The Light of Day

My friend and social media connector extraordinaire, Piper Bayard, held a cover reveal of her first book on her blog a couple of days ago. (http://piperbayard.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/the-nine-year-baby-firelands-cover-reveal/) If you’ll notice, the title of her post is “The Nine Year Baby.” Funny, catchy, and painfully true. This is Piper’s first book, and I’m sure it won’t be her last. Just reading her blog is enough to tell you that. But besides my delight for her, her post got me to thinking.

I’ve written a lot of books. From this one, back in 1991:

on through a couple of favorites like this duo, that still bring in mail after more than fifteen years (and more news about them upcoming soon!):

to this one, coming up in July (yes, I slipped my own little cover reveal into this one!):

But it’s not these published or soon to be published works that I got to thinking about. It’s the unpublished ones. Books that have never, and may never, as the title of this post says, see the light of day. I’m sure all writers have them. Ideas that seemed good at the time, but in the end didn’t have enough muscle to carry an entire book. The things you put away, and frequently dig out again when you realize that partial idea is the perfect partner for this other partial idea you just came up with.

Or that book of the heart, that one that calls to you so strongly you can’t stop working on it, even though it’s other stories that will be paying the bills. I have one of those I’ve been working on even longer than Piper’s nine-year baby. I’m so in love with the hero of this book I’m not sure I can bear to send him out into the world. He may never see the light of day, although a few lines made it onto Facebook in that “seven lines” meme that was going around a while back.

I have a few  several  okay, I’ll face it, a ton of bits and pieces squirreled away in a folder titled “Beginnings.” Because that’s what they are. Beginnings. Some are mere paragraphs, a scene, a setup, a fragment where I have no idea where it came from or where it’s going. Others are maybe two or three pages. Some are longer, and a couple are twenty-plus pages that came out in the white heat of “I have to write this NOW.”

I’ve often wondered what other writers do with this stuff. Is it deleted? Filed away never to be looked at again? Personally, I have a hard time deleting anything that I was moved enough to write in the first place. Not because I think my every word is golden–I wish!–but because I can’t shake the feeling that some day, somewhere down the line, that little bit of writing might save my sorry backside when I’m mired deep in deadline hell. So my process has become I save it and walk away. And my criteria after that is if I remember it after it’s in that beginnings folder, if after a while it’s still in my head, then it has a potential worth looking at. Maybe.

Is anybody else curious about things like this, would you love to peek at these bits and pieces, or is it just a writer’s weirdness that makes me wonder?

Refilling The Well

 

It’s spring, and a young bird’s fancy turns….

Okay, I finally believe it. Spring is really here. I mean, once I’ve seen the Canada Geese flying north in formation, I know it’s just me who hasn’t felt it. I trust their internal clocks more than mine, because their time doesn’t get messed with, they don’t deal with things like daylight savings time and other man-made idiocies that keep us thinking we’re somehow in control of nature. (can you tell I’m not a fan? Grump, snarl…)

But I digress.

I’ve introduced my neighbors before. But in case you missed it, here they are, sharing a quiet moment in a nearby tree.

One of the great joys of living in the Northwest is seeing these magnificent creatures on a regular basis. This time of year, almost daily. One of the first bird calls  I learned when we moved here years ago was theirs; it’s unmistakable once you’ve heard it. (I was given a small, stuffed bald eagle as a gift once, the type you squeeze and get the bird’s call. They got it exactly right.)

Everyone, writer or not, I think finds themselves now and then in a place where they just can’t keep going. Where they’re beaten down, too weary to go on. Where they’ve gone to the well once too often, and this time come up dry. Times like this, you need to know what refills your well, and then make a conscious effort to do it. For some it’s reading for hours. For others it’s getting outdoors, walking or hiking. For some it’s traveling.

