Lost on mashup island
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| Still some 3.5" squares to fill in but I'm liking this arrangement. |
Currently I'm in one of those rare head spaces where I am so into what I'm writing, I start to lose my grasp on reality. Yesterday for instance: the scene was set at lunchtime, some heavy melodrama raging. Upon completion, I was stunned to note it was merely nine thirty-six a.m. I would have sworn it was at least noon, more like half past one. But nope, still early-mid-morning in real life time.
I'm in a different world right now, the writing pretty sweet while quilting overtakes the afternoons. I spent much of last week cutting fabrics, then quickly threw squares on the wall, machine-pieced them, then fashioned a backing, basted it together and it's already halfway machine-quilted, the binding ready and waiting. Then yesterday I took the leftover squares, sized 6.5" and 3.5", and began what I then mostly completed earlier this afternoon, pictured above. I told my daughters it was based on a quilt I saw on Instagram, lol, although the solids were all one colour, but I'd been wanting to make a rainbow quilt, hence the mashup. My current novel is a mashup too, perhaps that's my spring theme. Throw a lot of characters and plot twists into a document and see what sticks; so far, so good.
What is languishing, because not everything can coalesce at exactly the same time, is the garden. I haven't planted squat, whereas this time last year I had trays of tiny plants waiting to go into the ground. I haven't properly weeded anything other than the gravel path to the greenhouse, mostly because I'm not really into kneeling on very squishy ground to weed. This time last year I wasn't writing, although I was editing. Pastimes go in cycles and I'm okay with that. Mixing up the activities year by year is its own kind of mashup, maybe next year I'll be gaga over the greenhouse.
Right now I am over the dang moon to be in full-writing mode, oh my goodness it feels absolutely TREMENDOUS for chapters to emerge as they have been plopping from my brain through fingers onto the computer. I'm hesitant to acknowledge on this blog what is actually spilling forth, in that I'm considering writing a series, although I'm trying to be in this moment and not overthink it except that a couple of days ago while cutting fabric I started bandying about some future story ideas out loud. Which means I was in full explore character mode and thankfully my husband was outside or maybe napping. Either way I could blather to myself this notion or that story twist and suddenly I had to accept what originally started as one little book might turn into something bigger, kind of how I cut a shite-load of fat quarters and already have two quilts, plus enough leftover for at least another quilt, possibly two depending on their size. Dude! That's a lotta words. And quilts....
It's also so liberating and creatively marvelous. It's healing and cathartic, which are two different adjectives. It's joyous and time-consuming, so I need to balance writing daily alongside other vital elements. Yet for me, WRITING IS A VITAL ELEMENT. And to have the mental, emotional, and physical bandwidth to again engage in it is, well, really cool. If I'm lost on a fictional island for a while, my beloveds know how to reach me. And thankfully books end, one way or another. We'll see how this possible (but highly probable) series plays out as 2023 continues. It might be a year of writing. We'll see how it goes.
