Solitude

1.

Leo Babauta:

The No. 1 Creativity Habit

In a word: solitude.

Creativity flourishes in solitude. With quiet, you can hear your thoughts, you can reach deep within yourself, you can focus.

Of course, there are lots of ways to find this solitude.

Via @ThereseWalsh.

2.

Only when one is alone can one find quiet. Silence.

Without which, you cannot truly hear or see or feel. Take your pick.

The story you want to tell cannot reveal itself to you until you are ready to listen.

3.

This ties in with the idea of deliberate practice, or whatever you want to call it.

It is easier to write, to practice the musical instrument of your choice, to draw, to sculpt, you name it, when you are alone.

But people are not the only distractions. The internet, for instance, now that nearly every writer seems to work mostly from a computer. Twitter is a useful tool, to be certain, but it could just as easily have been called Distraction Central.

4.

I consider the distractions to be separate from the procrastinations.

The procrastinations are things you do to avoid seeking out that solitude. Cleaning seems to be rather popular, which I don't understand, but I suppose if you're desperately avoiding something, cleaning's probably better than TV.

I admit my favorite procrastination is reading, as I always have a crazy amount of reading to catch up on anyway.

5.

Either way, there are things out there that try to prevent us from reaching that space.

The trick is to rise above it. Because it is necessary.

Sheer, desperate desire helps, though it can also hinder.

It's easy enough to lock yourself into a room. It's much harder to find true solitude, to find the space where you can create.

Sometimes, one can go crazy trying to find that space, and yet, without that space, we'd probably be crazier.

1.

30k. Whoot!

2.

Actually, 31k.

1.

I hate getting ahead of myself, I really do.

Now I have to go back and stitch things back up together.

I can't believe I forgot such a major plotline. Bah.

2.

This will probably jinx me but I have not forgotten to refer to myself as Emily rather than anything else for awhile.

3.

I hate writing action scenes.

I really really do.

I told @redrobinreader I'd attempt some fancy paper art with sharp objects and paper silk. I may make a model and people cut-outs and see where that takes me. But anyway, I've skipped the rest of the action scenes, and will write the pivotal scene so I can continue on.

That should take me past 30k!

Quilts 1700-2010

1.

First, I want to say this isn't as well-written or as in depth as it should be.

But then, I didn't plan on procrastinating this quite this long either.

2.

Quilts commemorate stuff. That seemed to be a central theme of the exhibit anyway.

3.

The other central theme is that Quilts tell a story. I guess Paperback Writer had it right.

The story about the quilt the V&A commissioned from prisoners at a British museum, in particular, stands out. It has finer stitches that I could achieve, I am almost ashamed to say.

4.

I really want Diana Harrison's Box I and II.

Gail Baxter writes and has pictures of them.

5.

On Twitter, I mocked the idea that a Scripture quilt could protect one from illness.

But now I look at it in a different way.

A handmade quilt as protection. As something to snuggle up under. It's a different kind of protection, for one's heart and soul, but protection all the same.

6.

I don't normally go for the ones that try to make a statement about the world, but I really liked Stockwell's money quilt.

It is called A Chinese Dream, and here's what the artist has to say about it:

I’ve stitched and crafted almost 1000 Chinese money notes into a
patterned, quilted map of the world. Like most of my work the piece
refers to trade, ecology, the present economic crisis and the shifting
global economy. For me personally it’s a beautiful, hand-made quilt
stemming from a tradition of women recycling old clothes, passing on
keepsakes and sharing in a familial process that transcends generations.
Ironically the ritual processes involved in making a quilt seem to
counter the crassness of money and consumerism.

7.

There's more stuff at the Victoria & Albert Museum page for the exhibit here.

Thanks to Jacqueline Holdsworth of Needleprint for the recommendation!

8.

Despite my love of geometries, quilting never really interested me. Too much effort -- like making thousands of little stitches on linen isn't effort... 

But now I really want to learn flat quilting. Go figure.

1.

I really should write up the Quilts 1700-2010 exhibition I went to at the Victoria & Albert.

2.

I've never felt this defeated.

Not even with my novels, not even the ones that I have consigned to a place so deep, that they may never see the light of day.

I can't even bring myself to think about it any more.

3.

Writing was never an escape for me, not the way it seems to have been for so many of my fellow writers.

It was just something I did. I wanted to be a writer, enough to earn the discipline.

Now it feels like all I have left, and I don't even know how I got here.