Writing: Life Gets In the Way

In November last year, I participated for the first time in the annual NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) event, using the seed of a story I'd already begun many months before of around 7k words. Since the goal of NaNoWriMo is 50k, that gave me a bit of a head start, which was a good thing, since Thanksgiving really threw a wrench into the last week of the month, and I was unable to get many hours into writing, but I did finish, and I finished with over 51k words of a novel I was proud of.

It was a first draft, of course, and needed revision and editing, but I had finally finished a novel. It was far and away the longest thing I'd ever written before. But more than that, it was the beginning of what will be a series because the story wasn't finished. This book had come to what I felt was a natural conclusion – I told the story I wanted to tell and set things up for more stories to come. The seeds were planted, and all I have to do now is nurture them.

I drew maps, I camp up with cultural events, the concepts of societies that don't yet exist in this book to carry into future ones... and then I took a part-time job. (sigh) Life is a funny old thing.

Since I was in grade school, I've wanted to write. And I did write: terrible short stories I'm pretty sure are lost to history (I hope), bad and angsty teenage poetry (that I do still have), the odd assortment of unpublished essays, blog posts, a published magazine article and essay, two completed children's books in need of illustrations, a self-published nonfiction book (Creating an Heirloom), and any number of works in progress. With this new job and my daughter now out of school, I don't know what my writing life is going to look like.

Years ago, after reading one of Christopher Moore's books, I sent him a very fangirlish email and told him how much I loved his writing. I don't know exactly what I said in the email, but I do remember his reply because it was encouraging: he said he didn't start writing until he was in his 30s (I was in my 20s when I wrote to him). Even with than encouragement, I still sat on my butt for years and did nothing about it. I had hours while The Kid was in school to sit and type furiously, but other things got in my way (namely, me).

So what do I do now?

I'll muddle along as I have, stealing hours where I can for writing, and try to adjust my hours at work to reach some sort of equilibrium between work/home/life. And maybe I'll even get my first novel published someday...

The Milliner's Library

Free, downloadable titles

There are a number of millinery books that have been digitized and are readable online or downloaded in a variety of formats. The Internet Archive has several -- keep in mind that most of those books are quite old, dating from the 1890s to the 1920s. Also, a search of the keyword "millinery" will yield results that include socioeconomic studies of women in the trade of millinery, which you may or may not find interesting.

Millinery by Charlotte Rankin Aiken, 1922, 188 pages
Concerning Millinery, by Kate J. Giblin, 1902, 73 pages
A Complete Course in Millinery, by Julia Bottomley (ed.), revised ed. 1919, 167 pages
Complete Guide to Millinery, by Margaret Kitnzel & Mary M. Lunt, 1915, 54 pages
Home Millinery, Madame Margariete's Manual, by Margariete Creamer, 1920(?), 15 pages
Make Your Own Hats, by Mrs. Gene Allen Martin, 1921, 111 pages
Le Petit Maître, by Marie Melcher, 1895, 68 pages (despite the title, the book is in English)

Modern reprints of vintage books

Bramcost Publications has several titles -- 3 dozen at the time of this writing. I have their republication of the 1944 book, How to Make and Trim Your Own Hats by Vee Powell. They are pricey; a 23 page 8.5x11" book of crochet patterns is $14. On the other hand, finding an original vintage copy on ebay would probably run more than that. They also sell a variety of other vintage reprints, including sewing, beauty and entertaining.

 
And speaking of ebay... Dakota Prairie Treasures sells the same sort of titles that Bramcost does, spiral bound (so they'll lay flat when you're working), and in some cases, the same titles, like How to Make and Trim Your Own Hats. The prices are similar, with DPT being a bit less expensive. DPT also has some more recent titles from the '50s and '60s. They have three pages of items listed under Millinery Instruction in the shop right now. I have not yet ordered from them, so I can't comment on the quality of the reprinting, or the sturdiness of the spiral binding.

Modern millinery titles

A quick search on Amazon yields a number of modern titles. If you find a title that sounds good, but you're not certain you want to commit to the cost, check your library (or inter-library loan). Or there's always Half Price Books, Half.com (an ebay company), and ABEBooks.com -- all excellent sources of used books. You'll find some overlap between Amazon's used booksellers, Half, and ABE.

I don't currently have any of the modern books, but I did pick up a copy of Felt Jewelry by by Teresa Searle because several of the projects looked like they'd be good for millinery trimmings. Plus, I enjoy felting.

