Writing – Page 3 – Kathy Nida

Oh my god, I just want to be done with it…the neverending quilting. That stage when you aren’t far enough along to be close to done, dammit. You can see the end of the dark tunnel, but it’s just a speck of light in the distance, not close enough to start running towards it, because you have to conserve your energy. Sigh. Even trying to get done with the outlining would have been OK, which was interesting, because when I started quilting (late, again) last night, I thought, oh no, you’re not going to finish the outlining tonight…even though the previous night you thought it was just one more night, that part of your brain was obviously delusional and just needed to go to bed. Then I started stitching, and I got about 45 minutes in, and I’m looking at it, and my brain is at war: one part is sure I can finish and the other is telling me to give up and go to bed (that’s really what the responsible, normal adult would have done, but as I have proven over and over again, although I am responsible with many things, making art and going to sleep at a reasonable hour are not my strong points). In the end, I kept going, sure, positive, convinced I could finish.

I was so close…really, maybe another hour. But no. Sigh. Went to bed. Slept the sleep of the crazy dreamer who wanted to be DONE. Which is just stupid, because I would only be done with the OUTLINING. I still have to quilt the fucking background, and it’s proving to be a bitch, bunching up all over the place, trying to make a mess of my quilting, so I’ll be swearing at it and pulling at it and stretching it flat and wondering how all those people who quilt like 1/8″ apart do it without making a monstrous mess (this is why you are NOT one of those quilters. You think they’re ~~crazy~~ amazing for quilting that close together and they think you’re the same for cutting out a million pieces and then trying not to lose them all while ironing them together. Really, you’re all nuts.).

So I’m 8 hours in and I haven’t even finished the outlining, and I suspect I’m about halfway through, but really I don’t have a freakin’ clue. I do know that at only an hour a night, I’m not going to make my deadline. AND finish grades. AND hike on Saturday.

Oh well. And I really want to clean house; my bedroom and the studio are driving me nuts and I’m barely home long enough today to do anything. So. Yeah. Dysfunctional human much?

Don’t you wonder what happens in the artist’s brain to make the expression of some image (or sound or whatever) SO important that everything else seems pointless? I mean, food isn’t pointless, especially being diabetic, but I wish I had a replicator and could just ask it to make more of that avocado tomato salad this morning so I could take it to school. I have all the ingredients, but not the time (or mental energy, apparently). OK, I might find energy for that. Maybe. But I’d really rather finish sewing or do the next drawing or anything really rather than clean house. I wonder how close to hoarder status I’m approaching. That should motivate me to take the bags of clothes out of the entryway to the thrift shop today, except I don’t actually have time to do that.

Anyway. Writing is also taking up my time these days, but it’s OK. It was my November goal, and I realized at the time that it would be a stretch. I’m writing more than 2000 words a day on the novel at the moment, killing off characters with wild abandon and then going back and giving them a video entry or a first name only, because dammit, they had kids and I need their kids for genetic testing. In the book. Not in real life. I don’t have an outline for this book. I don’t know how it ends. I don’t know how it gets to the ending. I have a general feel for the shit that might happen and for the core problem of the book, but it’s writing itself. It reveals itself to me while I write…which honestly is the way I draw as well. Although I might have a drawing in my head, it doesn’t come fully apparent until pen hits paper, and I often have no idea where it will go until it’s done. I’m tapping into some part of my brain that just makes. It doesn’t really care what you think about it; hell, it barely cares what I think about it. It does take some direction, when I have some, but mostly I’m just spilling some synaptic goo out on paper or screen and trying to make sense of it afterwards.

Seriously. The book is gonna need a massive edit. But that’s OK. I hear that’s normal. Maybe tonight I’ll finish outlining, and then the light at the end of the tunnel might feel a bit closer. Sigh.

Hello very furry cat tail that is dipping into my tea. Please removeth yourself.

I’m juggling. Grading and dark coming earlier and school stuff and a dead black widow and a tire that won’t behave or maybe it’s the tire pressure monitoring system, who the fuck cares, just make the light on the dashboard with the exclamation mark go off. I served dinner at 9 PM last night (but I served it, and it was healthy and made from scratch. So there. And there are leftovers. So double there.). I only graded two periods of tests instead of all three (at least I got through two). I was determined to quilt, because goddammit, how am I going to finish the quilting by Saturday night if I don’t actually QUILT every night? So let’s ignore the fact that I was still awake at 1 AM and that my body on non-Daylight Savings time believes it should be awake an hour earlier, and honestly, so does Kitten, so there’s no point in trying to sleep longer. In fact, amusingly, my body seems to think it’s being allowed to sleep in, so although it had barely more than 5 hours of sleep, it feels better than normal, because it’s an hour later. Or earlier. Or something. I’m sure it will all even out in a few days, but for now, it’s what’s keeping me moving.

And you know what? Dumbass subs who leave no notes as to what happened at all (apparently he wrote a referral on an entire class?)? Give Up Now. Or stay out of my class. Really, there was less chaos returning to the classroom after two days gone than I thought there would be, but that was mostly because I put it all on them, made sure that all the responsibility lay squarely in their laps. Oh, you didn’t complete the work on Friday? So sad. If you don’t have it done by Tuesday, you will be unable to do the required assignment that you only get one day to do. Oh, your class doesn’t know how to plug in the Chromebooks? Y’all can write it down on PAPER…that archaic substance that frightens you so much. So sad. Other classes will be on Chromebooks today. You are not so lucky. Maybe you will learn from this. Or not.

My team is in Bitch Mode. End of the trimester mentality, but more like where we would be in March, after Trimester 2. Not sure what’s up with that. I just know it feels crappy. Teachers blame themselves when the kids don’t perform, even when they know kids are making choices to do so. It makes you feel like a failure. No one likes that.

So that’s why I need to lose myself in quilting at night. I need a place to rest after grading all those tests, a place for my head to go where I have control over the outcome…or at least more control than I have over 140 12-year-olds.

So I quilted for an hour almost…

I really like those hands. I’m 6 1/2 hours in and almost done with the outlining.

I just have the tree left, and I’ve done some of it. Then I can start quilting the background, and honestly, not very much of the background shows. Then binding and trying to figure out what to do with the bleed spots. Almost there. Still need to draw the NEXT one. No pressure. OK, lots of pressure. Crazy-ass pressure, honestly.

I’m also writing the novel again, burying myself in plant/animal hybrid genetics and escaping from the government and chemical responses and how people might die. Weird stuff. I’m doing NaNoWriMo, where you write 50,000 words in 30 days in November. I wrote on the plane on Saturday morning, I wrote in LAX’s tiny little offshoot terminal where we were stuck for four hours, I wrote on my computer, and I wrote on the iPad while sitting in a meeting (hey, it kept me awake and I was actually listening.). I’m over 6,000 words in three days, so I’m doing OK. I’m trying to stay ahead of the 1667 words/day that will definitely get me there. It’s nice to have the website tell me that at the current rate, I will finish 5 days early (unlikely in real life). It gives me a cushion for the days I can’t get much written. And the story is progressing! I wrote 7 new characters in and promptly killed them off! Good times.

Anyway. I am busy. I might need a break soon. Meanwhile, here’s the video my mom took of me at Houston explaining Awakening the Crone…there’s a Quilt Alliance video too, but they haven’t sent me the link to that yet.

Apparently I invited everyone to take me out to a bar and explain myself. You know, like you do. Yeah. Apparently crazy ass.

Category: Writing

The Neverending Quilting

Apparently Crazy Ass