Piecing

To spell piece, you start with pie. 

Or so I learned. Spelling as a topic seems itself to be made up of random wedge-shaped bits of knowledge –– spelling "rules" notwithstanding.

​I have to look up everything; Google's predictive typing is a blessing for those times where I barely know how to begin.  Such as with the word "turquoise."  Every time.

Anyway. Pieces and piecing.

Sidebar

As a word-nerd (and a terrible speller) I've enjoyed listening to the History of English podcast.  

It goes a long way toward explaining "night" vs. "knight" and "kite" vs. "kit." Et cetera.
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Not to be all Steven Wright about it, but it's odd to me that "piecing" is not the process of making pieces, but instead the practice of putting pieces together. Separately from sewing that is.  It's about putting specific pieces together in a particular way. As in making quilts.

I've been making quilts lately. Kind of a lot of quilts. Probably more of them than might be strictly called a hobby. 

Full disclosure. I admit it: I have been sewing with manic intensity (being "in the seam allowance" as cousin Jean Jones says of that trance-like flow-state of creation) as a way of not thinking about writing. 

It makes some sort of sense: like writing, where one pieces together a narrative from scraps of conversation, specific detail, and overarching themes, quilting is a way to make something new.

It's the same impulse: to create something substantial, to create something that will comfort or envelop someone, that will please someone else also. One might spend these hours with imaginary friends and their tribulations, or one might think about color, pattern, texture, and size. ​ 

But when I'm done and it's bound, instead of selling it to a reading public (or editor/agent), this finished product can be used or given away on an individual basis. Or maybe –– rather like the stories I haven't sold yet –– they'll wait on a shelf until the time is right for them to move along.