Needlecraft as a form of meditation

I've remembered how to crochet.

Ever since I was quite young (maybe ten) I've loved handcrafts. Not only for the outcome but often because I just enjoyed doing it. Crafts such as knitting, sewing, crochet, tatting, patchwork, quilting, weaving and embroidery were what filled my school holidays.

Sometimes they made it into actual, useable pieces. I was in my element in the 80s when country cottage style was chic (so many patchwork pillows!) and chunky handknits were all the rage (I made myself a bright yellow bat-wing jersey with primary-colour houses on front and back, and rainbow striped bands at age 15 - I buried my cat in it six months ago, she was very cosy. My mum said 'oh no, not the house jersey', like I'd ever wear it again).

I still enjoy creating these days. The trick is keeping my patchwork and knitting fresh and modern. I'm so glad it's trendy to be crafty. My sister sells a bit on Etsy. Authors like Debbie Bliss and Erika Knight have some very simple and chic knitting and crochet books out.

Unfortunately somewhere along the way I forgot how to crochet. It's been awhile. I kept starting off a practice piece but always became stuck. Two days ago I remembered. I printed out instructions off the fabulous The Purl Bee (blog of Purl Soho, purveyor of fine and pricy craft materials, where I am surely headed when I have the good fortune to visit NYC) and now I'm away.

At the moment I don't actually have a specific project in mind, I'm just enjoying the meditative repetitiveness of crochet stitches. I've tried meditating the 'think of nothing for 20 minutes' way and just can't get it. I find walking is good meditation - the footfalls let my mind wander and rest, and knitting or crochet is the same.

I was inspired to get my crochet mojo back by Faux Fuchsia. She has crocheted a rug for herself and also for her niece and nephew. They look so colourful and cute in her favourite brights.

Some of the added bonuses are: you can't eat and crochet/knit. You can watch a tv programme with your husband with a project on your lap. You can still sip from a glass of wine (or brandy) with a hook or set of needles in your hand(s). Just not too much though or you have to pull the stitches out from time to time when it gets a bit wonky.

If you've never done anything of this sort ever, it's really not that hard. You may not be able to learn and watch a movie at the same time, but one day you will, and in the meantime you will have simultaneously relaxed and created something.

And that's what gives the satisfaction. The creating. Like cooking a good meal, there is great satisfaction to be had from giving a gift to a friend's newborn of a knitted cot rug, which apparently is much better than a woven rug in that you can pull it around the baby and tuck it in snug, and the knit fabric grabs and holds - it doesn't come undone.

My favourite 'knit without really thinking about it' project is this baby rug (or it could be a throw rug to have on the sofa for when it gets chilly).

Fifi's Craft Corner - Baby Rug

You need:

10 x 50g balls of 8 ply/double knitting wool
4mm and 5mm needles, 5mm crochet hook

Size will be approx 75cm across and 1m long

Cast on 125 stitches with 4mm needles. Change to 5mm needles and knit every row until you've used up nine balls of wool. Join new balls at the end of a row if possible, and then sew in ends later. Cast off when rug is correct length. Crochet around the edge of the rug.

Now that I've remembered how to crochet, I plan to use up the scraps of wool I inherited from my Nana, and make up rugs that could be gifts, donated or kept. I'll decide when I've finished. For this first one I am using up the colours of blue, cream and aqua. And practising my crocheting at the same time so I don't forget again.

My sweet husband, knowing my crochet frustration noticed I was crocheting rather than knitting last night. 'You remembered how?' he said, 'I'm so impressed! You're so clever with your hands.' He's a man who doles out praise lavishly.

Are there any other handcrafters around who would care to out themselves? I know LuxeBytes is a whiz with the needles. Or would-be handcrafters with a desire to learn?

The Serenity of Orderliness

Daily domestic tasks like making the bed each morning I really enjoy. Even if it is a rumpled mess, a mere five minutes and order is restored. And a nicely made bed is calming as you come into the bedroom throughout the day, or when you get home from work.

A little story about the front-most cushion on our bed (above). When on my first (so far) trip to Paris in 2001, my travel companion and I walked up the steep streets of Montmatre to visit the Sacre Coeur cathedral. A little fabric shop on the way had small tapestries, less than a foot square. I think I bought six different ones, and carried them back with me.

When my Nana visited Paris (years before me), what she loved most about her trip was the Sacre Coeur. So I made her this cushion with the church featuring in the top right hand corner. She died in April and my mum gave the cushion back to me. It now sits on our bed (which is also made up with her bedspread - it is really quite Francais in a white woven thick-cotton floral texture).

