When the journey slightly alters
So I'm still looking for those five missing squares. Above is how the quilt looks now, draped over the bed, another quilt underneath it, kind of obscuring the essence, but you get the idea. I basted a bunch of triangles for the borders, still plenty left to do. This Cornflower Quilt is coming together on its own time, and I'm not going to argue with it, missing squares be darned.
Last night I read three chapters of The Hawk. My goodness I am enjoying this tale! But all that reading cuts into my evening sewing time, as well as a fantastic episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. "By the Pale Moonlight" takes place in season six, well into the Dominion War, and if you are keen on great drama and magnificent performances, have a gander at what Avery Brooks and Andrew Robinson produced, truly stunning television. But awesome distractions aside, I've started hand-sewing in the mornings while my hubby has breakfast. I've already eaten, because I'm on day nine of my antibiotics, needing to get something into my stomach before I take amoxicillin, ahem. My cold had morphed into ear infections, can't recall the last time I took antibiotics, much less for an ear infection! Anyways.... I've been stitching blocks for the Lavender quilt, also some six-point stars. I'm so bad at sitting idle and am very grateful for small sewing.
Conversely, the novel front seems to stand tall, what with two sets of revisions happening, both series weighty. I'm reading Book 4 of the WIP, pleased with what I'm finding. When I finish this tale, I'll.... Probably start back with Book 1, but not just out of boredom. That novel is almost ready to enter the formatting phase, whoa! Probably one final read-through for grins and giggles, then I'll make a copy of it, and turn it into a document capable of becoming an ebook. I've done this many times, am pretty comfortable with the routine, even if routines around here have been shaken, yet not totally stirred.
I've been giving thought to my life as a writer, in the What does it mean to me? vein. In the Is this a career or a hobby? query, since I did query this series, but did not receive any responses other than Thanks but.... Thanks but is what the majority of authors hear, yet for over the last decade, pushing fifteen years, authors wishing to get their stories into the public eye have had the means to do so by releasing their novels electronically. Bypassing agencies and traditional publishers, writers have altered the previous manners of how books reached readers. Despite Amazon's wish to gobble up the indie markets, plenty of channels exist for readers to find books, and there are lots of people like me, writing for the pleasure of it and not shoving those stories in a bottom drawer or chest. Yay for independent publishing!
But what does that mean for Present Me? Well, pretty much the same as it meant for Past Me, and probably Future Me too. I've queried other novels, no takers. Yet I keep writing. I keep revising. I'm giving The Hawk another look because the rights to it belong solely to me and I can take time out of my evenings to read through it, then at some point it will be reformatted and re-released. That's a pretty spectacular notion, that a writer can put out their own books! It's like a dream, because years before self-publishing meant spending money to have one's novels printed, then all the trouble to market and distribute them. What I do costs only my time and the effort of who makes my covers. Otherwise, I can publish my books for free, an ISBN number included.
This isn't some cheerleader routine for indie publishing, more of a thinking out loud kind of post. The kind that dials back the years to when I first started writing, assuming back then that this was going to be my career. I was going to be a writer. I was already a wife and mum, also the daughter of a man whose health was precarious. But the kids were entering high school and college, we weren't living in England anymore, homeschooling over. Writing became what I did, long before I entered the quilting gig. Writing was what I'd long wanted to do, and how blessed was I to fall into it just as ebooks were becoming an option. Writing remained not quite a job, but certainly an obsession, lol, as the kids graduated high school, all in college, my dad learning he had cancer. Everyone's life has these sorts of peaks and valleys, but what we choose to do with our free time, regardless of its abundance or absence, remains within our possession. I chose to write, and despite not falling into what most people view as success (getting an agent, signing with a publishing house), I have continued to spin yarns, then put them out where anyone can enjoy them.
If following your dream matters, then do it. Don't be discouraged by lack of support or avenues of recognition. Don't let age be a hindrance; I was forty when I wrote my first novel, and that was seventeen years ago, hehehe. Sometimes five squares go missing, making a project's completion seem impossible. But perseverance will lift you over the hurdle, clearing the way for your dream to reach completion. Maybe this post is about celebrating the journey, not that it's over, just that right now my usual path is full of little detours. Or perhaps it's altering permanently. Maybe I'll squeeze in evening edits from now on, sewing in the mornings, although I am REALLY DONE WITH THIS ANTIBIOTIC, 'nuff said. Whatever happens next in my writing realm, I'm grateful to still be full of novelistic notions and to have a place to put them that isn't a dreary bureau drawer or cloistered closet shelf. I do have a chest, but it's stuffed full of linens. Better to dust off a manuscript, shiny it up, then set it free.
Liberate your dreams; the world always needs more stardust and rainbows!
