iterations

I’m not one for outlines. I tend to write my way in (or, when sewing, stitch my way in).

I’m also not one for pre-designed patterns. I want to find my own way through rather than follow a path established by others. Structure. Shape. Voice. Intention. All of these emerge by working with the materials - whether text or textile - rather than by following rules.

At some point, usually once I’m finished a full draft of a project, I know what I want to say; I know what story I want to tell.

*my brain, vomited onto paper. probably about ten years ago.*

In lit language, all of this makes me a pantser; that is, someone who flies by the seat of their pants. My polar opposite in litland is a planner, someone who lays it all out before beginning.

I’m not sure there’s actually as much difference between the two as you might initially think. After all, at a certain point, pantsers realize where they’re going and create an outline for the next stages. Similarly, for a planner to create an outline, they need to do a deep dive first before they’re ready to commit to their outline. In fact, a writer I heard at the Halifax Public Library earlier this fall said she started off as a pantser and now sees herself as a planner, but – and this but is important – she also said it takes her 3 or 4 months to come up with an outline, and when she does, it’s 30-40 pages long. In other words, her planner self is fundamentally supported by a period of pantsing.

*one of the archives research notebooks for my project about life writing and citizenship in eighteenth-century medical consultation letters. Important note: the marker notes were added only* ***after*** *my time in the archives. Archives = pencils only.*

The difference between pantsing and planning, I think, lies in perspective: pantsers tend to be less linear than planners, even if they end up in the same place at the end. A scholarly friend of mine is an expert in colour-coded Gantt charts. They terrify me (although I did create one, once, for a grant application). I, on the other hand, am an expert in arrows and circles and stars and underlining in all colours of the marker rainbow. That terrifies her. But we both end up in the same place: with completed and published projects.

*I promise this made complete sense when I created it, and it was a very useful thinking tool. At several years’ remove, it baffles me, but that’s ok.*

I’ve been working on a stitchery project for the past month and a half or so. The foundation was always clear for me, and after several hours of dyeing and staining, and then cutting and arranging, and then several more hours of stitching, that foundation was ready.

*cutting 460 squares of recycled fabric.*

*arranging and rearranging on my ‘design wall’ (aka flocked plastic tablecloth pinned to a wall)*

But I wasn’t nearly as sure about what would happen on top of that foundation. I stitched possibilities into small samples. I unstitched possibilities. I tried other options. I layered in different ways. I made drawings. I threw drawings away. I ordered fabric samples. I nixed that plan. I went in and out and back and forth and around and around and now, finally, several weeks – and several iterations – later, I think I have a path forward.

*Another experiment. Closer, but still discarded.*

*a plan! (thanks, Alt Hotel St. John’s. lol)*

The benefit of this process of creating and uncreating, charting and uncharting, stitching and unstitching, is that I’ve had a chance to really commune with my project. All this massaging has also been a process of massaging my thinking, and has allowed me to reflect on what I really want this piece to say and do in the world.

This process of pantsing and dreaming takes time. And it can be frustrating. But it’s also a vital part of the creative process, and my work wouldn’t be what it is without it.

[not-so-random aside: read this commentary …. ]

I think I have my path forward now. I think I know what I want to do, and I know what I want my project to look like.

There are many (many, many!) hours of work ahead, but I think I finally have my outline. Stay tuned.

launching