I wrote a lot of 'Red Queen' wrapped in a blanket, cramped up while watching the snow come down.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There was a computer in our garage when I was growing up, and I'd go out there in winter and wrap myself in a blanket and write a story.
For some reason, I wrote about the bed we slept in when I was a kid. It was a half-acre of misery, that bed, sagging in the middle, red hair sticking out of the mattress, the spring gone and the fleas leaping all over the place.
I write probably 80 percent of my stuff over the winter.
I wrote 'Snowy' as a result of spending a week on a narrow boat with daily classes of children, helping them to write about canal life, the work of barges, the simple pleasure of watching the water creatures. There was no doubt that the star of their week was Snowy, the working barge horse who pulled us daily along the towpath.
Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.
For me, there's nothing better than curling up in my favorite blanket on a cloudy or rainy day and just knit. Especially in front of the fireplace.
After 'Blankets,' I was sick of drawing myself and doing this autobiographical, mundane, Midwestern sort of comics. I wanted to create something bigger than myself and outside myself.
I go in and out of season. I won't write for months, and then all of a sudden, I'll write like I've got a fever.
I crocheted a blanket larger than a king-size bed. I just kept going.
I played a heap of snow in a school play. I was under a sheet, and crawled out when spring came. I often say I'll never reach the same artistic level again.