Sometimes, writing is like learning to sew.
Trying to create patterns in writing reminds me of my high school days of learning to make my first apron in sewing class. The pattern was fairly simple, and it was fun choosing the fabric and color, but putting it together was far harder than I could ever have imagined. Our teacher would smile wryly and remind us that we could always sew trim over our mistakes, and nobody else would know about them, I always knew they were there, and it bothered me not to get it right. Perhaps that’s why my sewing for enjoyment days are long past.
For some reason, I can tolerate ripping seams apart and reassembling pattern pieces in a piece of writing. Sewing together a garment is a little like assembling the plot for a novel. It isn’t enough to have a brilliant concept or an awesome plot twist. All the pieces: setting, characters, sub-plots, must be woven into an intricate and seamless whole. If it is very well done, a complex and unique design appears in the fabric crafted with precision down to the last indigo shade on the three-quarter turn of each string of fringe. The difference is that I don’t mind the mistakes in my writing. Sometimes they turn into the most interesting parts.
Design can be tough!
I am still learning to craft fiction and refuse to give it up, even when I am out of my depth. I have reached the frustrating point in my novel manuscript revision where each new reader argues with the last about strengths and weaknesses in the story. After the next-to-last editor reviewed the manuscript, she put her finger on what seems to be a true and essential error. So, I am laboriously unraveling the plot to pick up a dropped stitch which has been hiding in the background. The subtext is there, but the editor finds indigo too subtle a color for this project and recommends a bit of vermillion or even cerise. Uncertain that the red/pink end of the spectrum is quite right for this character, I am leaning toward a violet – or perhaps magenta. Eventually the design will come right. Working toward the right one is engaging enough to tie me to the computer until I am frozen into an arthritic coma and must uncurl my spine and walk for a bit to persevere.
I am reminded of a lady in my home town, a seamstress named Mrs. Crawford. She sewed for her customers for years, and when they couldn’t find exactly the pattern they wanted, they would bring her two, and ask whether the bodice of one pattern would “go” with the skirt of another. She would listen intently to their ideas; ask one or two questions about what activities one would have to do in that dress, and create wonders in fabric, improvising a new creation with consummate skill. If I live to be ninety-seven and practice every day, I will never approach Ms. Crawford’s skill at the sewing machine, and I would probably throw pin cushions and patterns in frustration. But I empathize with the joy she brought to each new design.
I hear other writers say that even a very good piece of work is never entirely finished, but working at my writing every day shows me that the process is the pleasurable part. Every once in a while, a paragraph, a sentence or even a phrase, floats across the page like one of Mrs. Crawford’s original gowns, and when that happens, I float with it.