For some, like me,  it’s doing something with your hands, creating something entirely different. Knitting, for me, takes up an entirely different set of brain cells, and lets the writing part of the brain rest and refill. And when I can combine it with sitting outdoors and waiting for my neighbors to come by, it’s even better.

Since I’m between books at the moment, I’ve had time to enjoy the show that truly means spring around here. My neighbors are celebrating the arrival in the way only they can. By flying, soaring, together.

And this year, for only the second time since I’ve lived here, I had the soul-stirring joy of watching an eagle courtship flight. Something impossible to describe, impossible even to really show in pictures, but once you’ve seen it in person, you will never, ever forget it. These two glorious, powerful birds soar skyward. They turn. Lock talons. And fall. Fall in a turning, twisting tumble that is breathtaking. Locked together they plummet, cartwheeling, trusting their instincts and their own strength to save them when at last they break apart, only to soar upward and do it all again.

Courtship. Of the most heart-racing kind. A little bit dangerous. Requiring complete trust. But worth it, in the end. And if you didn’t already know, bald eagles mate for life.

That’s why they refill my well, in a way few things can.

 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Wait, do I have my holidays confused??

No, I’m not really confused. It is, of course, St. Patrick’s day. Since I’m half Irish, I know this. (the other half is split between Welsh and a contribution from a mercenary Hessian from the American Revolution who fell in love with America and let himself get captured so he could stay, but that’s another story….)

There, that’s better. More appropriate. I was going to use a shot of a pint of Guinness, but for some reason I can’t find it…..

I’ve sometimes wonder if I would have guessed at my Irish blood if I didn’t already know it. When I first came to the Northwest, after years of trying to survive in a dry, desert region paved over with concrete and asphalt, I was off the ferry out of Seattle less than five minutes before I realized I felt I’d come home. Is it some genetic memory that hearkens back to other green covered land and blue waters? As a child, the first time I heard a Celtic flute, without even know what it was, my heart was filled with longing, an ache I couldn’t define. And heaven help me, the pipes. Yes, yes, I love the pipes. Apparently you either love or hate bagpipes. No denial here. I’ll stop for the pipes anywhere, unless they’re playing Amazing Grace, because then I’ll end up weeping my eyes out.

“Maybe it’s bred in the bone, but the sound of pipes is a little bit of heaven to some of us.” –Nancy O’Keeefe

The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scots as a joke, but the Scots haven’t seen the joke yet. –Old Irish Joke

Someone once said to me “Of course you’re a writer. It’s the Irish, you know.” I didn’t know, but there certainly is a stable to choose from. And they do have a way….

“The English language brings out the best in the Irish. They court it like a beautiful woman. They make it bray with donkey laughter. They hurl it at the sky like a paint pot full of rainbows, and then make it chant a dirge for man’s fate and man’s follies that is as mournful as misty spring rain crying over the fallow earth. Rarely has a people paid the lavish compliment and taken the subtle revenge of turning its oppressor’s speech into sorcery. ”  T E Kalem

And I have Irishman Brendan Behan to thank for one of my favorite quotes ever, since becoming a writer:

“Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they’re unable to do it themselves.”

No, I’ve never set foot on that green, green isle, but I hope to rectify that some day. How can you not want to visit a land that has a place like this?

“Heavens Trail” A place in Ireland where every two years on June 10-18 the stars line up with this path. (H/T @Earth_Pics )

In the mean time, to you all, Irish, part Irish, or not, Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

photo credit: Chris Devers via photopin cc

photo credit: clevercupcakes via photopin cc

Trapped In The Fog

There’s a ship in here somewhere….

Odd how sometimes the weather matches my mood. I know, it’s more typical that the weather influences how you’re feeling, but every once in a while it goes the other way. Like today; a very, very foggy morning. Perfectly suited to my apparently foggy brain today.

Nothing convinces me more of the wisdom of writing every day than being between books. Which I am. The hard work on the last book (the 3rd Cutter’s Code, for those keeping track) is done. I’m in the deciding part of “What’s next?” Which for me, if it’s not already a given, often consists of starting three (sometimes more if I’m really undecided) stories to see which one takes off. The others may still be used, but it’s not their time yet.

