Quilt Diva (short story) by Leanne Dyck

Eighteen years ago, when I moved to Mayne Island, I had fun joining groups and meeting people. I was proud to clip a quilt guild member's pin to my shirt. Some families play music together. My family crafted embroidery, knitting, sewing, quilting. My Icelandic-Canadian grandma taught me to quilt when I was a teenager. Her first step was savaging fabric from old shirts, dresses, etc. No twenty-dollar fat quarters for her. I joined the Mayne Island quilters, determined to hand-sew a quilt—I don't like machines. (It amazes me that my computer and I have developed a more or less amicable relationship.) Then I learned how much work would be involved in my plan. Then I went back to my old friend knitting.

A day before the Mayne Island Fall Fair and parade, I went to lunch with a friend.

"I need your help," she told me. "The quilters need someone to carry the banner."

The quilters are a mighty force on Mayne Island—half of Mayne Island has a membership. It was hard for me to believe that they couldn't find anyone. But my friend seemed desperate.

I felt stuck. I wanted to help my friend, but I'm most comfortable behind the stage, not on it. All I'd have to do is carry a banner, but didn't that mean passing myself off as someone I wasn't--a quilter. But my friend had always helped me. And so I marched in Mayne Island's 2017 Fall Fair.

Photo by Tom Hobley

And if you click this link you'll be able to watch the complete performance. Oh, yes, there's singing and dancing and... You've got to see it, to believe it.

As writers, we don't always know what saying 'yes' to inspiration will lead to—will we finish our first short story? Or our fifth novel? Find a publisher? An agent? But it may be empowering to realize that the opportunity to say 'yes' starts with us.

Confessions of a writer by Leanne Dyck

Each Friday, on this blog, I feature a guest post. I promote my guests on Twitter, Google + and Facebook. I'd planned to be away last weekend--catching the ferry on Thursday. Knowing that I won't be able to promote the guest post, I rescheduled Mike Force and Chris Di Giuseppi's guest post for this coming Friday. (I'm really looking forward to Mike and Chris' visit--they're my first team authors; they were generous with their questions and their book looks very interesting.)
So no guest post last Friday instead because I would be away--of island, for a break. Or at least that's what I thought. That's the thing about plans--they change. 
Around the time I should have been planning what to pack, my muse found an oasis of inspiration. Words flew onto paper. This left me with a difficult decision--stay home and work or leave and relax. 
Well, I look at achieving a steady flow of words as a gift. And, I reasoned, one I didn't want to stop receiving. So I stayed and worked.
The plan:  From Friday morning to Sunday night my fingers would be on the keyboard and my pen would be in my hand--no Internet or email.
On the whole, I did stick to this plan.
However, there were some diversions and now, to clear my conscious, I'd like to confess them.
Early Friday evening I attended Arleen Pare's book reading.

And I left with her book in my hand.

'In Leaving Now Arleen Pare, winner of the 2008 Victoria Book Prize, weaves fable, prose and poetics to create a rich mosaic of conflicted motherhood. Set in the volatile 1970s and '80s, when social norms and expectations were changing rapidly. Leaving Now is the emotionally candid story of a mother's anguish as she leaves her husband to love a woman. In this second book, Pare masterfully blends aspects of her personal journey with her own version of a well-loved fairy tale. Gudrun, the five-hundred-year-old mother of Hansel and Gretel, appears hazily in the narrator's kitchen--presumed dead, all but written out of her own tale, but very much alive. Gudrn spins a yarn of love, loss and leaving, offering comfort and wisdom to the conflicted young mother. 

Raising children is not for the faint of heart, all parents know the anguish of parting from a child, even if for the briefest moment. Leaving Now is for mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. It is for anyone who has ever lived in a family.' (From Caitlin Press' web site)

I forgave this diversion because, after all, it is one of my tasks, as a writer, to network. It wasn't my fault that the evening was so enjoyable.

Saturday I spent at the Mayne Island fall fair. Here's a taste...

I forgave this diversion because, I felt, attendance was my civic duty as a Mayne Islander.

I spent Sunday wading in words. This Thursday you'll be able to judge for yourself how well this went when I report my manuscript's latest word count.

I hope you enjoyed your weekend whether it was work, play or a little bit of both.