Non-linear creativity

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Cards made yesterday morning while avoiding cleaning my house, lol.

How editing out of order helps as well as hand quilting the perimeter is occasionally necessary. But when creative time is squeezed, better to adapt than not create at all.

Well okay! I thought this up about half an hour ago after spending the early (but not stupid early) morning reading through The Enran Chronicles Book 3. Not like delving into it from Chapter One, more like opening the document, peering at the first paragraph, then smirking at myself because right now there are not enough straight uninterrupted days to begin a proper read-through of the novel. Yet on one particular morning, like today, I could peruse a few chunks, which I did indeed do as I scrolled more than halfway through the story, plopping myself into a scene, then within a few minutes finding a typo! What? Well, okay.... Good thing I landed on that page, with enough wherewithal to notice said typo, then correct said typo. I completed that chapter, making a few tweaks, then scrolled further down, and found another freakin' mistake, DUDE! I smiled at myself, then was grateful for this inadvertent, non-linear manner of editing, reminding myself to do this to The Hawk Book One in a couple weeks when all the party hoo-haa has subsided.

Because, as I noted at the top of this post: Better to adapt than not create at all.

Two days ago I did nothing but, well, not clean my house, but we ran errands and attended to this and that task and by the end of the evening, Halloween I believe, I was making copious notes in the spreadsheet about what time to shop, when to make soup, when others will collect pies and pulled pork and when to start planning for the next meal. The party will be MARVELOUS, but it takes a fair amount of planning for MARVELOUS to go off without too many glitches. On Halloween, I didn't edit anything, other than the spreadsheet. I didn't stitch anything either, other than tacking items onto lists. It felt REALLY WEIRD to have excised any viable creative effort from my day, which made me realize how just about every day I edit something (other than a To Do list) and/or sew something. Now, how blessed that is is, well, pretty dang blessed! This party is a blessing too, don't misconstrue, but I'm not as young as I used to be and I'm set in my ways and, and, and.... It's better to adapt the creative routine than not participate in said creative routine, ahem.

My current sewing project is hand-quilting, and I'm first doing the perimeter of the quilt so I can add the binding, then stitch the middle of the comforter at my leisure. Usually when hand-quilting, I work outwards from the center, because the edge is easier and I like saving that for last. Better to initially tackle the trickier aspects, although I'm not cleaning the house bathroom until next week, HAH! Yet when possible, I attempt to deal with the more cumbersome details of life, although in regards to this quilt... I'm finding this manner of hand-quilting quite enjoyable, same as I found this morning's editing, typos aside. Part of that thrill is merely being back in the creative groove, albeit slightly altered. The other nice notion is reminding myself that editing out of order not only mixes up how I view/read/absorb a manuscript, but enhances the revision if only viewing/reading/absorbing it through a different perspective. I can't swap day for night or suddenly find myself on the other side of winter (I'm not really a winter-person, although it makes for lots of time indoors and I do like myself a nice indoor craft), but I can read Chapter Fifteen first, then Chapter Twenty, then Chapter Three, and so on and so forth. How many typos will be located and tweaks administered is for Future Me to handle. Right now, the present has enough going on.

Yet, I will say, or hopefully conclude this entry (because it's breakfast time and my stomach is growling) that by embracing non-linear manners of creativity, I'm keeping myself open to other changes, or I'm finding ways to meet the challenges life provides. Better than being a stick in the mud, lol. And infinitely better than not creating at all. And now it's time for the morning meal!

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