Dull Drums

I confess. I’ve been in the dull drums for months (yes, I intended to say dull drums, not doldrums). Feeling dull, my drums gone quiet. I’ve been pacing the house or sitting watching TV. Feeling old. Tired. Not in the mood for anything, even murder mysteries on the boob tube couldn’t hold my full attention. I was getting sick of myself. I did shower, and cook, and grocery shop, but beyond that I just wasn’t happy. Maybe “depressed” fits. Maybe it doesn’t.

My next novel, A Bird in the House, was sitting in the computer. Waiting. I thought about it often. What happens next? Who does what to whom? Couldn’t make up my mind. Too many pieces. Too complicated. Too hard.

One day I decided to clean a closet. There was a huge plastic garbage bag filled with fabric scraps that hadn’t been touched in at least fifteen years. It was a jumble of little squares, tangles of frayed thread, and odd bigger chunks of cotton cloth. I pulled the bag out and started sorting by colors. All the greens went into a zip-lock bag. All the beiges went into another. Eventually I had sorted all the scraps into their own little color coordinated homes. Bags of colors filled two wicker baskets. 

That was months ago. 

Recently, I cleaned out another closet. I discovered 18 inch squares of pieced together red and purple fabric that had been centerpieces for a dinner I organized eighteen years ago. Memories of that dinner aren’t happy, but the pieced squares were nice. I spread the nine squares out, side by side on my bed. If I added few more pieces (sixteen), it would be a whole quilt.

I moved the sewing machine into the room where I write and loaded it with red thread. For the past two weeks I’ve been buying more fabric and sewing my silly head off. No TV in the daytime. 

Three days ago I opened the laptop and read some of the novel.  I read pieces of story, events not fully sewn. I found lines that needed to be cleaner, straighter, more to the point. Dark sections needed more humor. Purple needs red. Short sentences need long ones to avoid boredom. Fabric combined in little squares and big chunks is more interesting. Words are little squares. Paragraphs are pieced together blocks. And what about transitions, how should I connect the pieces or paragraphs to create flow.

Yesterday, in the middle of quilting mayhem, the novel got 900 new words. Today I wrote another 800. Life is good. 

This afternoon, I have work to do. I have another idea for the quilt. One craft feeds the other.