A Contemplative Life

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...

A possible cover shot for an upcoming installment of The Hawk . This was the view at our second residence while living in England. Sometimes, well into writing a manuscript, I realize the true purpose for said story. Occasionally it's not at all related to why I began telling that tale; The Enran Chronicles qualifies, as do drafts I'll never publish, yet just as vital to me are those yarns spun for reasons only I needed to grasp. When I started writing The Hawk , I thought it was going to be a short story. Laughing Out Loud! As it became something far more encompassing, I accepted it was a way to work through massive personal issues; becoming a grandmother as my father died, finding my role as a woman no longer that young, etc, etc, etc. But well into a third of the saga emerged previously unplanned characters and story lines which are some of the most meaningful I have been blessed to translate from my heart onto a virtual page. The scene that follows is but one example, as S...

Seven of eight chicks on a perch my husband fashioned. Their baby chick perch remains a fave spot too, lol. Nearly a week has passed since we moved the chicks into the coop. Their first few days in a new to them home was steeped in their adjustment to plenteous room, no feed overnight, and us attempting to coax them from said coop to the attached run. They seem to love more space, haven't minded waiting for breakfast (although they cried the first night when we turned off the light, and on subsequent evenings when not under the heat plate when that light was again shut off), and finally braved the strange opening to the outside world that of course is far more exciting than their spacious coop. Getting them back into the coop was a chore, and not for worms or scratch would they head up the ramp. We're still searching for an appropriate treat in which to lure them hither and yon; today I'll try some grated carrot (Update: they couldn't care less about grated carrot, sigh...

A heart quilt. Just finished Part One of On Being Brave. And other incidents of bravery, lol. Welp, as my eldest daughter sometimes exclaims, I finished the first part of my current noveling WIP. Should probably update my WIP page, I do believe. But first I wanted to write this entry, posting pics of the beautiful Mr. Carter hearts English paper piecing quilt. This pattern , from Tales of Cloth , was an easy and uplifting project I began late last year after my nation elected a president I do not find at all appealing. Cutting, basting, then stitching heart blocks was SO NECESSARY. There aren't enough exclamation points in existence to exemplify how imperative it was to construct those blocks, then begin to place them accordingly. So many gorgeous prints in heaps of beautiful colours! So, scattered within this post more to do with writing are shots of a quilt I am still missing in my evening repertoire. Not sure when I'll make another, but dang, one day I hope to! Yet, as today...

  A Red Sky at Night block in progress. I've been engrossed in the third novel of my current series , finding it required a good looking-after, lol. The story is fine, mostly, though I need to read it again to confirm when one character is first mentioned by another character to make sure I didn't mess up later events, ahem. That's one level of competence, in that when a novel is written on the fly, occasionally plot points don't meet up at correct angles. I have also discovered minor examples of prose requiring mild sharpening. That's fine, what revisions are all about. But it was startling to me to read a sentence, then immediately refashion it first within my head, then onto the document. Or deleting a sentence or phrase, making for tighter writing. Again, why edits are important, as well as time away from a manuscript so perspective can play its magical role in the process. I think of editing as the easy part of writing. Some may not agree, but for my method of ...

  Today I gave away the quilt pictured above. Recently our postmistress went above and beyond the call of duty, and I wanted to gift her with a token of my deepest esteem. She was thrilled, mentioned that she LOVED quilts, and as autumn is slowly approaching here in Humboldt County, also said this comforter would get a lot of love. I'm so pleased she liked it, and now the quilt queue lessens, lol. That's not what today's post is mostly about, other than explaining the photo. I started revisions on the last installment of The Hawk , ten outta ten books, DUDE! The other day, noting this to my husband, I remarked that despite this story being about a guy who actually turns into a hawk (with no superhero overtones), it's also a series steeped in real life. Later on faith in Christ becomes a main theme, but not at the beginning. In the beginning it's a slice of life between two married couples in the early 1960s dealing with infertility, PTSD, as well as one woman's ...

  Glimpses of a quilt-in-progress.... Taking a break this morning from reading The Hawk , although I have been racing through it, thoroughly caught up in the drama. Some chapters receive a minor tinkering, some are left nearly as is. At my current rate of more than two chapters a day, I might *finish* these edits by the end of month, whoa! Yet that is a story I wrote years ago. Nice that I still enjoy it, don't misconstrue, but what I am now longing to write is the continuation of my current series, and not merely one book. Inspiration has been flying through my mind as I hand-quilt the fabric WIP, which is coming along well. Binding is wholly attached, another round of hand-stitches to confirm the entire kit'n'kaboodle will stay as one remains. Yet in that repetitive work, my gray matter fashions plots, characterizations, people's hopes and dreams. These folks aren't real, although who is to say what constitutes the manner in which we live. Not to be overly etherea...

  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, ...

  A screenshot from this morning's revisions of The Hawk . Coming home, even from a brief absence, usually proffers an altered vision. That used to not be the case on a consistent basis, but lately I've found even a weekend away brings insights not previously considered. I don't know if it's aging, I guess it must be. Suddenly I see things, from writing to sewing, in a different light. Perhaps it's the light itself, altering from spring to summer, adding to the emerging notion of change. The lengthening days are a beauty in themselves, as though the winter months were fiction. I know better, lol, but it's still a sight to behold. Currently I'm reading from the Alvin's Farm series, not having checked out those books in a while. I make notes where I find prose that needs a lift, then last night I scrolled through the story on my phone, updating the manuscript. I'm not alone in this task, recently reading about Alice Munro , the Canadian short story au...