I’m closing in on the quilting design. I’m playing with the idea of heaven and earth, dead and alive, and how they are separated. I’ve been thinking about how there’s no communication between dead and alive. I don’t believe mediums can communicate with the dead. We have assorted beliefs about what happens to a person after death, but those are beliefs. We have no actual proof of what, or if, anything happens to a soul after death. I believe a soul is alive before conception and lives on after the body dies.
There’s no communication between heaven and earth. Maybe. Those on earth pray, but we’ve no confirmation that anyone or anything is hearing the prayers.
I’d like to put all of that into the quilting and I think I’ve figured out how to do that. If the quilting works out the way I have it in my head, I’m going to have a strange quilt. That’s okay. It will work well with my other strange quilts.
I’ve been sending short stories in to writing contests and I got a rejection email the other day. The short story that got rejected is 1800 words and four chapters. Now, I need to find another contest to submit this story. I submitted two stories to the Chicago Tribune in February. Those are still pending. As I go through stories I had written for my writing classes, I’m struck by how weird my writing is. When I was in college, my writing was normal. When I was a journalist, my writing was normal. When I wrote appeals for my clients, my writing was both normal and constipated. I don’t know when or how I started writing weird. Although I’m an avid reader, I’ve never read anything remotely like my style. That I write weird was an almost disconcerting discovery.
I’m working on a novel. Anyone who thinks writing a novel is easy has never tried to write a novel. When I was a journalist, I’d sit down down, starting a story at the beginning and going straight to the end. All in one sitting. Novels don’t work that way. At least the novel I’m writing doesn’t work that way. The story is about a woman who is my age, bipolar, a criminal defense attorney, a widow, and she’s in love with a police officer. I had to kill Jim off to write the novel. He’s taking it well. New Mexico is a community property state and any royalties I get from this novel are marital property. Translated: Jim and I will jointly own any royalties.
Because I don’t consider any book that doesn’t have at least one dead body to be worth reading, I’ve put three bodies in my novel including an officer involved shooting. My view of officer involved shootings is nothing like the views written about in The New York Times. It’s also nothing like the views held by the majority of criminal defense attorneys. I’ve never been good at conforming. In the novel, I use capitalization in an odd way. Not only am I working with a story line, I’m working with unusual concepts requiring unusual capitalization.
In the meantime, I’ve been playing with photos.
Start here.
Next, play.
Play some more.
Then, go a little crazy.
Then go really crazy.
Start here.
Eventually, end up here.
Then…
And finally…
I’m linking with Nina Marie http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com
My online store is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com
My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman
Deb's Art 