ONE OF THE BIG THINGS about creative writing is how much a part of one’s self shows up in the work, even when the theme is something completely fabricated.
I liken writing to a piecework quilt: beyond the grammar and words one selects to stitch everything together (although that can colour everything), in most of what we write, what we design – plot, theme, characters – everything originates as a pastiche of everything we have lived and learned. Just like those quilts that use symbols of colour and form to send a message, our minds gather up all those elements that we have to hand from our experiences and knowledge, even when we’re creating something uniquely from our imagination.
use those snippets
Deciding on the design: in my own stories I’ve started out with a theme based on a message I want to share. That’s the big picture. I collect a sample here and there of character traits from folks I’ve met. Then it comes to the small details that together will bring the creation together. I embroider some parts of my history and snip out others. I rearrange moments, phrases and conversations that catch this writer’s eye or ear – sometimes saved on the back of a grocery list – and use those snippets to form characters. Some characters call for a single bright light colour, some turn out to work better as complicated patterns. Some turn into beautiful appliqués you hadn’t anticipated. Some even work out as dark borders.
nostalgia
Recently, after hearing about the passing of an old friend I’d lost touch with over the years, I was digging through my steamer trunk full of various old mementos, letters and souvenirs in a burst of melancholy nostalgia.
I came across a bent and worn folder bursting with papers in similar condition: short stories, scribblings of ideas for more stories, unpublished poems and an incomplete novel or two. I was always writing.
True, these were designed by a much younger me than I am today; many of the colours and patterns in them are simply no longer my taste, having outgrown those designs over the passing of time. Many of these pieces lack the rich colours and patterns that a life lived decades longer brings to the sewing table. Things that used to matter no longer do, and that’s reflected in the characters I created.
the test of time
But as I read further, to my surprise, some of those early attempts to stitch together stories gleaned from my history, experience and imagination from way back in my life still stood the test of time. There still remains viable material in those earlier fabrications that may yet be teased out and reworked by this grandma. I am still always writing.
Maybe you might want to take another look at some of your older work as well.
