Ten Things I Learned about Writing from Working in a Fabric Store
Currently I make my living off of part-time jobs and
freelancing my theatre skills. My main source of income is a fabric store where
I might spend more than I actually make. During these days, I spend a lot of my
time thinking about writing, and thus connections are bound to be born.
1.) Subjectivity
is a real thing.
This year we had several showings of local quilters’
works, one in which we had the opportunity to vote on the best. We had three
categories: Best of Show, Color, and Student. I helped to tally the votes at
the end, and the ones I chose? They were on the lower side of choice, having
some marks, but less than most.
The ones that won I understood a little bit. Color had
the most colors (and I don’t like
colorful; I chose the combination I liked best), Best of Show was the hardest
to make, and the students was the only one that was not just a bunch of typical
squares and stars. We had all predicted the one that would win—it was obvious—but
I would have thought the ones I liked best would have done better.
Some of the ugliest quilts I’ve ever seen get a great
deal of compliments—without the creator in the room. Color combinations I would
never use, colors in general that I couldn’t
make appeal to me with all the fabric options in the world, are some of my
costumers and coworkers favorites.
Unlike in writing in which I—insanely, if not accurately—attribute
many people’s love of a “bad” book as lying. You do not like Hemmingway and
Jack Kerouac and Fitzgerald. Bullshit.
Or my friend who thinks that she’s better read than her classmates. Both of
these things can be true, but they aren’t necessarily true all of the time, and
nothing shows the objective truth of subjectivity when it comes to favorite
colors.
Some people like things other people don’t.
2.) Never ask stringent
rule follows how to break rules.
I work with a lovely woman who is much older than me, and
a completely different personality. She is a longtime seamstress, a
perfectionist, who is very good at what she does. She knows how to do practically
everything. But God forbid you want to do something weird.
I hesitate to ask for her help on things because it will
generally be prefaced by “Why are you doing it at all?” I want to change a
pattern, trace a pattern, move something, reorganize something, try something
new, and I’ll have to explain to her my reasoning behind it. In her mind, we
should never change unless there’s a reason to.
This is pretty common in writing sessions, but less
obvious. Unlike sewing in which there is a pattern for, a clear rulebook, and
logical standards of protocol, the “rules” on writing are pretty vague. And I’ve
never met a writer who was willing to admit that he liked doing what he was supposed
to.
But you’ll come across smart, experienced people who you
disagree with in every way, or will question you on your choices, but will
never outright admit that they don’t like rocking the boat. Hell, you might be
one of those people. In these scenarios, the receiver of advice might not
realize what is going on. I, for one, never even considered that people would
balk at change or originality. I consider any criticism on such—always—as them
saying, “You’re trying too hard to be original.” But no, there really are
people who want things to be formulaic, who don’t want to break the rules, and
who will actually say the words, “I just haven’t seen it done that way before,”
as though it’s a bad thing by itself.
There is a thin line between being creative and looking
like you’re trying to be creative, but when someone starts questioning why you
would bother, making suggestions that you don’t agree with, it’s important to
consider if maybe, just maybe, they’re a rule follower. If they are, and you
aren’t, it might be the cause of the disagreement, and maybe you don’t just
have your head up your ass.
3.) Comparison is
important.
I would love a fabric. I would love it from afar, never
having a reason to use it, never having a reason to pick it up. Then, one day,
that would change. I’d take it out, cut off a piece, throw it in my box to make
a display, only to pull it out a day later and go, “I liked this?”
Writing, like fabrics, is often evaluated by what it’s
being compared to. On the shelf, a color is defined by the colors it’s next to.
Books are defined by the others a reader is seeing at that time. Ideas that are
great on their own change when put into context. How well something is received
sometimes has nothing to do with what it is, but rather what it is being
compared to.
4.) By making one
arbitrary decision, great ones will follow.
When you walk into any fabric store for the first time,
there’s generally a sense of overwhelming decisions to be made. If you have no
pattern, no color scheme, have no idea what you want to do, it’s common to try
and keep options open. As soon as I pick that
fabric, I can’t pick this fabric, and
many don’t like to limit themselves like that.
Authors do this all the time. Many people who want to
write a novel say to me, “There’s just no idea that I want to commit to yet.”
Many who start to write a novel then quit, say, “I just get in and then change
my mind about what I want to happen.” People don’t like limiting themselves.
They want to see all the options before they make a decision. They want to make
the right decision.
This is, however, impossible. Because writing is
subjective and because there are too many choices and possible combinations
available, trying to wait for the right idea will often lead to nothing
happening.