But right now, as I said, I’m in a bit of a fog. I sat down this morning, amid the sound of foghorns, and tried to pick where to go next. It’s not that there’s any shortage of ideas for my furry friend’s next adventure. No, I started with a list of a dozen possible stories, and I’ve added more since. And bits and pieces are flying at me, a scene here, bits of dialogue there, character images over there. Problem is, they’re all for different stories. (When people ask “Where do you get your ideas?” I always laugh. I don’t need ideas, I need a way to fight them off. Or at least discipline them so they only come at me one at a time!) It’s as if all the ideas I’ve scribbled down held a meeting and came out of it with an agenda to tag team me.

Usually when I’m at this point, I always have a side project to work on. Something just for me, or something in a new genre, or just something whimsical that makes me smile. But it seems those went to the same meeting, and are flying around my head until I can’t see any one of them clearly. Hence the fog analogy today.

There was a time when I could indulge all this. When I could just let things fly around until one of them got tired enough to land. Or go away and do something else and come back later. But part of being a professional writer is…well, being professional. Which means showing up. Every day. Writing. Every day. Even if it’s garbage and your first move the next day is to hit the delete key. Because writing is like muscle; use it or lose it. Sad that that’s a lesson I have to relearn every now and then. Take too much time off, and it’s hell getting started again. Of course, a real writer is never not working. To the annoyance of family and friends, everything truly is material. But that’s the fun part. Those “Wow, that would make a great story!” moments.  The hard part is deciding which of those wows actually would make a great story. Will it hold up? What will it take to make it work? Can that little scrap of an idea really carry a 400 page manuscript?

And that’s where I am now. Amid a fog of ideas, trying to see which ones will work, and of those, which one wants to be told the most. E. L. Doctorow said “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” I think the same applies to fog. Except sailing along in the fog might be a tad more dangerous! But I know by now the only way to deal with this situation is to simply launch my ship and sail into that fog, never mind that I can’t see either shore right now. They’re there. I need to relax and remember the fun is in the journey.

Into the mist!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why is the end never really the end?

When a writer types “The End” doesn’t it seem like it should be…well, the end? (assuming, of course, that you do type that, which I don’t. I figure if the reader can’t tell it’s the end, or doesn’t think it’s the end, then I’ve done something wrong or left something unfinished) But if you do, it’s not. Now, there have always been more things to do after you finish a book, but these days, there are more than ever. Some have been around since the first cave man erased part of that drawing on the cave wall to make it better. In my world, that’s called revising.

           

 I have never thought of myself as a good writer. But I’m one of the world’s great rewriters.   –James A. Michener

“No, that paragraph shouldn’t be there, it should be back there.” Or, “Uh-oh, I just realized that entire concept for what happens in this scene is made impossible by what happened in that scene. One of them has to go.” Or my favorite, when a character pops up and informs me “Um…hello? I wouldn’t do that. Ever.” Well, you would have when I started this, clownhat.

Pirate musket/Andy Castro via Creative Commons

   

 One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.     –Anton Chekhov

 

 

Then there’s continuity editing. Yes, your editor will be doing this also, but I prefer to avoid humiliation and do my own first, and hope that I don’t miss anything. There’s nothing like getting a note from said editor asking “So, where did that gun end up, anyway?”

A copyeditor is the type of person who will point out to a police officer that the charge for speeding in a school zone is actually $75, not $50…while they are getting a ticket.           

–Nathan Bransford ( http://blog.nathanbransford.com )

Copy editing. And copy editors. A good one is worth his or her weight in gold, which these days is saying something. A bad one can make your life crazy, and make you stomp about declaring it’s nice that the criminally nit-picky can find work.

