Fabric and fiction (and Chapter 13)
I'm sewing together the autumn quilt for one of my sisters. This sister ADORES Halloween, and I think she'll like the quilt, once the temperatures drop in her area, lol. It's warm here today, a sultry kind of heat, and smoky too. The AQI keeps jumping, then slipping, then spiking again. Fortunately I have plenty of indoor fun to keep me busy and if the air clears considerably, I'll spend an hour outside picking blackberries.
I don't mean to rush summer off prematurely, what with fall-like quilts, but summer seems faraway, probably exacerbated by murky skies. We enjoyed a marine layer-free morning, but seeing how far the sun has moved south was another sign than autumn is approaching. Maybe writing also prods my feelings; I became a writer due to National Novel Writing Month, which occurs in November, so the sense of butt in chair truly blossoms as August winds to a close.
So, that novel.... I'm not quite halfway done, but edging toward that marker, and I like how the story is progressing. I'm quite fond of a certain character that popped up all on its own, hehehe, and I might continue its story further than initially planned. Which means adding a storyline to what I had coined Four Corners several posts ago, but we'll see if that works out. One nice aspect of writing sci-fi is that characters aren't required to have birth dates, so I'm able to write without thinking, "When was Starn born and where, and what about Olmos, or...." Plenty of pantsing going on in this installment, which won't be the case in the next novel, and I need to decide when that story will play out as in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Probably 1971 or '72, but that could change.
Being at this point in the story requires a little consideration; just today I spelled out the focus of the second half, although plenty remains to be told, as well as what I don't know that requires expression. The surprises amid the actually typing are always a thrill, like today realizing the importance of what the protagonist's ship used to be called, as well as that it had a title in the first place. A small detail, but foreshadowing a future link is always cool, especially when the muse plops such nuggets onto the document for me. That's not pantsing, but a gift like finding a twenty dollar bill stashed in a drawer or realizing one more chocolate waits in the packaging. A treat, if you will, that should be savoured not only for its brilliance, but merely that it is.
The above fabric is that way too; I absolutely love the colour, the design, the whimsy. Not sure if my sister appreciates flowers as much as she does Halloween, but I do, and to spread some floral beauty among ghosts, spiders, pumpkins, and the like makes this quilt truly from my heart. I don't put Made by Me tags on my quilts, but flowers are essential. Perhaps I need to squeeze some alien blooms into my novel; we'll see what emerges in the next batch of chapters!
