When Writing Takes a Back Seat to Love

The last quilt I made.

For the past week, my writing word count has been exactly - 0 -.

That's right, a big old goose egg, and I'm not ashamed.

Instead I've been helping my daughter with a really big project. See, her best friend's turning sixteen next week, and having an absolutely big old blowout Sweet Sixteen Ball to celebrate. Best Friend is one of those lovely young ladies who's pretty, intelligent, thoughtful and creative--the sort of person you always want to know. I'm glad she's in my daughter's life.

Because her upcoming birthday is a Big Deal, I suggested to my daughter we give her something that said Love. I suggested we make her a quilt. Nothing says love more than spending hours hand-making something for someone, especially if much thought is put into the project.

If anyone ever gives you something handmade, like a crocheted afghan, a knitted scarf, a quilt, or anything that took them hours and days to make, recognise the time and love they put into the project, all the time thinking of you.

In one of my other lives, I quilt. Many creative people have more than one creative outlet. We're Creators. We can't help it. In the past my daughter has helped me make quilts. Now, I'm helping her.

She asked her Best Friend what kind of colours she liked, and then we went fabric shopping  until we found a fine Japanese Lawn that had the right feel to it. We considered different kinds of blocks, but settled on a Hexagon Kaleidoscope because they're easy and pretty. While I would  normally be writing, I've been helping her fussy-cut isosceles triangles, doing the initial layout and stitching together so many, many little triangular blocks. We don't have time to properly quilt the finished product, so we're going to tie it once we get it on the frames.

We have to be finished by Saturday. I've been documenting her process, so as soon as we are finished, I'll post pics and results.

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Her Grace encourages anyone who feels a little sad to go make something. The act of creation lifts the human spirit.

Quilted Randomosity

I love to quilt. I've finally stuck my One Block Wonder onto quilting frames. They take up my whole office. I've made about a dozen quilts in my life, and I've still much to learn.

The other day I came across this Pixel Portrait Quilt by novice quilter LauraLynn:

Yes, that's our favourite Loki, Tom Hiddleston, portrayed in 40,000 carefully selected and pieced together squares of fabric.

Things that absolutely amaze me:

• What a Pixel Portrait Quilt! It's absolutely stunning! I do not have enough exclamation marks to portray just how amazing this quilt is!  (Here's a few more for emphasis:  !!!!!!!)
• The detail is amazing. The background is full of Shakespeare quotes.
• This was LauraLynn's first quilt.  Her. First. Quilt.  Forget about the usual Nine-Patch. This is a Nine-Patch times 4445 times. Did I mention I am in awe?
• She used more than 150 different types of fabric. I don't know if I've ever owned that many, much less all at once.
• There's a program out there that'll pixellate and plot out a quilt like this for you. (Not sure if this is covered by Rule 34j: if it exists, there's an app for it, or Rule 43: if you look hard enough, you can find anything on the Internet.)

Oh, how I'd love to give a go at a Richard Armitage Pixel Portrait Quilt.  But 1) I don't have the time and 2) I don't know how the Real Life Husband would take me snuggling up with the Celebrity Boyfriend on the bed.

Meanwhile, I'll go back to quilting my One Block Wonder Hexagonal Kalideoscope. Between the two jobs and the three degrees and the full family, it's gonna take me a while.

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Her Grace presents the following quilting facts to you: all quilt patterns have names like "Log Cabin" and "Sea Ways" and "Crazy Quilt" and "Wedding Ring". Not all quilts are beautiful.  Some are downright fugly. There's a quilting technique called "Stitch in the Ditch" or "Ditch Stitching". I can't recall ever having used it. Want to make a quilt super fast? Tie one. Take two flat sheets, whack some batting in between, then at six inch intervals, take a stitch with yarn.  Tie the loose ends.  You could whack one of these out in an hour or two.

Unmotivation: like a leg chain.

I am having a hard time getting back into my usual writerly working routine after NaNo.

It’s simply the switching of the tracks.  For the past month I’ve spent my time in Felicity Abbot’s headspace. Now I’ve got to get back into Merrybelle Hales’, and I’m not having a good time of it.   This is a consequence of swapping projects half-way.  (NaNo lesson: do not jump off a perfectly good boat simply because it’s 1 Nov.)

Because of this, I’m having a hard time getting going again. I’ve lost a week of productivity because of it. 

The fabric I'm quilting with.
I'll show you the blocks later, when I am done.

I don’t completely regret this lost week.  I did burn out the last week of November due to NaNo and several other major events, and I needed recovery time.  So I started piecing a quilt (One Block Wonder Hexagonal Kaleidoscope from a beautiful Georgia O’Keefe lemon(mango?)-patterned fabric) to give my brain a rest.   Bold yellows, dark greens, sky blues.  It’s good for the soul.

But I am a professional author. I really need to get back to my books.  I no longer have the luxury of writing “whenever I feel like it”.  That sort of attitude kept me from being published for ten years.  (If you don’t have the stock, you can’t submit.  If you don’t submit, you can’t sell.)

I keep telling myself, “Today I’m going to write.”  Then other projects (things that need to get done) get in the way.  Yes, it’s stuff that needs to get done, but why am I giving it a higher priority than my writing?

I’ve bookmark’d great swathes of January to write. It’ll be glorious! 

But what about December?  I haven’t completely given over my schedule to the Silly Season, deliberately keeping things low-key this year… so I have room to write.

Yet why am I so unmotivated? 

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Her Grace hereby swears on the life of her main characters that she will devote the time between 5pm and 6pm today solely toward Miss Merribelle Hales and her adventures.  After that hour, she shall report back her findings and what it means for the finishing of this novel.

Her Grace also owes a fellow writer a Beta-read report.  Sorry, fellow Vicious Circler. She’s been slack.