The moment, however, that we make a concrete decision—say,
“red”—obvious decisions follow it. I can’t use orange, but I love black with
red. Is orange bad normally? Not always. But in this context it is, and it’s
easier to skip the orange section and get ideas without being worried about
skipping the orange section.
It is far better to make a decision and change your mind
than it is to wait around for the right decision to come along. Mostly, because
making that first decision is more likely to help you understand what you want—or
don’t.
5.) What I like best
and what I am most impressed by is not always the same thing.
Back to the contest, I suggested to my boss that we have
different option for favorite and for most difficult. She said she had
something similar, but the costumers got too confused how to rate it.
I wanted it, however, because the quilts I liked best I
knew weren’t that hard to make, but the ones that were impressive, I probably
wouldn’t have in my house. Should I vote based on my honest feelings or my
logical “shoulds”?
What is hard to do in writing isn’t always clear. The
best authors make everything look natural and easy. Sometimes the most complicated
and thought out moment is the one most glossed over.
That being said, there are a lot of books that I love
that I’m not really impressed by, and those that I’m impressed by that I don’t
really love.
Do I think Beckett is a good writer? Yes. As a person of
study, to take him line by line, he is interesting. I think he was a fun writer, a
good wordsmith, and analyzing him is a blast. His stories, however, would be
something a theatre in hell might play.
I find him very, very boring.
It is helpful for every author to remember that they are
not intrinsically connected, and that he might be prioritizing one that a reviewer
or contest judge is doing the opposite. While, I believe, most people would
like to have both, sometimes it helps to remember that not having one doesn’t
mean a complete failure.
6.) You’ll get
better without even realizing it.
Free motion sewing is a quilting process in which the
seamstress becomes completely in charge of moving the needle. She pushes the
fabric around with nothing to regulate her seam length or direction. The process
would be akin to tying a pen in place than trying to draw by moving the paper.
It’s hard.
When I first started, my coworker—a great quilter—said, you’ll
be surprised at how much better you are by the end of the quilt.
She was right. I free motioned, making up flowers and
leaves all along the edges of the blanket, and you can definitely tell where I
started and where I finished.
This is true for everything, whether it be writing,
drawing, playing an instrument. With writing it’s hard to tell because it’s not
visual or audible, but abstract. What is good and bad is so indistinct that
sometimes all we know is “I don’t like it.”
It is typical to feel like you’re never going to like
what you do, or that it will take far too long to get there. Many times you don’t
want to ruin the project you’re working on with your inevitable mistakes. But
the only way to learn is to practice.
7.) You will
disagree with people on what is “supposed” to happen.
I walked into my boss’s office to see new fabrics lined
up by her desk. I’m not a necessarily a horse person—I like them, sure, but I’m
not as obsessive as some others—but immediately I wanted to make something out
of it.
Because we live in a tourist town in Wyoming, we sell a great deal of western fabric to quilters looking for things they can’t find in their hometown. (Yes, that actually is a pretty common thing for quilters to do.) These horses, however, weren’t really all that western. Running through a blue winter plain, they were unique.
When I put them together, I mostly used fabrics from the
same line (a “line” is a series of fabrics deliberately designed to go
together), but for the cornerstones (small squares of fabric that—usually—go in
the corners of the quilt) I chose a pattern of blue horses from elsewhere in
the store. Well, a coworker didn’t like it, so I let her pull out a great deal
of alternative options. My boss came out and we asked for her option, to which
they agreed on a brown one. I was asked, “What do you think?”
“Well, it’s okay. My only problem is that it’s kind of
western, and I like the fabric because it is about horses, but isn’t so western.”
“It’s not western!” my boss said. “It’s just brown.”
Well, my lovely coworker from above came in soon after to
give her opinion, to which she said, “I like this one.” (pointing to the
majority’s favorite) “It makes it look more western.”
I started laughing, and my boss explained, “That was the
wrong thing to say.”
When my boss explained way, my coworker was so flabbergasted;
she couldn’t even form her thoughts into words.
“It’s about horses!” she said. “It’s western! Deal with
it!”
Everyone makes assumptions about the way things are
supposed to be and what other people are going for. She could not comprehend
how I could possibly want a horse not to be western, and I could not comprehend
why that wouldn’t be incredibly obvious.
All writers will have this conversation at one point or
another. A reader will make the assumption as to what the author’s going for,
as to how things are supposed to be, about personal tastes, and the writer has
to decide if he agrees or not. Whether it be mixing genres, morals of the
story, or just little, unpredictable details, at one point in time someone will
say something isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.