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.      –Oscar Wilde

Then there’s proofreading. This is the final check of punctuation, dotted i’s and crossed t’s. The reading until it’s your eyes that are crossed. Your last chance to fix grammar. Spelling. All that stuff that made you crazy as a kid when all you wanted to do was tell your story. (You weren’t writing stories when you were five? Slow starter, huh?)

But actually, none of this is my point. (Can you say wordy writer?) What started this off was the realization of what, in today’s writing world, is still left to do after all this is done. Website. Blog. Facebook. Twitter. In other words, I finished a book. Finished the edits, all of them. This morning I finally sent off the final proofreading results. And still, I’m nowhere near done. Am I whining? No, not really. Lots of people would love to have this problem. Do I wish I could just write and have done with it? Sure do. I’m happiest when I’m writing, not doing all the rest.

But I’m also a professional. I’ve survived in this business for a couple of decades now, and I long ago gave up the fantasy that at some point, it would get easier. It doesn’t. So you do what you have to do, accept that at different times your priorities must shift, and sometimes you just put your head down and plow on. Because if you are a writer, it’s what you do.

And remember that the end you get may not always be the end you want, so quit wishing for it. It’ll get here soon enough.

So for now, another case of deadline dementia behind me, I can breathe. At least until tomorrow. When I start the next book.

eyes photo credit: JcMaco via photopin cc

WHO said that??

 I’ve compiled a book from the Internet. It’s a book of quotations attributed to the wrong people. ~Jerry Seinfeld

I’ve collected quotations for years. I have books full of them. As a word person myself, I admire when someone states something in just the perfect way. I admire them even more when it happens to be something I think the same way about. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy going back after reading a book and turning on the “highlight” feature on my Kindle, to see what others have found moving, profound, funny, interesting, or just beautifully written. And more than once, just the way someone I’ve never heard of said or wrote something has pushed me to learn about them.

But sometimes I save a quote not only because of what it says, but because of who said it. Some of them wouldn’t have the same impact, were it not for who said them. Sometimes it makes perfect sense, sometimes it’s more of a “WHO said that?” moment. (This is, of course, assuming the attribution is correct, as pointed out by Mr. Seinfeld. Who hasn’t seen the quote along the lines of “One should always check the attribution of quotes found on the internet.” –Abraham Lincoln ) Sometimes it’s because it’s so unexpected, sometimes it’s because it makes us smile and nod because it’s a reinforcement of what we already thought of that person.

Some of my favorites:

Disney, of course, has the best casting. If he doesn’t like an actor, he just tears him up.      –Alfred Hitchcock

I wanted to be a consultant but he said “I can’t hire you. You’re a genius and I’m a genius. We would kill each other the first week.” It’s the nicest compliment I ever got.     –Ray Bradbury, recalling a conversation with Walt Disney

Literature: Written material that, 100 years after the death of the author, is forced upon high school students.     –Tom Clancy

My prediction for next year is that it will come and it will pass. That’s it.      –Dennis Quaid

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.     –Bill Cosby

On being served matzo ball soup three meals in a row: “Isn’t there any other part of the matzo you eat?”     –Marilyn Monroe

I can’t say I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.     –Daniel Boone

The nice thing about being a celebrity is if you bore people, they think it’s their fault.     –Henry Kissinger

Behind every famous man there’s a woman–telling him he’s not so hot.     –Harrison Ford

The reason the All-American boy prefers beauty to brains is that he can see better than he can think.     –Farrah Fawcett (at the height of her fame, and beauty)

And perhaps my favorite in this election season:
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn’t mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.     –Edward R. Murrow

Anyone else have a favorite? Something that made you laugh, shake your head, or say “Yes!” out loud?

There Will Be Tomatoes

Why is my deck wet and what is that stuff falling from the sky?

