The difference between this and that.

On the one hand, my stacks of squares are all lined up and ready to start sewing. The only thing to ponder there is what color thread to use for the piecing – dark, light, in between? Miles of sewing, two inches at a time. This is the grunt work part of making quilts – the repetitive stuff that is part meditation and part “get on with it already so I can see it done.” The balance between the work and impatience to see the work done.

On the other hand I’ve racked up 28272 words in the fields of NaNoWriMo which just shocks the heck out of me. My two main characters have done things that surprised me. Yesterday, just past the half-way mark of 25000 words there was a big turn of events. I thought I’d reached a Part two point earlier, but now I see that it was just a little resting place. Now the main character has made a big decision and acted on it, trusting that it will come out all right.

Now it’s his turn to do some repetitious stuff, some learning, some getting his feet under him.

It’s mine to figure out exactly what that means. When you’re working with things that most people say don’t really exist, there just aren’t a lot of solid references and I’ve yet to find anyone I can interview. Excuse me, over here, I have some questions. So I have to make it up.

My quilting is all about working with light and color and texture. I make it up out of my head and do my best to put it out there as fabric and thread. I think that all parts of it have some design function, but it’s so a part of me now that I don’t think of it so much in those terms.

This writing stuff feels different. The design work part feels much more sustained and in my face all the time. Get idea, write it all down, wonder what the next part has, write that down, repeat. Wonder what’s going to happen next. What could happen next. What should be the big thing that the second part is working towards and how the heck is that going to happen? (OK there’s a lot of OMG’ing that could be happening during commutes etc but I really try not to think about it too much!)

So both things: fun but different. I’m glad I am doing both things. Next up – a lot of piecing. Maybe I’ll figure out the part two thing while watching the pieces go by.