Life behind the scenes

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Soon enough this side of the quilt will be safely hidden from view. But it's worth a photo, all those basted then sewn together hexies part of a greater good (kind of like how novels are written and sometimes lives are led).

Currently I could use a few more hours in a day; in addition to reading through (and making significant revising gains in) the latest manuscript, I've opened up a published novel from a few years back in the hopes of maybe fashioning a print version. Then there is The Possibility of What If which I am reading through a couple of chapters each evening, searching for typos or other errors that might have squeaked through. It's so nice to peruse a story in eBook form; so far I've only made a few alterations, no glaring mistakes found, whew! And if those three tales weren't enough, I have a quilt screaming for attention (see photo above), plus I finished a Cornflower Quilt block yesterday, with fabric in the post for another quilt for the daughter of a dear friend. One of my pumpkin plants has finally gotten its act together, a blossom having opened, and some cherry toms are starting to ripen. But just between us, right now I'm captivated by the words, which hasn't happened in a long, long time....

Years ago, when our kids were just starting to gaze at their collective twenties, my days were full of storytelling. We had homeschooled while living in England, but all three offspring were enrolled in college and high school upon our return from the United Kingdom. I went from having my brood nearby 24/7 to a very different scenario, which allowed me to focus on fiction. Not until 2014, seven years after we came back from Britain, was my time not mostly my own, but my kids weren't the only ones needing attention. My dad's battle with prostate cancer had moved into its final chapter, chemotherapy every three weeks not doing more than weakening his already taxed heart. Both of my daughters were expecting their first babies, while I took up quilting, the perfect time for it, lol. While I was eking out chapters of The Hawk, meeting my parents for Dad's chemo sessions, hearing my grandkids' emerging heartbeats, sewing was a quiet antidote, not that I was into English paper piecing back then. That came later, when my mom faced her last days. I wrapped up The Hawk two months before she died, having started my first Grandmother's Flower Garden EPP quilt. When it rains, it really friggin' pours....

After Mom passed, I poked around with The Hawk, revising that saga, but not writing anything new. I did a LOT of sewing when not hanging out with adorable grandchildren, groping around for who I was what with both of my parents deceased. For ages I'd been a writer, when not a wife and mother, then I took a side gig as a quilter, then Covid hit and.... And again in the stillness I finally found a cast of characters that pulled me back into noveling. I truly didn't know if I had that ability, something about losing Dad and Mom within three years of each other yanking me from a familiar familial orbit that was permanently altered. During the pandemic my husband and I moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Humboldt Bay Area, far from kids and grandkids, more change than we'd known since returning to America from England. I don't often think about all of this until suddenly when I do, like today when I woke at three in the morning, unable to go back to sleep, then getting up for tea and a large coffee chaser, seating myself at a computer, pulling up a document.... And then I'm instigating major changes in a nine-year-old first draft, stirring emotions I haven't enjoyed in a writing kind of way for a very long time. It's been ages since I can't wait to work on this story has rushed through my veins and while I ache to sew hexies together or cut fabrics for another Cornflower block or read through two other books, kneading this draft into something pliable is nailing my butt to the chair. It's sunny outside, but instead I'm in the house, writing this post as a way to share how stories unfold, how books are written, how healing occurs. Even four years on from Mom's death, seven from Dad's, my heart longs to share these triumphs with them in more than an ethereal manner.

However, while on this corporeal plane, I will do my utmost to make the most of my time. I'm one of those types that twitches if I'm idle. Good thing I've got more shiny's than I know what to do with....

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