It’s raining. In Seattle. Perhaps the very definition of “That’s hardly news!” But this year, it is. You see, up until it started late yesterday, it had been 82 days since we last had more than the barest measurable rain. And I love the rain. I missed it. Then, in the space of a few days we went from 70-80 degree days to 50s or 60s, and dropping low into the 40s at night. And my green, green view from my porch is now looking like this:

Weren’t they all green just yesterday??

If you just arrived here today, when it’s cold, wet, and windy, you’d swear it could be a winter day. It wouldn’t be the first time we skipped an entire season;  a couple of years ago winter lasted until June and we jumped straight into summer, skipping spring altogether. It can be…disconcerting. At least, it is for me. The wind is howling, rain hitting the windows, there’s a chill in the air and I’m thinking of building a fire, and yet….

And yet this morning I picked these:

Hard to believe these were once considered unfit to eat or poisonous–and tell me all you want it’s a fruit, to me it’s a veggie and one of the few I love. Don’t pop my bubble!

And then, so inspired, I trekked up to my apple tree and cleared one branch of apples.

Yes, I said ONE branch!

So you can see why I’m having trouble with the idea of winter suddenly being here. (then again, some sunny days in October aren’t that unusual, so who knows?) I fully realize that the reason I’m drowning in tomatoes and apples likely is that lovely 82 day dry, warm, and sunny streak. It certainly isn’t because of me; the tomato plants are lucky if I remember to water them, and I feed them once, after planting. The apple tree I ignore altogether, except to prune away crossed branches sometime in January. And then, only the ones I can reach. Still, every third or fourth year, it goes insane and every branch ends up like this:

At least the deer won’t have far to reach

So, what does this have to do with anything? It struck me that this sort of confused, sudden transition instead of the usual gradual one is somewhat like finishing a book. My writing routine is so ingrained, half the time I’m up and at the computer before I remember I’m not in the middle of a story at the moment. Like the plants that got used to the sun and now are suddenly looking at rain and cold, I’m in a startled kind of in between. Yes, there’s another story on the way, the synopsis already on the way to my editor. But in between now and starting that book, there’s that unsettled period. I’ll knit, of course, that’s a given. The rest of the time I could fritter away playing computer games or catching up on movies I’ve recorded. I should use it to finish cleaning out my garage before new doors finally come (a sad story I won’t go into here). But somehow I think I’ll be taking out some of those odd little bits and pieces of stories I accumulate when I’m in the middle of a contracted book. Things that call to me enough that I know I have to write the bits down or they won’t leave me alone. Things that may become books of their own, be woven into books already planned, or become a part of a story as yet unformed.

The only thing I can be sure of is, as long as the seasons keep coming, there will be tomatoes. And apples.

And stories. Thankfully for me, that’s not news. That’s life, for a storyteller.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finished the Book, Now Where’s the Bulldozer?

I finished a book this week. The second Cutter’s Code installment. What does this mean? First and foremost for me, it means post book crash. That’s why I’m writing this now, before it hits. Today, a rare warm, sunny October day in the Pacific Northwest, I shall be taking myself outside as soon as this post is finished, to enjoy it before the rain begins. I’m not complaining, mind you, I love it here, and I adore the rain, but days like this are special.

But I digress. There’s another major project that has to come between the end of one book and the start of the next. And that is….my office. I am not the tidiest of writers. In my old, much smaller office, my beloved DH used to try to navigate through the piles on the floor with a pained expression, to which I responded, “There aren’t too many piles, your feet are just too big!” I need, either in actuality or in my mind, everything close at hand. Notes, reference books, scene lists, 753 post-it notes, and in this case, since Cutter is a series, a much-marked copy of the first book, and the bible for the series. The bible, if you don’t know, is a notebook full of all the details on all the stories and characters for all the books…this is something I haven’t done on my two previous series, Redstone, Inc. and Trinity West. (boy that’s going back a ways!) I can already see how much easier my life would have been if I had.

But again I digress. Why? Because I’m putting off that task of bringing in the figurative bulldozer and cleaning up this mess! So in the interest of procrastination, and because I often get asked about how and where I work, I thought I’d give you a tour of the disaster area.

