If anything requires trust, it’s turning the heel on a sock. No matter how many times I read the instructions, I can’t visualize that what my needles are doing will actually become a heel. But I follow the pattern and keep on knitting and inevitably a heel is what I get.
A while ago, a friend asked me for help when she was knitting the sleeve of a baby sweater. Starting at the cuff, the first 6 rows were supposed to produce a picot edge. She and I looked at the pattern and couldn’t imagine how it could possibly work out to look like the photo in the book. We decided to trust the pattern and see what happened.
After 6 rows all she had was a neat row of holes nestled in between some tidy rows of stocking stitch. And then the light dawned. We folded the piece along the row of holes and the picot edge magically appeared. If she hadn’t trusted the pattern, she wouldn’t have made that pretty picot trim.
Is trust a part of writing, too? I think so. But it’s bigger than trusting the pattern. In writing, I have to trust myself. A far riskier and challenging proposition. I have to believe in myself as a writer and trust that I can choose the right words to tell the story I want to tell.
If I make a mistake in a knitting project, I don’t stop knitting or suddenly decide I’m not a knitter. So, when the rejections come in, how can I stop believing I’m a writer? So, I’m going to keep on writing, following my own pattern, and most important—keep on trusting.
And now, back to my needles.
Photo published under Creative Commons licence http://www.flickr.com/photos/klippity/