Working with hand tools is quiet and slow. Shaping Sheila's body with rasps and scrapers was a little like driving cross country in slow motion. It was possible to think about other things while I worked without much risk of ruining the work or injuring myself.
Typically, when I have a vision for a piece and enough passion for that vision to start the project, I know exactly what I'm trying to achieve (whether or not I achieve it is a different question) and this knowledge and the vision remain constant throughout. In the case of Sheila, having started her more out of despair than vision, I was a month into the project before I started to see what the vision was, what the project of Sheila was all about.
It began one night when the body was more or less shaped. Up until then I'd been trying only to create a pleasing shape. But as I made the initial fitting of two of the legs, which were still in the rough, but getting close, I suddenly felt the spidery presence of a being before me, and my first little thrill of excitement (obviously I don't live a very exciting life) for the project.