First, an overview:

You thought I was kidding about the bulldozer? And this is just the desk.

Many of the things here are common to many offices, computer, printers, phone, lamp. But then there’s my office knitting. Yes, I said office knitting. Something relatively mindless that I can work on while reading, waiting for downloads, or that most hated of chores, talking on the phone. In this case, it’s a dish towel in a stitch pattern I wanted to try, shown here lying atop a pile of contracts I need to sort through:

What do you mean, not everybody has knitting handy in their office?? And no, I haven’t accidentally knitted that video cable into it. Yet.

Directly in front of me are the most crucial things. First book in the series for constant reference, hence the post-its. Index cards that are the bones of the original synopsis. Scene list. Knitting pattern in case I forget where I am after having lived in another world for a while. All the things I mentioned before, plus one very important reminder.

Good thing this book is seven months old, or I could be accused of blatant product placement!

The reminder is this:

What can I say, it appealed to my warped sense of humor.

I bought this stone originally as a gift for a friend who used the phrase often. But before I could present it circumstances changed and it was no longer applicable. But one day I realized this was something I, as a writer needed to be reminded of: the value of editing, changing, cutting and rewriting. Indeed, nothing is etched in stone except those words.

And lastly, a gift from one of the best editors in the business, full of truth and wry humor:

Why are those hallways so darned long??

Now, before I get stuck in the very long hallway of cleaning up this mess, since I don’t have that bulldozer, I’m going to go sit in the sun for a while. Maybe that’s my door opening, for now. Rain will be here soon enough.

Of Storytellers and Mastodon Bones

Caroline Bonarde Ucci via Wiki Commons

I’ve always admired Russell Crowe as an actor. (I don’t do celebrity gossip, don’t care if he’s a jerk, I’m talking talent here.)

When he received a 2002 Screen Actor’s Guild Award, he had this to say:
“You know, I’m a storyteller. We are storytellers. And ours is an ancient tradition, contemporized by the cinema and the capturing of light. And we should all be very proud of our place in society. On any given night, millions of people across the world buy a ticket for adventures that only we as storytellers can provide. We release burdens, we galvanize emotions, we make people laugh, we make people talk over breakfast. This is a great job and I want to encourage every one of you in this room to give everything you can to the story. God bless narrative. God bless originality.”

I’m with him. He’s speaking, obviously, of films, but it applies to books just as much. Perhaps, in some ways, even more. Or at least, differently. Because we tell the story in a way that requires the participation of the reader. They must activate their own mind and imagination to process the words we present into the story being told. You can’t read and do anything else, except maybe—and dangerously–eat. (Well, I can read and knit, but that’s another story.) At least, not with any amount of concentration.

There’s an old tale about the origin of storytelling. When primitive men returned from the mastodon hunt, and gathered around the fire, someone would tell the tale of the hunt. In great, exciting, bloody detail, he would relate exactly what happened. Was he the first storyteller? No. The first storyteller was the guy who stood up next and told the tale of the one that got away and the hunt that might have been. The one who first used his imagination to build events that didn’t really happen, but seemed as if they could have. The one who created, in his listener’s minds, broader horizons, more amazing creatures, and more heroic hunters.

There’s been some resistance, indicated by lack of success or expansion of the idea, to enhanced e-books. And a lot of speculation about why. My theory is that it’s because they are two different processes. If you want a visual experience, you watch TV or a movie. If you want to read a story, you want to read a story. You want to visualize those characters in your mind in your own way, not that of a casting agency. (Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher? Seriously??) You want to picture the surroundings in your own way, perhaps furnishing it with things that are in your own experience, imagining that that painting of a landscape on the wall of a character’s home is very like the one on your own wall. The connections in reading occur on many levels, perhaps simply because we are one human being telling a story to another. We may not have a lot in common, but the connection is made for that simple reason—we are all human beings, and we share the joy and the pain that that brings.

