LINES FROM LYDIA

For the past year, my little Singer sewing machine has been sitting on the side of my dining room table. . ever at the ready, should I need to stitch up my BOM quilt blocks.  The Singer has a vinyl cover over it when not in use which has saved it from pop spots, tomato sauce spots, Parmesan cheese sprinkles, salt & pepper, and a variety of other indignities.  It’s sat there through breakfast, lunch and dinner.  It doesn’t eat much, has impeccable table manners, and doesn’t speak unless spoken, too.

However, when it comes time to sew, that’s another story entirely.  My Singer turns into this Jekyl and Hyde character.  Quiet no longer, the sleeping giant awakens and it whirls, jiggles, runs flat out at top speed, and the thread flies.  Threads are everywhere, stuck to my hair, my clothes, the table top, the floor, the wall, and every nook and cranny that you can imagine.  It eats every type, every color of fabric that I feed it and spits it out with stitches and strings attached.  Manners are forgotten in the frenzy of attaching fabrics one to another. When the Singer has had enough, it sighs and switches its light off.

NaNoWriMo–Novel Writing Madness

Is this some strange new language or is this in fact English?  It is, in fact, English.  “NaNoWriMo” stands for “National Novel Writing Month”. (Check out the link in “links of note”).  During the month of November, people all over the world attempt something that is nearly impossible, maddening, and highly stressful.

They try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month.  Not a complete manuscript by any means, but a roughly rough draft.  This year I am attempting to do the same.  I am going to join with a group at the library and we are all going to attempt this feat of modern novel-dom.  (I do believe that novel-dom should be right up there with “truthiness”.  If Stephen Colbert can create words, than so shall I!)
To get ready for my attempt at “NaNoWriMo” I completed a project that I called “30 poems in 30 days”.  I wrote a poem a day for 30 days during the month of July.  I had a general theme and diligently wrote a poem everyday single day for 30 days.  I enjoyed it so much and my momentum was such that I did not want the project to end.

I currently am revising and editing these poems and I hope to publish them.  Several exceptional poems came out of this writing frenzy that don’t fit the theme of the book, so I am going to send those off for publication as individual poems.  What’s interesting about the ones that I’m going to publish outside the book, is that they more or less arrived complete and have required little or no editing.
By the end of year, I will be editing my novel (if all goes well during “NaNoWriMo”), editing my book of poetry, and the other night I happened upon a children’s book that I wrote several years ago.  I entered it in a contest years ago.  It didn’t win, but I think with some work it could become something great.  (Or not, who knows)
As if this isn’t enough, I came across a “mystery crochet afghan” project.  (Check out the link for Bernat in “links of note”).  It runs through the end of the year and I may just take that on as well.  I have not forgotten about the mystery quilt block challenge from this past year.  Watch for more on this on Monday.  If technology cooperate,s there will be photo’s.

Check out more Lines From Lydia soon!

“When a person dies, a library is lost”

Lines from Lydia….

Right now, there are hundreds of books being written by the people in this photo, by those of you reading this, and by everyone around you. When one of these people has gone, their library is lost.

Collecting these stories is incredibly important. While I know that it is impossible to collect all the stories that are within everyone, and really who would want too. It would become boring and monotonous. However, hitting the highlights of people’s lives can be just as important, maybe even more so. Those highlights are infinitely more exciting.

A rare treasure is hardly rare or a treasure if you have multiple amounts of something, but just a slice of someone’s life can be great treasure. They can live on with that one slice and the library is not lost for lack of effort.

I hope you will join me by leaving me a “slice of your life”. A story about a part of your life that is unique to you. Or a story about someone you know, a family member or a friend. Photo’s are also welcome. Until next time. . .

LINES FROM LYDIA

I went to a wonderful festival in the park over the weekend. There was music, by well-known and unknown musicians; there was fine art and crafts; art installations being created while I watched; all types of unique foods (alligator?); and lots of people. I spent most of my time “listening” to what people had to say.
Everyone has a story unique to them. Sometimes it was a family story passed down (I heard from a grandson about his grandfather who was Amish and had the first underground Amish party band) and sometimes it was a personal story (I heard from a man who in his younger days kept running into a country music star through his travels and eventually this country music star wrote a song about the fact that they kept crossing paths).  Truly everyone has a story to tell and all of us are entire libraries unto ourselves. I decided then and there that someone needed to be write these unique stories. So, if you have a story to tell, I want to hear it. Write it here on my blog and share it with me. When I have plenty of stories, I will collect them together into book format and publish it.  Your story could live forever between the pages of a book or within electronic media format.
If you’d like to be part of my ‘Your (his)story project’ leave me a post.I can’t wait to hear from you!!!

Check out more “Lines from Lydia” one of our newest staff writers.  You can leave comments here for our writer or simply check out her blogging page:

http://your-sunny-story.blogspot.com/2010/06/tuesday-june-14-2010_15.html