Home for Christmas, and what that means

So. I have this job. I have this job that's full time. I have two little kids, and a husband, this blog, and I sew fanatically.

We're home for Christmas, and this means I've been drawing more this week than I have in weeks, because there is only so much time in a day. But suddenly some of that time is free time.

On Friday morning, on the bus to work, I sketched out (I'm a brave girl to sketch on the bus, I know, but, did I mention the lack of time I have to draw?) something that I am desperate to make into something, but it's huge and involved, and there are several pieces, and in pieces it's getting done. (Now that I've decided to be serious about drawing, I've started using this set of pens from Prismacolor, and I really like them.)

On Friday night, after work, I began to make larger more detailed sketches:

First appearance.

On Sunday I bought a larger sketchbook so that I would have more room to work with. I still find myself unhappily bumping into the margins.

Yesterday, the kids played with their toys and we watched movies, and I drew, and my elder child caught sight of it today, and said, "Mama, did you draw that?" And I said yes, and she said, "I didn't know you could draw like that!" And it made me sad, and somewhat proud of myself to be able to impress her, and I replied, "I can draw this way if I concentrate on it."

Further developed.

Which in part is the same off-handed manner I always use to deflect these questions that make me uncomfortable. When she asked me why I was always writing in my notebook (ah, my now neglected novel!) I asked her why she wasn't writing a novel herself. (She claims she hates to write! But she loves to read, so I think she'll come around one day.)

The truth is, it burns in me. There is a vision there, and I can't rest except to work on it, and I'm not sure what else to say, sometimes it passes with the thing half done, sometimes I can just burn through it in my head and not commit it to cloth or paper, and sometimes I am up in the middle of the night because the perfect turn of phrase has occurred to me and if I go to sleep it will be lost forever, irretrievable. And that spark comes from everywhere. That's why I read, that's why I watch movies, that's everything. It's out there if you're open to it.

And I think I can no more talk about why I must be compulsively puzzling over some creative issue, than I can explain what it is like to be a twin to someone who isn't one. I have no frame of reference for not being what I am.

And even if I am not actively writing in my novel, I am dragging it around with me, because you never know... And that's why my tiny sketchbook is tucked into my work bag. You never know, there might be a moment.