Invisible Growing--For Jeff

The earth seems stagnant

Dead and waiting

Waiting for something

Not for me

The air oppresses

Hot with moisture

Heavy with pressure

Weighing down on me

Nothing will happen

I think to myself

I will sit in this soil

Fester and rot

But I feel little shoots

Of pain in the roots

Of me

Pushing out into

The deep, wet soil

Heading out where I cannot see

And something in my shoulders

Tells me the sun is growing closer

Am I a little taller?

Is that a branch? A leaf?

Don't tell me those are rosebuds

On my outstretched arms

I thought that I was hopeless

Caught in nothing

Stuck within the stationary

But just as I suspected

I was growing all along

And soon the buds will bloom

Turning into ripest fruit.

Gardening = Writing

Yes, despite my busy schedule, I spend several hours this week pulling the weeds out of my just-about-to-sprout garden. As in the past, gardening always reminds me of writing, and just as I posted last year about these connections, more similarities have occurred to me. Most involve revision in some form, since I'm the great reviser, but all reflect my belief that each writing, like each plant, follows a natural order.

See if you find anything useful:

1. A good scene is like a lilac. It's smell is heavenly, but it doesn't bloom for too long. Lilacs only bloom for a week or two, and then they are gone, and their smell with them. Then again, if they bloomed from March until September, we'd get sick of the stench. Any good scene should know when to end itself so that the magic of the scene isn't lost in boredom (SNL could do well to adhere to this rule).

2. What looks pretty at first may turn out to be a weed. You might find yourself putting some event or character which seems awesome, yet somehow the rest of the work gets gummed up around it, faltering or falling flat. Know when a gimmick is just that--a gimmick--and don't hold onto something that may end up destroying your work entirely.

3. Others can give you advice about your garden, but only you know what you really want it to look like. Everyone has an opinion, and yet you should strive, above all, to make your work into something that you yourself would like to read. If you don't feel your heart behind it, most others won't either, but if you love your work, you'll be happy, even if you never sell it.

4. When in doubt, plant first, then move the plants once they grow beyond seedlings. If you like various elements, get them down on paper. You can always move them around or change their details once they are in your document. Without seeing them set in the text, they will be harder to evaluate and rearrange. Once they are on paper, and you can see how they relate in context, your task will be easier.

5. There is a season to plant, and a season to prune. Don't mix them up. If you are on a writing roll, and pages are spilling out almost faster than you can write them down, don't backtrack. Instead, let your right brain have the freedom it needs to generate what is coming. Then, when your right brain is exhausted, switch gears and go back to revise, to add to, or to shred your generated text. Turning on your left brain too early or too often can inhibit what your right brain will do.

That's it for now. Remember, too, that these are just my own observations. Happy gardening--I mean writing!

Weeding Wisdom

I will get back to David Copperfield, but I was weeding yesterday, and as with the last time I weeded, I tend to philosophize as I pull out the horrid junk out from around my rose bushes. (I shouldn't be that mean when discussing these plants, but they really are annoying.)

If you'd like to read my other entry on the matter, I think it's on my defunct blog, so it's been a while since I wrote on the topic. I am struck, each time I do some gardening, by how informative it is about life--especially about my writing. Here are a few little kernels of what I learned yesterday:

1.  Get a problem out by the roots, and it won't come back. I can't tell you how many times I've pulled the leaves off a weed, only to see it come back in a week, stronger than ever. In my writing, I often tend to lop off a little scene that is giving me a sign of some bigger problem, rather than deal with the bigger problem. When I go back through the novel or play, though, the problem is still there. It won't go away until I take out the true cause, and that requires digging. (It also leads to the next item.)

2.  Get a shovel, and use it. When one revises a novel (or play), one might be more eager to fix a comma splice than delete an entire character, or scene, or situation. One might not want to admit the climax stinks, or that the whole beginning premise is absolutely lame. But if one doesn't take a hatchet to the work--or if one isn't at least willing to hold the hatchet out there, looking for places to hack--the real substantive changes will not occur, and the spine of the work is going to be weak.

My last piece of advice comes thanks to the neighborhood dog, who detests when I am weeding anywhere near the back fence, and thus barks savagely non-stop, hurling himself at the fence (which shudders) when I get quite close to it. So, here it is:

3.  It is very hard to weed with a dog barking savagely in the background. It makes me think of bursts like the NaNoWriMo concept, to write a novel in a month (it's coming up in November). If I have a huge deadline looming, if I feel as if a dog is barking at me over my shoulder, not only will I work less efficiently, but I will be miserable while I'm doing it. That stupid dog made gardening a chore when I normally would like to do it. Surely, after years of living here, it has to know I'm not coming through the fence, and surely I know it won't get to me, but the dreadful sound make me shudder (like the fence), and they set my hair on end. Not a good way to garden. Not a good way to write. 

It's almost fall, almost time for all the plants to take a breather--and that's good, since I have two classes starting in less than a week, and two more starting mid-October. Lots to do!

Getting Advice

Yesterday, before my husband left for work, and we were planning out the next few days, he looked out into the backyard and asked, "So, you gonna finish that weeding today?"

Now, I am anything but lazy (ask anyone but my mother, who wouldn't know)... and I was planning to work on the garden. But I also had a pit of a house to contend with, since we have company coming over today, a pit of a house that HE had contributed to, by the way... 

So I told him that yes, I was planning on it, but I had a bunch of other stuff, too, so I didn't know... and I also told him when I thought of stuff he could do at work while he was there, I'd call him and give him the list, too. You see, for the most part, the house is one of my jobs. It's my work. And I take it pretty seriously. However, it is only one of my jobs, and I don't appreciate his input on any of them, since he can't even seem to get his shoes into his closet (or his laundry in the hamper, or his dishes in the sink, etc.)... 

Thankfully, he kept his mouth shut, and when he got home and saw all the work I'd done (with a sick little boy home all day, no less), he did nothing but praise me. Good boy. That's what I needed in the morning, instead of a "honey-do" list... 

And this little event leads me back to my writing, as it always does. I tend to keep my stuff pretty much secret when I'm developing it. NO ONE reads a first draft of my writing... not even my husband. And when I send something out to readers, I make sure I do it only when I'm certain I'm ready for criticism. I find I am infinitely more ready to accept criticism when I actually ask for it. If you read my last post, you'll know I'm pretty good at taking it, too, but only if I specifically prepared myself for it, not when it's unwelcome.

How do you respond to criticism? How do you ask for it? How do you react when it's offered without your asking for it? I'd love to know.