When I first brought the cushion home, I removed the cover to wash, and out fluttered a little newspaper clipping. It was a travel column recommending good places to stay in Montmatre. In her last few years she was getting a bit mixed up and must have thought this was as good a place as any to store the clipping.

It's an obvious choice really.

Starting a Law Firm | Strap in For the Roller Coaster Ride

I didn't realize it when I first started, but starting a law firm is a lot like riding a roller coaster. There are going to be a lot of ups and downs, when you think you've reached the height of success, you can easily begin on a downward fall. And the whole thing is both wonderfully exciting and wonderfully scary all at the same time.

The only difference is, and it's an important difference, is that you get to control how big the peaks and valleys are. And if you aren't sure which way you should be leaning, the smoother the ride (the more level), the better.

This lesson really hit home for me in the last couple of months. Over the first year of starting my law firm, my income numbers were fairly steady. There would be a bit of a down time here, then I'd have a decent month there. And then May came, and it was significantly higher than any of my other months. I was pumped.

And my first thought was immediately that I'd made it over the hump, that I was on my way to greatness. And then June came. June was not a great month.

June was not a great month for several reasons, but I think the main reason was that I got complacent with a lot of the things that helped me have a good May, and good months before that. I was quick to respond to potential clients, I kept my nose to the grindstone, and I continued working toward the ultimate goal - sustainable success for this new law firm.

And it wasn't like I just took June off. I was still working, and still working hard. But I just wasn't working the same way that I had been. And it showed in my income results.

So, the lesson for this week is to keep at it. Sustainable success probably won't be there for years. Until your phone is ringing constantly, and over half of those calls are referrals, I wouldn't consider you're business to be over the hump. Until that time, keep your nose to the grindstone. Keep hustling for those clients, and always, always give your clients what you promise.

Roller coasters can be fun. But they can also be scary. Here's to hoping yours is as flat as a pancake.

Use onomatopoeia to make your writing pop

Susie knocked – thunk thunk thunk – on the door. After a few moments it opened with a creeeaakk...

‘Susie Thirskiss, I assume? Salutations,’ hissed a lisping voice.

‘Uh... I... Uh...’ stu-uttered Susie. From inside the house, she could hear a metallic clanking clatter. ‘I don’t know if–’ CLUNK ‘–I have the right–’ CLUNK ‘–address,’ she said.

The man behind the door coughed out a low, rasping laugh – kakh kakh kakh – and grinned. He waved a hand in front of him – swooosh!

‘This address,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eye (blingadingading), ‘is always the right address.’

Susie’s heart had been beating fast – badabump badabump – but now it sank – psheeeeeeew – as she realised – ding! – the horrible truth – RAAAAAAGH!

Looking Back: When Backstory Helps and When It Hinders Your Writing

When we begin writing our books, we feel an urgency to catch the reader up, bring them over the hurdles of history in our story. We have a lot of past to pass along. We think this past is essential: If the reader doesn’t know Jane was traumatized as a child, how will she understand why Jane is so careful with her adult relationships? If the reader doesn’t know the entire history of the Scout troop, will he get why the boys are intensely loyal to each other?

But what’s more important—to make sure your reader understands why you are telling this story?  Or to get that reader engaged so they'll keep reading?

To really understand when backstory is great and when it puts your book in danger, you first have to understand why you’re writing it.You have to make the shift from the writer’s chair to the reader’s.

Backstory is literally the background of the story.  It’s everything that happens before the book begins.It’s last year, ten years ago, a past war, and yesterday.  It’s all memory, and taken in small bits, it can be extremely useful. But in large chunks—several consecutive chapters, five or six pages lumped together during a tense scene—it can pull a reader right off your tale. Why?  Because backstory happened then. We’re really most interested in now, because now is where the story’s highest energy is.

This, of course, is your reader talking. It’s not necessary your opinion, as the writer.

Imagine sitting in a theater, something exciting happening onscreen, when the usher takes a small break to stop the film and tell us what happened last year when the movie was made. Not as exciting, is it?  Even irritating, yes?  Even if told in a very engaging way, the past is not what most of us came for. We came for what’s occurring most vividly in front of us.

So, in a nutshell, backstory is often way more important to us, as writers, than it is to our readers.

Mystic River author Dennis Lehane emphasized this. Lehane is noted for his intense psychological dramas. He said he has an alarm bell inside that goes off whenever he begins to write backstory, that forces him to ask its purpose. Books can be beautiful without any backstory (he cited The Verdict, made into a movie with Paul Newman as one example).  Question your need for backstory, he advised writers, and don’t use it if you don’t have to.