As I find titles, I'll try to review them and share my thoughts here.

Inexpensive Library Table

When we bought our house, we were excited about the formal living room. Not because we're formal people, but because the space was perfect for a home library. We're both bibliophiles, and have a ton of bookcases. We bought more...

Because the room was sizable, we decided to make a library table using six short bookcases (two rows of three set back-to-back) with a furniture-grade plywood top, and trimmed out to look like a single, sizable, piece of furniture. The whole thing sits on a rug that protects the hardwood floor and breaks up all the woodgrain, floor to (laminate) bookcases. We bought the bookcases (furniture-in-a-box; I think the manufacturer is Sauder) on sale at Meijer as part of their back to school sale, so if you're thinking of trying this, that's a good time to buy them. 

The top of the table is made from a sheet of plywood, cut to size and stacked. A single layer didn't give us the height we needed to add trim and have the trim be high enough to get books off the top shelf.

We used that grippy shelf/drawer liner stuff to keep the plywood from sliding on the tops of the bookcases. I used green wood stain on the plywood, a color close to one of the shades of green in the rug. (The room also has one green wall.)

Two coats of Minwax Express Color in Emerald, much prettier in person.

Once the top was finished, the trim was stained. I used Minwax PolyShades hoping to do it all in one shot -- don't be lazy; I hate that crap and won't ever use it again. Use stain, then seal it with polyurethane. PolyShades is nearly impossible to apply evenly. ANYway, we found trim that had a leaf motif, an excellent complement to both the green colors in the room, and the leaves in the rug. The trim was mitred to fit perfectly onto the table surface, and nailed into the plywood. (If we had to, the table surface can be lifted off of the bookcases, but it would take several people to do it -- it's heavy!)

First coat of poly/stain. We found the trim at Home Depot.

The finished table, exactly the right height for looking something up in the big unabridged dictionary, is my pride and joy. It's the first thing I see when I come downstairs in the morning, and it still gives me a bit of a rush.

Completed table, with the trim stained to closely match the color of the laminate bookcases.

I call it an "inexpensive library table" only in comparison to something that was made in a single piece and out of wood instead of particle board. I honestly don't remember exactly what we paid for each one, but it was probably around $20 each on sale (this was two years ago), so "inexpensive" is highly relative. If you're thinking of picking them up one at a time, as finances allow, remember that availability may change, styles may be discontinued, etc. 

Also, if you're a serious bibliophile and need to keep track of your collection, I highly recommend LibraryThing, an online book cataloging website. It's fantastic!

A Million Ways to Procrastinate

I signed up at Pinterest in June as part of 30 Days of Creativity, but didn't really do much with it after the month was done. A friend of mine started using it, which made me take a second look at the site. And I have been using it to daydream about new projects ever since...

Ever since I got over my initial horror of destroying books, working on my own altered book, I've been looking at them with new eyes. So many books are discarded! I would never destroy something valuable (collectible, rare, etc.), but there's an awful lot of books that don't fall into that category. If you just look at the people who've tagged recycled books on Pinterest, there's tons of amazing, creative and fun projects. There's Christmas ornaments in particular I am dying to make. Currently, my vintage aluminum tree is set up in the library... but wouldn't it be awesome to have a book-themed tree?

We're working on finishing up our unpacking and organizing (we moved in last July) in the basement, where a lot of boxes ended up, yet to be unpacked. I know how I want to decorate that space, and Pinterest is giving me a lot of inspiration there, too.

Whatever you can think of, there's probably someone at Pinterest who's thought of it, too. And you will find a million ways to procrastinate.

Halloweenie

This morning I put up the Halloween decorations that I have. Honestly, there weren't that many, because up until now, we haven't had the space to store a bunch of decorations and still don't have the money to splurge. But that's not all bad, because making them is fun, and I need something to keep my restless hands busy.

I've been toying with the idea of using vintage diecut jack o'lanterns as patterns for making with felt in layers, using three or four layers as needed for the different colors. That's a little ambitious, so I thought I'd start a little smaller, and use craft foam sheets and do a simplified version of that same idea. I even found a prepackaged bunch of yellow and orange pumpkin shapes (some with glitter!) that I'll layer, yellow behind the orange, creating a similar effect.

Top row, my "patterns" from vintage diecuts; bottom row, my two-layer creations with craft foam. (Yes the right one is backwards. It's still cute.)

