The First Point of Departure

The first point of departure from the plan for my architectural quilt came sooner than I expected. The very first unit threw me a curve. The painting has a shadow on the leftmost part of the barn that I drew accurately, but didn’t piece properly. I left it as it was and went on to the next unit. The roof line gave me trouble, so I went to the third unit. I figured I’d just work my way across the quilt top from left to right until I found my groove. Well, looking at what I had sewn, I realized I would have to fix the issues sooner rather than later because the units needed to be pieced together in a different order than I had started. Luckily, I had wanted to depict a barn in moonlight, not sunlight. Once you put a dark background on a landscape, it’s no big deal to turn it into a space quilt. If I can’t make this thing look like a barn, I’ll make it look like a space station. At least I still like the way the pinks and blacks are playing together.

Luck and wisdom!

Poetry and My Fingernails

To celebrate Poetry Month, Tri-Valley Writers invited Gillian Wegener to speak about the relevance of poetry in everyday life. As she took the podium, I noticed my fingernails. Usually I don’t care about the way my fingernails look, but I was the designated tech person that day and my hands were all over the computer we use to record the meeting. We’ll take a short pause here to let the people who know me well stop laughing. I am not the tech person in my family – immediate, extended, going back seven generations, whatever. I will, however, volunteer to be a back-up and hope I never have to do it. Well, I had to do it, and although I had notes I was terrified at the number of things I could do wrong without meaning to. While Gillian was introducing herself, I dashed off a few lines about my feelings. It needs a lot of work, but I’ll probably keep the last line: My fingernails catch on buttons and icons/sending me into ethernet hell.

Turns out this was the gist of Gillian’s speech – poetry gives us words for the inexpressible. No matter what you write, exploring poetry will provide you with insights into your thought process. That’s a valuable tool to have when the words start hiding in random brain cells and you need to lure them out on the page.

Luck and wisdom!

A Learning Curve

My new project is to interpret a work of art in fabric. I am going to use Charles Sheeler’s Bucks County Barn (1923).

My graph paper sketch isn’t really a pattern, and my goal isn’t to copy the painting exactly. I am learning as I go along, and the curve may be steep. Here is the fabric for my first stab at the project.

Luck and wisdom!

Creating Villains

Not all villains are monsters. Sometimes a villain is merely the person who stands in the way of your heroine achieving her goal. There doesn’t have to be any malice involved, or even an awareness that the heroine has a goal. This is especially true if your villain isn’t actually a person but is, say, the weather or a horse race or a flower that must bloom at a certain time. So, how can you create a villain without overdoing it? I like to use these techniques.

People watch.

I was at a festival over the weekend and one of the guests caught my attention. “Self,” I said, “you could make a villain out of him.” He seemed perfectly normal, but something about the way he shifted his backpack triggered this whole backstory of a war collaborator infiltrating the resistance with orders to destroy everyone.

Put yourself on the other side.

Sometimes, usually while watching the news, I try to imagine a character who holds a different view of the situation than I do, and come up with a version of the events that makes no sense to me but would to my villain. If the news is too distressing for this exercise, try it the next time you are out to eat. Take a good look at the menu and imagine a character who would enjoy the dish you find most unappealing.

Indulge in your emotions.

While malice is the fallback emotional state for many villains, what if your villain were motivated by something else? Envy is a good start, but envy of what? The heroine’s money? Her dress size? Her perfectly formed little feet? What if the villain hates your heroine due to an irrational distrust of green-eyed redheads?

When you start thinking of your villain in different terms, you might find your character becomes more usable. Who knows, you could even end the novel with your heroine helping the villain find redemption, which could be the start of an entirely new series for you.

Luck and wisdom!

Art And My To-Do List

Every so often I get a new project when I am actually ready for a new project. The latest Challenge assignment is to reinterpret a piece of art in fabric. I just finished cleaning up after my last project, so there are no scraps on the cutting board to influence my design choice. I decided to take out a collection of fabrics that can never go into a quilt that will be washed (some of the fabrics have glitter), and choose an art piece based on them. This is opposed to letting the deadline come rushing up, pulling out the first art book I could reach, and sorta kinda maybe making the scraps around me fit the piece. I’m also going to try to find my authentic artistic voice in this assignment. I’ve been making some small quilts that almost hit the right notes, but I realize I have a way to go before I start creating art that says something important to me. I still may not ever see my work in galleries, but it would be nice to discover that I actually have something I want to say through fabric.

