Writer Resource: The Fabrics of Our Life

A writing metaphor inspired by my wife who has been sewing masks in response to the current pandemic.

As part of my daily personal time each morning, I keep a journal. This article is taken from today’s journal entry and reflects the current situation in which the world is caught up in COVID-19 pandemic.

Now we are down to face masks. Mandatory attire if we screw up the courage to step outside. Rebecca (my wife) has sewn 6 of them up to this point with more to come in the days ahead. For our family, both here in Chicago and those in California, as well as friends and to give away to those in need.

Rebecca is using pieces of fabric she has accumulated over the years. Scraps left over from clothes she made for our two sons growing up. Quilts she intended to make. Remnants and pieces of projects realized and not.

We have carted them around the country from one move to another. Each time we boxed up things, we would have this conversation:

Me: Do we really need to save these?
Rebecca: They may come in handy.

And now… face masks. Potential lifesavers.

As I sit here thinking about it, I suppose this is a teachable metaphor about writing. Maybe a stretch, maybe not. Let’s see where this goes.

What if we imagine that all of the life experiences we cart around with us through the years represent resources we can use in our writing? Each incident or encounter is a piece of fabric.

We store them in boxes. This one is marked Sorrows. That box next to it has the word Regrets scrawled on the side. And over there in the farthest, darkened corner: Fears.

Dozens and dozens of boxes filled with scraps of memories and psychological associations from our life. Each a different fabric, a different pattern, yet each has meaning to us, a specific set of emotions conjured up when we open the box and handle this or that piece of fabric.

As writers, at any point when we are crafting a story or pounding out pages, and a character sparks a connection from what they are experiencing to something from our past which we experienced, we can open that box — Joys, Injuries, Stupidities, Losses, Victories, Romances, Tragedies — and sort through the scraps of fabric until we find it — a singular moment in time.

I had an emotional episode similar to my character.

We hold that piece of fabric, that visceral sense of touch conjuring up what we felt in that brief flash of time in our past and what emotions it evokes.

Then with our hands — pen in hand or fingers on keyboard — we reshape it into something which becomes theirs, our character’s life.

It’s as if we are giving a gift to the character, sending them out into their world of adventure, trials, and tribulations, empowered by our own emotions, trusting that in the end, they will create a quilt of their own experiences…

Which we will transpose onto the printed page… as a story.

The fabric of our life becoming part of theirs.

Stay safe. Be well. Keep writing.