Do you find this true? Are you sometimes in the mood only to watch, and sometimes find only reading will do? And if you’re a Lee Child/Jack Reacher fan, who would YOU have cast? (I have my choice, and I promise he would have been a much better fit!)

6 Things I Learned About Writing From Gardening

But I don’t know anything about roses…

As we head into fall here in the northwest, it’s perhaps an odd time for a post about gardening. But I made a fascinating discovery recently. About a rose bush. I was never a big rose fan because, well, thorns. (and lets not get into the thorns on the blackberries that run rampant here and threaten to take over everything–I have scars from fighting them back) I also had always thought they were finicky. There was one rose bush at my house, and it was there when we bought it, a light yellow rose with a lovely fragrance. I appreciated it, took them inside to perfume the air, and our relationship pretty much ended there. Since I obviously knew nothing about roses, I otherwise pretty much ignored it. It flourished. On the perpetually windy, salt-air laden side of my house, it flourished. A light went on in my head. This brings me to…

Lesson 1:  Never assume you know what you don’t know. Do your homework.

Then one day I bought this tiny rose bush in a 6″ pot simply because I liked the color of the flower in the picture on the tag. There were no flowers on the plant itself, and I had no way of knowing if A)it would actually bloom and B)if the flower would look anything like the picture–it could have been tagged wrong, after all. It sat in that little pot for quite some time out on my front porch. I would walk by it and wonder “Why did you buy a rose bush?” Finally out of guilt–not, I confess, over the plight of the neglected plant, but over the money I’d spent on it–I replanted it in the biggest pot I had handy. That was two years ago. Today,it’s grown into what you see in the first picture here.

Lesson 2:  Sometimes you just have to have faith that things will turn out and plunge ahead.

The first year, this rose got so huge it started taking over the sidewalk it was next to. I had to prune it way back. Wrestled with the thorns, wishing I had a pair of gloves that could stand up to rose thorns and at least take a swipe at blackberry thorns. Bloody but unbowed, I finally got it done. And the next spring it exploded into what you see here.

Lesson 3: Edits and revisions can be bloody hell, but in the end, they’re usually worth it.

This year, while duplicating the pruning of the year before, I inadvertently cut a stem with a lovely little bud on the end, looking just about to open. On impulse, I stripped the lower leaves off and stuck it in ground in the planter, thinking it might at least last long enough for the bud to open. It looked something like this.

What can it hurt to try?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today, it looks like this:

How did THAT happen??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 4: Never throw away those little buds of ideas, because they might grow into something beautiful.

Early this spring, I bought an artichoke plant. With about as much knowledge about it as the rose. (Are you noticing a pattern here?) Except this time I did know my neighbor had two that actually produced many luscious ‘chokes. Again the little pot sat neglected for a while, because I didn’t know quite where to put it to replicate my neighbors successful location. Since it was in even a tinier
pot, I knew I had to do something, even temporarily, so again I grabbed the biggest planter I had handy and plopped it in. And as is frequent with impulse buys, I then belatedly talked to my neighbor and was told artichokes don’t generally produce the first year. I was fine with that; it’s a not-unattractive plant anyway. And yet….

So much for “You can’t do that!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 5: Just because they say you can’t doesn’t mean you have to listen.

You might notice in that picture that there is a second, tiny artichoke just adjacent to the big one. The first got big enough to be harvested and actually eaten. And behind it, the second one began to grow even faster.

All I needed was some room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson 6: Never hesitate to use it all up on the story you’re working on now. There will be more behind it, ready to grow and harvest.

These obviously aren’t all the things I needed to know. That never ends. The learning never stops, or shouldn’t. And on some level, I already knew these six, but I’ve been at this a long time, and sometimes it’s good to go back and visit the basics, lest I forget.

So now, in these last days of sunshine and growing, I’m going to go outside and dig in the dirt.