A Contemplative Life

  Folders I kept. The last few days I've been steeped in novels I wrote over eleven years ago. I'd been listening to the playlist connected to these stories, and well.... Pulling up 2007-2013 in the books not currently under construction folder, I clicked on Forever of One Heart Part 1 , scrolled through the manuscript, then began to read. I didn't read anything else until I reached the end of Part 2 , which happened last night. Then I went to bed. After breakfast this morning I got dressed, wearing warm-ish clothes because we're actually receiving rain today. Then I breathed deeply, and from the closet I retrieved a box where I store notes from previous books. The big question was if I had purged the folder for Forever of One Heart a few years back when I did a massive clear-out of that box and another, fully aware I didn't need to keep information for drafts I had no plan to revise and release. Apparently Forever fell into that category, because to my chagrin, ...

The quilting side of my creative life has thankfully been smooth sailing. Two baby quilts have been sent to their new homes, a third on the wall waiting patiently for me to spend a few days at my machine. I've made good progress on the Cornflower quilt, attaching rows in a manner that is actually pretty relaxing, but then wrangling a couple of rows is less futzy than all the rows, lol. I have twenty of ninety-four Star blocks made, I have a plan for abandoned Alexandria quilt blocks, which will free up two-inch hexagons so I can perhaps get back to that medallion style quilt in some future date. Future Me won't say if I will complete that quilt, but then she's also keeping quiet about the current state of my noveling existence. But first, the quilts.... The photos above and right below this paragraph are actually the same quilt! This is the first time I've made a quilt purposefully reversible. I like how in the small square side the perimeter is about half-square sized,...

One of two recent quilt finishes, more about those in the next post. Yesterday I did something I have never done before. I deleted the first chapter, save the last paragraph, of my new novel. I suppose there's a first time for everything, but wow. Yet, as I wrote that alleged first chapter, I felt detached. I was even, gasp, distracted by my phone. That NEVER HAPPENS when I write, other than a quick glance at the screen in case it's an important text or call. So yeah, a day of writing went down the tubes, except for that final paragraph, which I liked and kept at the end of the rewritten first chapter. Today I wrote Chapter 2 as though the initial Chapter 1 never existed. I wrote with total abandon, I wrote from a place in my head and heart that cut me off from where I am right now, in February, in Humboldt County. Instead I was in Corning, California in the heat of June, where a twelve-year-old girl was hoping to find the secrets her late mother had left behind. After completi...

A mock-up for my next Ice Cream Soda block; looking forward to sewing this as another yarn is spun. Starting a new book today, but it's not even seven in the morning and I haven't eaten breakfast and, and, and.... And this novel, originally slated in the number five spot, has moved up considerably. Now it's the prologue, ahem, requiring a little more gravity than previously. Previously it was an addendum, fleshing out a character that emerged offhandedly in Book 3, but much like Seth Gordon in The Hawk , this character has turned into a key player. Stories are funny like that, but I need to go with the flow and see what happens. Well, I know what's gonna happen, or I think I do, lol. I've also decided that instead of publishing this series starting this year, I'm going to wait. I won't release it like I did The Hawk , piece by piece as it was written. This series will emerge much further into its creation, even if the novels are presented in a kind...

For my youngest granddaughter, with special thanks to my better half for his participation in the photography department. Wow, what a couple of writing months it has been! Quilting excursions too, but writing is far more draining, probably because I don't make super-futzy quilts lol. Okay, EPP quilts are pretty involved, but their pace is so much slower than a novel, I don't feel the truly overwhelming sense of AHHHHHH that a book's completion provides. But with the last two quilts of 2023 washed, dried, and gift-wrapped in addition to THE END being ethereally slapped onto my Word document, my goodness I'm feeling.... Um, how do I feel? Well, my right shoulder is bothering me, so I'm not doing any hand-sewing at the moment. I'm pretty full, as we went out for a celebratory breakfast this morning after I finished my novel, and I'm in a chatty blogging mood, although my thoughts are kinda scattered. This book ended up pretty long-ish, currently at 137K. That...