But like knowing when and where to use the device of “telling” in place of “showing,” I also find there’s a positive place for incorporating backstory.   In fact, it’s all about placement.

When Backstory Helps, and Why
While I was working on my novel Qualities of Light, I decided to ditch all my backstory. I wanted my book to have plenty of momentum, be a real page-turner. In the process my manuscript shrank from 120,000 words to 80,000.  I created a huge file of jettisoned background scenes.

Back then, I had a wise writing instructor whose theories about backstory weren’t as black-and-white as mine. A skilled memoirist and fiction writer, she knew how to weave just enough backstory in without burdening the reader. I hired her to read my manuscript and give me her honest opinion about whether it was better sans backstory.

She thought the book had much more momentum, yes. It was now “alive and engaging,” but it almost moved too fast, she said. There were places where the emotional potential was not quite realized.

So she asked me to try a writing exercise (the one below). I was to list the most emotional moments of my main character’s story, the important turning points.

I found fifteen moments in the book where I felt Molly, my heroine, made a turn inside. These were times where she realized or faced something important, not an everyday moment but a major one in the story.

My writing instructor knew of my huge backstory file—I’d bragged to her about how much I’d deleted from the manuscript.  She suggested I go on a treasure hunt, scanning the pages for any small memory scenes that might connect to Molly’s turning points.

I would probably need to substantially reduce the amount of space these backstory scenes took, she warned me.  In other words, I’d have to edit them down from the original version because effective backstory was short, sweet--very fleeting.  We agreed that it took three chapters for readers to engage in the present story. Luckily, Molly didn’t have many turning points in those early chapters, so I wouldn’t bring in any backstory until chapter 4.

I read my backstory aloud, carefully selecting any small bits—one-liners to two paragraphs—that sang especially loud.  I found ten good sections, I wrote three more anew. I considered two whole chapters of backstory, short and tight, and decided they were useful too: one explained the major accident of the book, one the major relationship, and I used the first as chapter 4, the second as chapter 12.

It’s hard to describe the difference these moments made. I know it’s one of the reasons my book got accepted by a publisher—because there was a subtle emotional wave that began rising via the tiny spots of backstory, a wave that wasn’t there before.

I learned two things from this book-changing exercise. One, backstory is not a villain. It is just another tool in the writer’s toolbox, a useful device to up the drama if employed carefully.  And two, it’s terribly important to keep it short, and keep it connected with something in present time.

As long as I used backstory only a tiny bit each time--and linked my flashbacks to what was happening in the main story here and now--they didn't detract from the present story.  They made sense in the sequence of action, too--they weren’t a different movie, in other words. Molly is facing something big, and she naturally slides back to another time when this happened and it didn’t go well. If this connective tissue is not present, readers wonder why a narrator flashes back just then, and why to that particular moment from the past.

The backstory will feel as awkward as text pasted in the wrong place.

This Week's Writing Exercise
1. Read through several chapters or sections of your manuscript.
2. Highlight any important turning points.
3. Look over any backstory you've saved.
4. Using very small amounts,add backstory to these sections.
5. Read them again. Does the backstory improve the emotional impact of the turning point or weaken it?

Week 6 Update

This week I have a cold (it's winter where I live). And as much as the start of the week up until Thursday was chic in its eating, on Friday the wheels fell off. I embraced the medicinal properties of Doritos, brandy and Nestle Scorched Almonds. Friday and Saturday there was no salad with lunch. So shall we talk about chic improvements in other areas this week instead?

Thursday lunchtime I attended my first yoga class ever. And it's all thanks to LuxeBytes. Marsi's enthusiastic post extolling the virtues of yoga had me thinking (a lot) about going. In the past I've dismissed yoga simply because it's trendy. If everyone else is on the bandwagon, I'm no-where to be seen. Thankfully these people have moved on (maybe to Pilates?), and yoga is now just a fabulous and gentle exercise option.

It was Iyengar yoga, because apparently there are different types.

I am so pleased I went! There were only four of us in the class, so it was almost like a private lesson. The teacher is Swiss, and she was very helpful in a caring yet firm way. I have decided to go once a week at this stage and am really looking forward to next Thursday.

Afterwards I felt exhilarated yet calm, in a positive mood and nicely worked out without being completely wrung out. And once I know the moves and poses I can challenge myself more. I could feel that I had had a workout the next day, which is quite amazing considering it's not jumping up and down on a step or lifting weights.