Luck and wisdom!

Timelines and Character Development

Writers of memoir and historical fiction know that setting up a timeline is a good way to ground your characters in the story. Knowing what happened when gives the writer a way to enter into the character’s mind – what they might have found frightening, amazing, or delightful. The same holds true for other genres, even science fiction. Creating a timeline gives you a chance to experiment with your characters’ expectations. If it has only been six months since the aliens blew up the Aswan Dam, your characters may still be in a state of panic. If it has been ten years since the aliens took over the Las Vegas strip and turned it into an eco-friendly theme park, your characters may be commemorating the event with a non-stop blitz of documentaries and tours (complete with cute toys and collectibles). Think about how you feel when you realize you are coming up on a milestone memorial, and channel that for your heroes and villains. Don’t forget the sidekicks – they’re the ones who will celebrate the most bizarre of events, which is also fun for plot development.

Luck and wisdom!

Stop And Smell The Lilacs

We don’t have roses in our yard. We did, but they were ungrateful. Always thirsty, never happy with the soil, prone to poke us when we pruned them for their own good – they had to go. Lilacs smell lovely too, and are a much better fit for us.

I was thinking of our unlamented roses when I took a critical eye to my fabric collection. There are some pieces that are lovely, yes, but ungrateful. They don’t play well with others, they only look good in one orientation, or they don’t sew up nicely. Some of them may have outstayed their welcome in my studio. Someone else may love them, or they might go into a donation quilt. At any rate, they are going to go away by the end of the year. I have stopped to smell the lilacs, and don’t need quite so many roses.

Luck and wisdom!

What You Thought Was On The Page: The Value Of Revision

The difference between what I thought was on the page I wrote and what is actually there can be astounding. My critique groups usually catch those sorts of things, but then I run across something I wrote that never went through a critique review – like the recipe I pulled out for my traditional Easter dessert – and I am smacked in the face with my ability to deceive myself. I don’t remember writing a modified version of the recipe, but there it is in my own handwriting. It is also less than helpful, what with the cross-outs, the underestimation of how soft the dough is (it’s more of a batter in this version), and the lack of some crucial information. The good news is, this episode proved to me the value of letting something rest between revisions. The true value of revision lies in being able to see what is actually on the page. You must leave enough time between writing and revising to forget what you thought you wrote. Some writing coaches suggest several weeks, others several months. I’ll let you decide how robust your memory is. Sometimes a few weeks is enough for me, other times I can forget vital information in seconds – but that is a rant for another time.

Luck and wisdom!

Clean-ish

I’ve been writing this blog about cleaning my sewing room for over a decade. I’ve never quite reached absolute tidiness, but there are times that are better than others. This is one of those times. My sewing table is clean-ish, and not because I shifted all the stuff to another part of the room so I would have space to machine quilt. I actually put things away. Yes, there is the Great Wall of stuff that separates my working area from my staging area, but it has shrunk. I know you can’t tell, but I can. That is good enough.

Luck and wisdom!

Pronunciation Guides and Paper Maps: A Wee Rant

I went to my trusty dictionary to learn how Sasanian was pronounced, and the word wasn’t there (or I couldn’t find it; it was late). I fired up my tablet, found a link, and clicked. There was no pronunciation guide, only a voice. Fine, so I heard how it sounds (stress the second syllable, which uses a long a), but I wanted to read how it sounds. I also like to read paper maps. Is it too much to ask to have plenty of maps and dictionaries in book form (or at least pamphlet form) that I can hang on to for security and not feel that my world will disappear if the power goes out? When did my carefully cultivated survival skills become antiquated, and where do I register a complaint? When will it be my turn to be Queen of the Universe? Okay, scratch that last one. The rant is over.

Luck and wisdom!