HERE: