In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

Sunset on Mum's last day, June 2018 Around the northern hemisphere summer solstice, I get a little introspective. My mum died six years ago at this time of year, and even now I still miss her, maybe I always will. Better that one's parents go first certainly, but she wasn't even seventy, shite! Recently the band Camera Obscura released an album, their first since 2013 and the first since their keyboardist Carey Lander died of osteosarcoma in 2015. My husband put the digital files on my computer and yesterday I listened to some of the.... It's not a record, like in vinyl, but Look to the East, Look to the West is an album, and on it is "Sugar Almond", the tenth of eleven songs, a tune Tracyanne Campbell wrote for Lander. I'm listening to it now, Campbell's melancholy vocals enhanced only by a piano, probably played by Donna Maciocia who was brought into the band for a gig alongside Belle and Sebastian in their Boaty Weekender cruise. Maciocia became Ca...

  Snapped yesterday on another excursion to the shore. I just finished reading through the first novel of my current series. It was going to be the final revision before leading to publication, but two days ago I felt compelled to look up a few more agents, despite submitting this series to over thirty last fall. I'm waiting for a sci-fi novel to arrive, written by woman who I just learned this morning currently lives here in Humboldt County. Once her novel arrives, I'll give it a read, then either feel compelled to query this series in a very limited fashion or get a book cover made and release it myself. Life in this post-Stan world is full of inexplicable notions. My brother-in-law Stan died a year ago last week. My husband and I went to the beach recently and the southern end of the shore was basically GONE. A huge shelf where we took our granddaughters last fall has been sucked back into the Pacific, such power the ocean possesses, but lately the waves have been ...

March 2012; no idea which book I had just finished, but The Hook is looking fine.   Years ago after completing a novel, I would drive to the beach, to The Hook in Capitola to be exact. The trip was a good forty-five minutes over Highway 17, a little treacherous back then, worse now in that most traffic in the San Francisco Bay Area is more hazardous than before, or maybe I think that way because I'm older and possess less patience. Or maybe that's because now a trip to the beach is far more relaxing regardless of how goes the writing. But the writing, for now, is DONE! This morning I began, then finished the final chapter, and oh my goodness, the sense of relief is PALPABLE! So many emotions attached to both the initial draft and this version, so much hand-wringing, and SO MUCH TO PLAN FOR, lol. The first draft was merely a way to decompress after an awful death in our family. This story is like a rebirth, although I'm still mewling about, trying to decide what goes where a...

This morning's sky. Well my novel is done. Done is a relative term, in that I reached a conclusion, although perhaps not The End. Or one possible end as to what might eventually be The End. There is a difference, although usually my novels don't conclude with so much ambiguity. Regardless of what happens to it, I can walk away with a semblance of relief that no one was left hanging for dear life, especially not myself. But I wanted to explain a little of why I wrote this book, in case it never travels further than my computer and flash drives. At the end of my published novels, I include a short section called Liner Notes, complements of Silverchimes, a long-lost Last FM buddy who in my very early publishing days suggested such a title for what some authors call an afterwords or similar wrapping up of a story, not that it's related to the actual tale, but more to do with how the yarn went from one small skein to an entire comforter, to which a good book should truly aspire....

Alterations afoot. Think of it as HEAVY DUTY EDITS. Or maybe what someone experiences when the rug is pulled out from under them. Or Risks Take Rake Omg.... Whatever it is, it's not in-the-moment fun. But ultimately it hurts less than beating one's head against a wall. Or maybe it doesn't; I can't assume or presume anything right now. All I can do is accept that hand-stitching an Alexandria quilt isn't for me. Realizing that late last night, then fully grasping the concept (and my seam ripper) today mid morning has been a huge decision; this EPP project had barged in like an overbearing character, muscling their rather expansive quilty self onto an already crowded fabric docket. I acquiesced because 1) I always wanted to make this pattern and 2) Why not? When writing, I don't shy away from those pushy, unexpected characters who always seem just what my story requires. I'm thinking Ronan from That Which Can Be Remembered or Seth in The Hawk , folks necessary...

Hexie basted earlier today. Today's title isn't a typo, but how my eldest responded on a family text thread this morning. You could also say it's apropos of how all in my clan are grappling with last week's disturbance in the force. Heads-up: this post may be littered with random well known and intimate familial sayings. Risks take rake omg could well become shorthand for various WTF acronyms. Feel free to adopt any and all that fit your situation. Today's forecast is for continued shivers and the occasional tremble, especially when photos of the recently deceased pop up on one's screensaver. There aren't enough words or pregnant pauses to adequately describe what my crew is attempting to digest, and that doesn't include my sister-in-law, suddenly a widow. I can't fathom her heartache, she can't really either. Says she's not thinking about it much, except when it steals over her. Or I assume that's a drop in the bucket, the writer in me. ...

Made for my mom when she entered hospice, this quilt graces our sofa. Our beloved has passed, a beautiful moment of affection, grace, and letting go. I was privileged to be among those seeing off this man to a new plane, my heart aching for the tears of his widow yet grateful for his presence in all the lives so blessed to have known him. This title was from a week ago when I was going to write about having visited my youngest daughter and her crew, but there was no time as I then caught a flight east to be with another branch of my family. The quilt pictured above was from when my mom died. A different one was made for my brother-in-law last summer, and it was in use all week to keep him warm. Roads home take us from east to west, back east and beyond. They flow over mountain ranges and vast swathes of our nation. They amble alongside rushing rivers muddy brown from violent storms or soar high over quiet snow-laden acreage. They are pleasant and pensive, poignant and painful. Sometime...