In my last column I wrote about how I was responding to stress by sewing. I guess the current totals can attest to my method being a) soothing, b) proactive, and c) extremely productive: in four weeks I have started and completed one quilt (for a Christmas present), two dog blankets, two flannel comfort blankets for teens who lost their homes — and started another two — and I’m halfway through another comfort quilt for a friend who lost her home. I’m in rhythms of cutting, pinning, sewing, and it’s incredibly meditative.
While I sew, I can listen to books on tape (or digital tape, or whatever the method is for putting it on your phone or tablet), or I can watch Netflix on my computer. The audible book is more difficult for me to stay focused on — I’m very much a visual person – so I tend to call up a series on the computer and watch away.
I may have mentioned that I am a huge fan of BBC TV shows, especially historical series. The attention to detail is incredible. And the acting. Swoon! Anyway, I finished one series — “The Bletchley Circle,” set in the early 1950s, featuring women who worked during the war doing top secret code breaking, now solving crimes — and a new series popped up in the “you may like” lineup.
The new series was called “The Doctor Blake Mysteries,” which was set in a smallish town in Australia in the 1950s. The main character is a doctor who has come home to take over his father’s practice on the occasion of the elder Dr. Blake’s passing away. Parts of his duties include being a police surgeon, which means he is involved in various cases. He somehow always finds that what seems obvious on the surface is in fact not obvious, and manages to find the real culprit. (Megan suggested a combo of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.) I enjoyed it, and was surprised to find myself at the end of the series at a point where I thought they could go on. (I didn’t pay attention to how many seasons there were, and how close to the end of my run I was, as I was busy quilting flannel.)
The next series I started was another suggested BBC show, but this one was set in the Caribbean, in present day. This series (“Death in Paradise”) features a very small police force (three officers). They needed a new senior officer, so a stiffly British detective inspector is sent in from London. He is the most “fish out of water” character, but he’s brilliant — and therein is the series. A couple of seasons in, I have outlasted a few characters and I’m still enjoying the show.
And then, as if binge sewing and watching TV shows weren’t enough of a time suck, I somehow started a story.
I didn’t intend to start writing — well, not now — but an idea had been kind of floating around in my head, and there was this blank document, and an opening sentence kind of wrote itself, and then I had to know what happened next, and …
My novel is set in the Caribbean, but it had already decided that that’s where it needed to be a few weeks before the latest BBC show. It involves a hurricane, and it’s a strange hybrid of a time travel/romance/mystery/comedy. I have no idea how far it will go — it certainly wasn’t planned to be written now — but when I hit 6,000 words in two days I thought, “I may as well sign up for National Novel Writing Month, and aim for 50,000 words.”
So, in review, I am sewing (at least two and a half projects at the moment), watching a series to the bitter end (and let’s be honest, probably starting another one before the end credits have finished rolling) and writing. Oh, and working. And you know, mothering and generalized housewifely duties. (Those dinners don’t cook themselves)
I have a few weeks before the dining room table is converted back into dining purposes for Thanksgiving; until then I’m going to sew, sew, sew and write, write, write. (And watch, watch, watch.)
Juliana LeRoy wears many hats, including wife, mother, paraeducator and writer. She can be spotted around Windsor gathering material, or reached at
ml****@so***.net
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