Rows of straight-line quilting, oh yeah! Hopping back into my novel has taken a couple of days. The chapter I wrote yesterday ended on quite a revelation that I wasn't quire prepared emotionally or backstorily within said chapter to reveal, ahem. Yet the word count is pushing 120K, whoa! And while it's a first draft, I didn't initially envision this tale to get much beyond the 120sK, although it's fine that it will, and boy let me tell you, it will. How much it will is yet to be determined, but if today's chapter is any indication, there's not much left of this yarn to spin. Which is GREAT because 1) The end of the year is nigh. 2) I'm ready for an extended writing break. 3) We're going away for the Christmas weekend and I'd LOVE to be done with this book before that. 4) Um, all of those combined lol! Of course, as my dad often said, you can want in one hand and cry in the other and see which gets full the fastest. Oh my goodness, I was a young teena...

 A 2020 finish for my eldest that turned out far more beautifully than I could have dreamed; The Seedlings Quilt, pattern by Jodi Godfrey.   The plot for my current novel has been in my brain for ages. Sometimes books are like that, or story ideas, but not always do they come to fruition. This yarn was first spun well over a year ago in the guise of an initial chapter that went nowhere, or so I thought when abandoning it after just twenty-five hundred words. Now many more chapters have been accumulated, the end kinda in sight, or it better be for how the word count has risen, ahem. The writing and plotting have been good, maybe why it's evolved into more than the standard 80-100K book. I'm fine with that, it is just the first draft. But now that I'm reaching The End, I'm starting to wonder how this tale will actually look once I get there. Fortunately I have several days to ponder it, hehehe, as I'm taking off this week from writing to enjoy the presence of dear fri...

Excuse the slight reflection of this shot, taken yesterday. We're back from our familial celebrations and prepping for the national holiday. Cranberry sauce is cooling; I put in vanilla per an online recipe, and it's pretty dang tasty, if not a little heavy on the orange juice. Notes have been made for next year; I love cranberry sauce, and I try a different recipe whenever possible. As soon as I woke this morning, once the decaf brews were made, I sat at my computer and picked up on page eleven of my WIP; I'm hoping to read through it over the next couple of days, then we're off to see our youngest daughter, then we're back and I'll finish the read-through and maybe write a few chapters before dear friends arrive the first week of December! I would LOVE to complete this novel by the end of the year, but won't hold myself to that, in that the holiday season is full of surprises, and I want to enjoy Advent without feeling I have to do this, that, and the othe...

This applies to all areas of my life, but as this blog focuses on the writing and sewing, I'll limit my appreciations for those aspects (and still write a long-arsed post, heads-up!). I just finished my second chapter of the day, oh my goodness. I told my husband this morning over breakfast how this novel is pouring from my head and fingertips, and then I took a shower, considering what might happen next, then proceeded to start another chapter for the day (the first completed before eating). I haven't written like this IN A LONG TIME. One day last week I wrote two chapters in a day, not sure from where all this novelistic enthusiasm springs, maybe due to it being November and I'm channeling my prior NANOWRIMO days or making up for last year's spectacular fail. Whatever it is, I'm VERY GRATEFUL to be so prosy, lol, although I do need to get some housecleaning done this week, ahem. But relishing this rather I'll just write myself thank you very much story is ess...

Recent Cornflower block finish; at least something's being completed. My latest novel is up to 50K. Technically that's a strong halfway point, but I need to confess for the plot I previously imagined I should be farther ahead in the story than where I am. That rarely happens, and I'm realizing this tale is doing its own thing regardless of my initial considerations. Well okay then novel; you be you and I'll take a couple of days off while family visits! Ahem.... I think, within this series, despite it being a collection of kinda-standaloneish-books, I need to allow that it's more like The Hawk . Meaning it's one LONG book broken into these bite-sized hunks, and maybe this one might be the largest. I won't speculate HOW big Book 4 will become, as I don't want to paint myself into an inescapable corner or limit the story, which is nicely meandering as two characters fall in love. Yet the timeline I'd assumed has stretched itself, or shrunk itself depe...