The question

Today is my launch party today. WooHoo! There will be quilts, food, and plenty of smiling faces. All the elements for a great day.

I’m looking forward to it. Especially the Q&A. I can guess what some of the questions will be. Where do you get your ideas? Is that quilting diva based on Alex Anderson and/or Eleanor Burns? Am I in it? Did you kill off someone you loathe? Am I the pretty one or the really annoying sister-in-law?

I’m not looking forward to the one question that gets asked of both quilters and writers: “How long did it take to: (Insert here) make that quilt/finish that novel?”

How long did it take? I find that impossible to answer. I don’t work to deadline with my quilts. I sew because I like to. The quilt is finished when the pattern is complete or the quilt is large enough to cover the bed. Or perhaps the baby has arrived two weeks early. Sometimes my inner designer tells me it’s finished.

How long did it take? How would I track the time? There’s the actual sewing time, of course. I could keep a log of time spent in the studio. What about the germinating? Just like novels, ideas for quilts come from everywhere. Do I count the time star-gazing that led me to sprinkling my sky with crystals? What about the long walks, where I often come up with a new solution to a tricky piecing problem. Shopping the quilt shops is an integral part. Do I count sleeping time if the right fabric choice came to me in the middle of the night? And how about studying time? Museum time, classes? Techniques learned and discarded often find a place in a different quilt.

How long did it take? What I want to know is what the questioner is really thinking with that question. Is it: a) If I had that kind of time, I could have done a better job. Or b) What a colossal waste of a life.

How long did it take? My first book took over five years to write, by the calendar. But that doesn’t take in Mr. Robinson’s senior English class or the business writing in night school or the proposal writing classes at the extension. The writers conferences, the seminars, the how-to books. The words that were cut, the drafts discarded, the characters axed. The other stories (typed, for crying out loud) that were almost sent into Redbook’s story contest.

So when that person in the back row, raises her hand and sweetly asks, “How long did it take you to write Wild Goose Chase?” I’ll be prepared. I know the answer.

My whole life.