A Contemplative Life

My husband at Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire, in October 2019. This doesn't have much to do with the post, but was the photo on my screensaver when I sat down to write this post.  Deep Space Nine and character development mattering more than plot. As well as a way to process what seems like a plethora of extended family illnesses. 'Nuff said.... So I'm writing about Suze and family in Jumpville . This is the second of four short stories/novellas in what will be Book Five of The Enran Chronicles . I had some plot ideas, but what seems to be foremost is character development. And that matters, as I've moved their timeline up twenty-eight years, ahem. But what else I've found is something I heard while watching the DS9 documentary What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . The writers were discussing a particular episode, and I tend to associate it with "In Purgatory's Shadow" , as well as its conclusion "By Inferno's Light...

Broken hearts, mended hearts; some of last night's Warm Hearted hand-quilting.... A year ago I wrote the first of four sections of  On Being Brave , the next Enran Chronicles book. Part One focused on Tama Zanetti, her cousins Bobby Tranler and Marcus Wentz-Sorenson a few years after Tris went missing. I'd planned to continue with Parts Two, Three, and Four, but none of those emerged, though over the last year plenty of ideas about two of those installments have emerged. I still don't know what's happening with Squee, Yamist, Jale, Da'Nota and the rest , but this afternoon I came up with why Gilly Lund hasn't figured heavily in her family's tale. When things of that magnitude occur, I gotta give thanks. Then blog about so hopefully I won't forget, LOL. Because I have yet to make any notes about this plot point, other than pulling out the scant notes made for Home and Far Away , finding I'd erred on one character's birth date. Fixed that. Then mo...

I didn't get around to posting this until after lunch, but it was initially written at 6 a.m. this morning....  Our grandsons are visiting this week, so blogging time is curtailed. It's still dark outside, yet frogs are awake, croaking like their lives depended on it. They are quite loud at night; my eldest grandson likes falling asleep to their rhythmic songs. Eldest grandson fashioned this space plane with additions to origami, lol.   My life as a grandmother is SO DIFFERENT, and because these interludes are far and fewish between, I tend to let my being absorb that realm, which before we moved to Humboldt County wasn't so altering, in part the kids were little and they napped, lol. Also that we saw them more often, at their residences, whether it was for several hours at a time or over a few days. Yet who I am has changed too; the sewing isn't paramount, though my youngest grandson wants a turn at the machine, and the writing is less. Less what, I'm not prepared ...

This shot has nothing to do with 1963 Manhattan, but it's pretty, and there you go! Snapped in June of 2006 while we lived in Northern England. When writing a saga, characters emerge that at first seem like bystanders. Stanford Taylor, an aloof New York art dealer, came on the scene early in The Hawk , but little did I know how vital would be his role, and certainly how little did I know him, hehehe. Yet over the course of, ahem, MANY chapters, Stanford became one of my favourites to write, to display, to move along the story in his rather formal, detached bearing that alters significantly within the novel. Today's chapter that I just read aloud to myself is a perfect example of how a fictional soul turns into one far more than two dimensions. And how love weaves all through us, even when we believe ourselves incapable of it. Keep sparkling; our lights make all the difference in this crazy world!     Chapter 98   On the third morning of Stanford’s vacation, he woke al...

My patches amid what's left of an EPP masterpiece. All that dwells under the re-quilting.... Now back in my stitchy-novelistic realm, I spent late yesterday afternoon and early evening adding another round to the Kawandi-style lap quilt. It's hard, in one way, re-covering this particular cozy because its original design is a gorgeous EPP diamond star pattern. However it's been in disrepair for a long time, sporting patches adding by yours truly, and in desperate need of an overhaul. Kawandi is the perfect vehicle to upcycle it; even if the beautiful English paper piecing is obscured, the quilt itself remains a viable (if not weighty) blanket for many years to come. Decisions about what patches to save, as well as if I choose to salvage any of the EPP, make for slow work in adding new inner rounds. I did half of the current round, then required a break to gather the mental acuity to move forward. Sounds like an apt metaphor for life in general, lol, which is why this post ex...

Shortly after writing the previous post , I decided not to join my daughter and her family on their holiday. It was the best choice, albeit not easy, yet I felt peaceful afterwards, and was glad to have made the decision without further stewing about it. Today I am REALLY GLAD I'm not going because my knee is VERY ACHY. A visit to the orthopedist is in the works, and I'm ready to acquiesce to whatever will fix the issue, which is probably a further tear in the meniscus. The last two days haven't been bad, but I took ibuprofen three hours ago, with no relief. Such is the way of aging, just have to accept the less stellar moments as they emerge. I snapped this a couple of days ago during a break in the rain. To my delight, the nasturtium has bloomed (pictured above), although once again it's raining, which will be the case tomorrow. Which is great for keeping me inside reading through Brave the Skies one more time, a probable release date of next Monday on my calendar. I...

Flags, courage, gardening, and staying the course.... Future Me was hanging around over the weekend, especially on Saturday as I finished my Pride in the Flag flag. She has been conspicuously ABSENT for a good while, since Breathing space . I don't blame her in a way. I've certainly wanted to abscond to distant lands. I do not have the luxury of time travel. She, however, possesses fairy-godlike abilities, usually for which I am grateful. This weekend her presence was minimal, yet soothing, as though she kept the rain from falling until I could photograph Pride on the laundry line. She didn't say much, perhaps our conversations are mostly of an ethereal nature, absorbed like breathing. Sometimes her voice wafts softly, often she snorts sharply. She does a lot of snorting, smirking, eye rolling, as though I'm a truculent child in constant need of being upbraided. Or maybe she's weary of this on-off-on again existence, wishing she could retire to sew or write or garde...

HST stands for half-square triangles, which in my decade of sewing have remain conspicuously absent from the routine. I don't like sewing triangles; I can't control them. They have their own agendas and.... Anyway, in Jodi Godfrey's latest delightful pattern , HSTs and other angular manners of machine sewing figure heavily. I was reading over the clearly written instructions yesterday, when suddenly I found myself cutting squares, drawing a line down the centers of the light fabrics, then.... Well, those pictured above are what I curated before it was time to eat dinner. I spent a good while rummaging through my stash for appropriately unbusy low volume fabrics, of which I don't have many. Then it was a matter of choosing darker prints, then chain-piecing, pressing, and finally trimming to size. The trimming was the biggest hassle, well, right after finding low volume scraps. A few times I nearly walked away, then I'd gaze at my monitor, where the pattern waited, te...

Blackberries are thick, just need time to ripen! I'm home and very glad to be here. Three weeks have passed since I left for a sojourn that ended up being longer away than I had planned. Sometimes life works that way. Re-entering my house, I felt to have been gone for ages, not sure if it was lingering effects of covid, my own age, or something less certain, but truly remarkable. Because I'm still feeling...not displaced, yet an intangible sense of alteration remains, like I didn't merely stay away longer than intended or dealt with a malady. It's like I've started a new chapter of my existence, which sounds alarming and more than a little dramatic, but I am a writer, melodrama part of my stock and trade. It's like a fog has cleared, the mist of thinking I'm a lot younger than I actually am, lol. While hanging out with extended family, I gravitated to my sister-in-law, a dozen years my senior. Definitely three generations of us, but no longer am I among thos...