This is the original, the inspiration for the left pumpkin above. I am still debating whether or not to add the little white teeth to the foam version.

At the same time I bought those, I also got some plain orange precut pumpkins, a yellow sheet, black and white, two shades of green, and a medium blue sheet. These are for my daughter, whom I am hoping to engage in some creativity and let her make the faces from shapes I'll cut out. [Note: My daughter is 14 and autistic, and lately if it's not a video on the PBS Kids website or Heidi Kenney's Yummy stuff, she can't be bothered. However, she enjoys Halloween, so I'm hoping to get her involved with me on this. Not holding my breath, mind you...]

Pumpkins with the stems added (by me) in the shades of green.

I also have leaves for them all, but haven't cut them out yet.

This time of year also allows me to drag out my guilty pleasure collection of Halloween Barbie dolls. I love them. Some are better than others, of course, but I love them all. Then I see some of the one of a kind originals some clever artist has made, and is selling for fabulous amounts, and I think I have a sewing machine, I can do repaints like those artists, and I could make my own visions... I know, I'm crazy. My sewing skills are rudimentary at best. But I can learn, right??

I enjoy making dolls. Weird dolls, dolls with strange materials, teeny dolls, mixed media dolls... and this time of year, I lean toward making witchy dolls. I'm dying to try an apple head doll. I wrote a children's alphabet book for the season, and I want to make all the dolls for illustrations. SO BAD! I think the worst part is having all the ideas, and no idea where to start.

"Word" Pendants

My "word" pendants are made with small versions of the kaleidoscoped photos, plus an inch-square piece, made with a pieced background of pastel chalk and words clipped from recycled books. Each is unique.

These are part of what I've been up to for the "30 Days of Creativity" challenge.

Art & Fear, Thoughts

Perhaps I did myself a bad turn by reading Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell (a fascinating book that is going to make me question pretty much everything, ever, from now on) and then reading Art & Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland. And also by being a rather avid fan of Regretsy...

You see, Blink reminded me how very manipulable the brain is, how we can be primed to accept something (or not). I'm also reminded of a piece I heard on NPR some years ago, about the riots that occurred when Stravinsky's Rite of Spring débuted. (There's a biological/psychological side to that: the brain needs to hear new music more than once before it can "accept" it as music and not noise. Most new things, truly new and innovative, are heard as dissonant until they've been heard more than once. The brain needs to learn the new patterns.) So the brain is both malleable through intentional leading through word choice (classic eyewitness study by Loftus and Palmer shows this so clearly, and ad execs know it all too well), and through repeated exposure. Which brings to mind what Bayles and Orland talk about in their book, that innovation is an essential part of artmaking, but that it will invariably be met with criticism (and derision) until people get used to the new pattern. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. (Attributed to Mohandas Gandhi, regarding nonviolent protesting.)

Like Stravinsky, you must simply wait out the criticism, let everyone's brains get used to the new patterns you're providing, "and then you win," Though they don't really discuss it in those terms, Bayles and Orland talk about how just the wrong words from a teacher to a student can end an artistic career before it even begins -- priming the pump. Something else they don't mention, but I will because I am cynical and nasty: Telling people they are "special snowflakes, just like everyone else" does everyone a great disservice. If everyone is special, NO ONE is. (See Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron.) Not everyone can write an opera, not everyone can paint/sculpt/etc./ad nauseum. But we persist in telling people "you can do anything if you put your mind to it!" (demonstrably not true), and then praise their mediocre and misguided efforts when they've created a "masterwork" from chewed gum and bits of string.

While I praise the efforts of Bayles and Orland for helping assuage the terrors of being an artist by reiterating the idea that all artists feel that way, all the time, forever... sometimes the "artist" in question simply believes they're special, no one understands their art, or "you're just being mean!" Frankly, there are people on Etsy selling items they have no earthly reason to expect to be paid for - it's not that I don't get it, or that I'm mean, it's that the piece is poorly executed, badly rendered, childish (at best) and, frankly, crap (I love how she calls herself a "new artist" in reference to that piece, as if it excuses the smudges and awfulness of it). There are also people on Etsy who are undercharging for very skilled work. I don't agree with everything Regretsy posts as a Fail, and I don't agree with all of the critics there who gleefully snark away on those pieces. I don't have to. My opinion is mine alone, but sometimes it really is that bad.

But I'm probably overthinking it all...