I chose a class which is within walking distance of our shop. It is approximately 25 minutes walk there and back and I'm really glad that the walk will be part of my yoga class too. No-one there had fancy dri-fit clothing on either, which I'm really happy about. Making this observation I remembered the saying 'Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes' by Henry David Thoreau. I think about that saying a lot for some reason.

So, go the yoga, and merci beaucoup to Marsi at LuxeBytes.

On a totally more superficial level I have been wearing my hair in a French twist/chignon more often. Practice makes perfect, and I need the practice. I normally wear a sheer-ish pink-ish gloss lipstick, but with the chignon you must wear red.

With my fair colouring I don't want to be a caricature, so I choose a soft sheer red. And when I do this I automatically reach for my pearls. So two days this week I wore my hair in a chignon with red lipstick and pearls. Even in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt I felt tres chic.

I really want to practice this hairstyle to have it be second-nature for me to do. I asked my husband whether I looked 'Paris girl or old lady' when it did it the first day. 'Paris girl' he said without missing a beat. Correct answer. He would always tell me if it was old lady though.

Sometimes when I ask him about an outfit he'll hesitate and say something diplomatic. He's a Libra after all. We Librans are known for our diplomacy (if I haven't bored you with this before, my husband and I were born on the same day of the same month, one year apart. I'm the older woman/cougar. It's fun having our birthday on the same day. Rather than buy each other a gift we do something like stay the night at a fancy hotel or go all-out for a posh dinner even though we're on a strict budget, ordering everything on the menu).

I learnt something this week. A valuable lesson. My winter cold started on Wednesday and by Thursday I was feeling much better as I had been bombarding my system with high doses of vitamin c (10,000 mg per day). This has worked for me in the past and seemed to be working for me this time.

We had a regular dinner date out with a small group of friends (7 including us) where we meet up once a month on a Thursday for dinner at a BYO restaurant. We would all take turns organising the restaurant so everyone had a chance to visit their favourite, and you would discover others favourites too.

The person who chose this time had made sure three weeks earlier we all knew the date. On Thursday, the day of the dinner we received a call half an hour before the time we were to meet to say 'bring a jacket, we're sitting at an outdoor table'. It is clear to me now that the person in charge of booking had not actually booked until the day, or possibly the day before, to be charitable to her.

My first thought was 'there's no way I'm going out with a cold, to sit outside on a chilly and rainy winter's night for dinner'. Then my husband and I decided we couldn't let them down at the last minute and went. We sat outside and froze. What made it worse is that the person responsible came a full one-hour late.

The next day I felt worse again, and it's only today that I'm starting to feel better. I know cold temperatures can't make you sick, but it can't be good for a body that is trying to recover to be subjected to low temperatures. Warmth is helpful.

As my Uncle T would say 'what would you do differently next time'? Next time I would put myself and my health first, not worry about putting someone out (even if they didn't bother themselves too much with organising the dinner) and sit this one out.

I was seriously annoyed with this person, and also at myself for going. I only thought afterwards that my ideal French girl Sabine would not have gone. She would have practiced self-preservation. A valuable lesson was learnt.

Quoting in the Book

'Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners'. - Emily Post

I have an A4-size spiral bound hardcover notebook that sits on my bookshelf among my books. A pen hangs in its spiral binding, ready for a quote inscription. When I'm reading a book and want to remember a passage I write it in this notebook. It can be a piece of poetry (even though poetry's not my favourite thing, sometimes the bits are good). I write the date too which is quite helpful and interesting.

'I have never had anything to do with the kind of fashion that is influenced by the press or identified with the spirit of the season. My clients come for me, they come back each season for my spirit'. - Georgio Armani

Everyone once in a while I have a flick through this notebook and are newly re-inspired. The kind of quotes which might be lost if noted down on a piece of paper because they are so small, these are the quotes this book houses. And reading through them they give me a sense of what is me.

'What if you gave someone a gift, and they neglected to thank you for it - would you be likely to give them another? Life is the same way. In order to attract more of the blessings that life has to offer, you must truly appreciate what you already have'. - Ralph Marston

I'm sure to others they would mean almost nothing, but that's the beauty of the personal notebook. You don't have to explain why you enjoy a certain collection of words.

'It is true that some manifestations of the slow philosophy do not fit every budget. But most do. Spending more time with friends and family costs nothing. Nor does cooking, walking, meditating, making love, reading or eating dinner at the table instead of in front of the television. Simply resisting the urge to hurry is free'. - 'Slow' by Carl Honore

What I like most about gathering passages that speak to me all in one place, is that even though they can seem quite disparate, reading through them at a later date I can see the common thread that links them all.