While many parts of the country are still dealing with their winter climate, here in Florida, we are already deep into our growing season. It is the time of year when I am doing lots of pruning, trimming, and getting my spring flowers, herbs, and plants in.
In many ways, gardening is very much like writing.
- As gardeners, we plant seeds in hopes that they will grow and blossom. As writers, story ideas may start as a simple sentence or a single character, and the hope is that with nurturing, it can grow into a poem, or picture book, or novel.
- As gardeners, we must be patient with the process. As writers, things can’t be rushed. Our ideas and words must unfold and grow at their own pace.
- As gardeners, we must pay attention to the conditions in order to get the best result. As writers, we know that not all pieces of writing require the same preparation and planning.
- As gardeners, we know that there are sometimes surprises. The full-grown plant may not be at all what we expected when we started. As writers, we know our completed piece may be more beautiful than we expected, or more dreadful than we can stand.
- As gardeners, we know that sometimes you just have to pull up the mistakes and start over. As writers, we know that revising and rewriting is critical and sometimes things need to just be cut out.
- As gardeners, we enjoy sharing the beauty of our blooms or the bumper crop of limes. As writers, we passionately share the fruits of our labors with our readers.
- As gardeners, we are eternally optimistic. No matter how bad this year’s crop, we know that there is always next year. As writers, we are also optimistic beyond reason. We believe that our next project will be the most spectacular one yet!
As Marcus Tillius Cicero said, “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
Comments