8.) What seems
like common sense to you isn’t always that common.
A guy came into the store a few days ago needing a thin
strip of felt, 60 inches long. He had a worse temperament than most of the men.
It is common for them to be uncomfortable, hostile, and abrupt in a fabric
store. (There are a lot of men who aren’t, of course, but who notices them?) He
gave me that same constipated, monosyllabic tone reserved for someone who just
underwent surgery, and kept staring at me, waiting for me to deliver whatever
the hell it is he wanted.
He said he needed felt, so I pointed the direction it
would be in. He waited. I walked over with him, saying, “This felt is 72
inches, and we cut width of fabric, so you’ll take the whole 72, but it will be
long enough.” I showed him the felt bolts (cardboard wrapped in about 15 yards
of fabric). He stared at me. “Do you know what color you want?”
“Don’t you have anything else? I just need a strip.”
“Well, we have felt squares, but they’re only a few inches wide and long.”
“Don’t you sell it in ribbon form?”
I didn’t expect this. “Nope.”
He eyed the felts and, deciding that it wouldn’t work for
him, “Can you tell me any other options?”
At this point in time, I had no idea why he couldn’t use
the felt, and he was so abrasive, I didn’t care.
“This is all we have. I don’t who else would sell felt.”
“I just need a thin strip.”
Now I just stared at him.
“And that’s too much,” he said, gesturing at the bolt.
“I can cut as little as one-eighth a yard, which is about
four and half inches.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He lightened up. Then he stared at me.
“I’ll do that then.”
And he stared at me.
“What color?” I said finally.
Selling fabric is a weird business, and it’s understandable
why people are uncomfortable and confused. The problem is there are so many
different possibilities as to where they might be confused, I don’t know what
they don’t know. Now, having worked there for a while, it seems like second
nature to me. I knew he was concerned about something, but I couldn’t figure
what. In hindsight, it’s obvious why he wouldn’t know how little I could cut,
yet I have no idea how much he thought he had to take. It seems like common
sense that the bolt would have worked for him, but because he didn’t understand
anything about the process, he couldn’t even begin to ask about the
miscommunication, and I couldn’t begin to guess.
The number one reason I don’t understand feedback is when
the peer glosses over something “obvious.” Instead of saying, “I’m confused who’s
talking here,” they say, “Just use their names.” Instead of telling me, “I don’t
know who I’m supposed to root for, so I root for no one and don’t care,” they
say, “You have too many characters.
By assuming “common sense” neither party is able to
understand where the miscommunication is happening. Of course, you can’t
explain everything to everyone without sounding condescending as hell, but when
miscommunication happens, you can start by considering what you don’t know.
9.) Many customers
won’t understand that what they want is unique to them.
I’ve worked there for eight months now, and in this time
I’ve had a few costumers upset that we didn’t have what they wanted. Most
handle it pretty well. If you’ve lived in Jackson for more than three seconds,
you know this is a small town and we have nothing. Go to Idaho Falls if you
want a Furby.
But there are those who—usually due to procrastination—are
very upset about not having it. I had one man give me a ten-minute long rant
about how he keeps coming in there and we have nothing he wants, and I need to
be sure to deliver the message to my boss. Because, yeah, what she really needs
to hear today is some old jackass complaining we don’t have the color of Velcro
he needs. I’m sure that will change everything.
The funny thing is that in all of these situations, the
person complaining is often the first person asking. I’ve never been requested
for it before, and I haven’t been requested of it since. The items that we do
get a lot of requests for, the people haven’t been alarmed about not having it.
The tantrum throwers want something that, while not unique, is not something I
picture being sold in bulk.
I’ve had people like this in writers’ groups, where they
tell their fellow writers what their book needs to be or needs to change,
completely unaware that their request is unique to them. A man once started by
saying, “I don’t like detective novels,” then telling the mystery writer what
she shouldn’t do to fix that.
Unless she was writing mystery novels for non-mystery
readers, this is advice that probably isn’t that useful.
10.) People don’t
like labeling themselves.
When someone comes up to buy a lot of fabric, I ask, “Are
you a quilter?”
What I really mean is, “Do you have any idea how much
this is going to cost?”
Nine times out of ten, they hesitate.
“Well, I’m a beginning
quilter,” they say.
“I quilt,” they say, “But I wouldn’t consider myself a ‘quilter.’”
