{"id":5076,"date":"2013-05-14T06:00:37","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T10:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allandouglas.com\/blog\/?p=5076"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:40","slug":"writing-lessons-from-the-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/writing-lessons-from-the-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Lessons from the Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

I lay claim to the title Professional Writer because I make an income from selling my articles and books.\u00a0 I am also an amateur gardener: because I do NOT make any income from it.\u00a0 I had once considered selling excess produce at the local Farmers Market, but that would mean getting up quite early on Saturdays and trundling a truckload of veggies over to a parking lot where I would HOPE that people would be willing to exchange cash for foodstuffs.\u00a0 That lost its appeal once that \u2018getting up early on Saturday\u2019 thing became a tangible reality.\u00a0 Still I have learned some lessons from gardening that apply well to other areas of life, even life as a writer.<\/p>\n

\"garden,<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lesson 1: Start Small<\/h1>\n

Garden patch or work of prose, diving into a monstrous work without experience will likely prove overwhelming and discouraging.\u00a0 Start small, with something you can manage and use that experience to grow into larger attempts.\u00a0 As you learn what works and what doesn\u2019t, you can branch out and expand your effectiveness without suffering much loss through ineptness.<\/p>\n

My garden started with four boxes sunk into the mountain slope so the loose soil didn\u2019t wash away with every rain.\u00a0 I\u2019m up to 20-some-odd boxes now.\u00a0 I expanded as I learned proper technique and became confident in my ability to maintain it all.\u00a0 My writing started out with short pieces \u2013 a few hundred words each \u2013 used as filler by newspapers and magazines.\u00a0 I\u2019ve worked up to full length feature articles, some short fiction, and have published 3 books.\u00a0 Had I tried a novel right at the dawn of my career I\u2019d probably have become very discouraged and gone back to computer programming.<\/p>\n

Lesson 2: Plan Ahead<\/h1>\n

Ripping out a lot of what you\u2019ve done because you ended up with a tangled mess or because the eggplants ended up in the shadow of tomato bushes wastes time, effort and resources.\u00a0 Do a little research; get an idea of what the matured project will look like before cultivating the seeds.<\/p>\n

Pantsing your way through a 100,000 word novel will probably mean ripping out and re-writing stuff.\u00a0 Having at least a basic outline of events will help avoid writing yourself into a corner.<\/p>\n

Lesson 3: Avoid Temptation<\/h1>\n

Falling for seed catalog descriptions of wonderfulness and planting things your family won\u2019t eat is a waste of space and effort, especially if you freeze or can them only to sit untouched for years.\u00a0 Writing articles or books that are currently hot topics but in which you lack experience will likely mean publishers (and readers) will have no interest in them once completed.<\/p>\n

Lesson 4: Watch for Weeds<\/h1>\n

Weeds suck nutrients from the soil and crowd out your crops. \u00a0\u00a0Blocks of text that you find wonderfully clever but don\u2019t add to your story have no place in it.\u00a0 As painful as it is, yank them out and keep it vital and thriving.<\/p>\n

Lesson 5: Focus On the Most Valuable<\/h1>\n

A lesson I learned from fellow gardening enthusiast and author Deborah Lee Luskin[<\/sup>1<\/sup>]<\/sup> \u2013 that I have not yet mastered myself —\u00a0 is to focus your efforts on the most valuable pursuits.\u00a0 She advises buying the inexpensive, plentiful items, like potatoes and onions, from a farmers market and focusing your own space on expensive and difficult to find items, like culinary herbs.\u00a0 As a writer, focusing on writing your stories and buying ancillary items like cover design and editing will make the best use of your time \u2013 and often produce a better yield.<\/p>\n

I myself am still stuck in \u201csurvivalist mode\u201d attempting to grow all my own produce, and self-publishing my books.\u00a0 One day, I hope to become sufficiently enlightened (and fiscally capable) to follow her advice.\u00a0 For the moment, it\u2019s just me, a patch of dirt, and a laptop.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I lay claim to the title Professional Writer because I make an income from selling my articles and books.  I am also an amateur gardener: because I do NOT make any income from it.  I had once considered selling excess produce at the local Farmers Market, but that would mean getting up quite early on … Continue reading “Writing Lessons from the Garden”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[86,29],"class_list":["post-5076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tools","tag-gardening","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21546,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5076\/revisions\/21546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}