Eighteen chapters

Why I call it a floral Halloween quilt, hehehe.

Our granddaughters are spending the holiday weekend with us, so the only writing I will manage will be an early morning read-through of what has accumulated since the fifth of August. Which is both pretty cool to have amassed over fifty K in those weeks and also very necessary to see what in the heck I've written throughout most of last month. Wow, it's September; that's a little bit of crazy! August seemed to slip away like sand running through my hands. I had hoped to get a lot of writing done in the eighth month of the year and I sure did. I also made quilts, worked on placemats, picked blackberries, and um, gave up caffeine.

That achievement has been due to my tinnitus, which so far doesn't seem extraordinarily improved, but machine quilting over the last few days isn't a big help so.... Yet I am over the worst of the withdrawal symptoms, which mainly meant really achy leg muscles. I tapered off slowly, no headaches, but my goodness I felt it eventually. We'll see how long I eschew honest to goodness Yorkshire Tea; September will be a month without caffeine but hopefully a novel finish, a few breaks aside.

I am looking forward to reading through Book 3 of my fledgling series; written on the fly, I really need to make notes of which species are various characters thrown in somewhat haphazardly. A few names were inserted that went absolutely nowhere, those need to be tidied up. Unplanned but so far seemingly working out okay are references to a different sci-fi story I wrote a decade ago, although I have taken liberties with timelines, but if I never publish that book, no one will know the difference. LOL. (And if I do publish it, I have covered my backside by referencing within the current story a reason for those unexplained occurrences, so go me!)

Writing a book, even after all these years of crafting stories, remains an activity that for as much as I compare it to quilting requires a focus unlike sewing, as well as a willingness to HANG IN THERE. Making a quilt is so TANGIBLE, as pictures throughout this post demonstrate. I spent much of last night hand-quilting the floral Halloween project, so easy to complete when I can grasp it close, admiring it as stitches weave in and out of the fabrics. Yet a story is ethereal, built up over days, weeks, months and sometimes YEARS of thrilling flashes of brilliance and many moments of ARRRGGGG! It can't be appreciated in one quick glance; I can't snap photographs of tangled plot lines or witty dialogue or questionable characters whose motives are constantly aflutter. I did realize yesterday that Books 3 & 4 will feature folks whom the reader cannot be sure are telling the truth, that's a nice theme. But Book 4 is a mere half-chapter at this point, which was written well over a year ago then abandoned, then used as a basis for moving forward with this series, and boy that's a lot of convoluted blah blah blah that quilts just don't possess. Not that I start a quilt, finish it, then move on, but novels are steeped in SO MANY WORDS. I might have one helluva fabric stash, but what goes into a novel bests all the prints every time.

Yet I can't stop spinning yarns in my head that translate to words from my heart spilled like precious blood onto a document. That chapter written last May didn't go anywhere and I thought it was merely like sewn-together scraps that float around my office, destined for an eventual dump in the trash. But no, those twenty-five hundred words were biding their time as Future Me waited patiently for then Present Me to turn into Past Me, who thought, "Hey! I know why I wrote that little bit of magic." (Nice that my writing stash takes up far less space than prints waiting for their moment in the sewing machine sun.)

From the back; my sister LOVES a grumpy cat, so this had to be included.

I don't know what will become of these stories, but that matters not. What is essential is that I tell them, in fits and starts, in solid chunks of morning butt in chair, in last year's throwaway that turns into this year's autumn love affair. If all goes well this month, I'll complete Book 3, then start prepping for Book 4, which is indeed a love story. I like writing love stories, hehehe. That's the best kind of tale to tell.