"That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." -2 Corinthians 12:10
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might." -Ecclesiastics 9:10
Flowers, for me, are a sort of closer place to Heaven (in fact, we have a little sign next to the door which reads: "Heaven is a little closer in the garden").
You just said the same thing twice, you realize.
Moot point, Johnny. Anyways, my mom and I were given the opportunity to fill up our van's trunk with as many annuals, perennials, and vegetables that a friend of ours had to offer.
Which meant that, as soon as I was unleashed into the gardens, I was up to my elbows in mud, pulling up mountains of weeds, and raking an avalanche of leaves out of every nook and cranny of the house. There were. So many. Leaves.
After several hours of this, there still seemed to be another little sprig of crab grass to be found, or those interesting green-what are they called?
Taraxacum platycarpum?
Couldn't be, those only grow in Korea, don't they? Well, anyway. I was beginning to feel like I would never completely conquer my first step in waking up the garden-completely emitting all weeds!
Eventually, I did one last rake over, told myself, "That'll have to do for now," before I delved into the delightful business of deciding where to put all of those wonderful flowers we'd been blessed with: Poppies, salvia, hollyhocks, sunflowers, marigolds, lavender, phlox, petunias!
That's a lot of digging.
And it was completely satisfying. By this time, of course, the sun was beginning to slip away through the jagged hickory tree's fingertips, and as I watered the newly planted flowers (along with those perennials who had bravely popped out of the ground again), I came to realize why it is I love gardening and writing so much.
Aside from the personal and outermost benefiting factors, the excellent effects of grounding, and pure destiny?
Yes, aside from those.
Gardening and Writing, for me, can accomplish two things (among others): it's creates something
beautiful where there had earlier been nothing--perhaps even something, but something dreadful indeed--and, as difficult and dirty as it can be to work on, the ending result, a result cultivated through trial and error, and extremely hard work, is always intensely satisfying and settling.
Not only that, but it reminded me of editing.
Oh, editing. We can never learn too much on the subject.
Recall, the area I was weeding was in desperate need, just like my book is in desperate need of some serious editing and revising. Although I was eager to do it, there's no denying that it was a daunting task. Arduous. Burdensome, even.
That's how it is when you have a 400-or-so-page manuscript staring you in the face, waiting to be worked on. Because, believe me, out of all those 159,846 words that I have typed, at least some of them-
-A lot of them-
-need to go.
Walk the plank, hit the road!
That'll do, Johnny. Because sentences are either too wordy, or unneeded, or just complete rubbish. It's quite a dangerously obstreperous task, and, well, I've sort of been skipping around my editing duties a wee bit lately. Guilty as charged. As with the gardening, I was eager to do it, but editing can be such an intimidating task.
Remember what I wrote in a past post? (Of course you do!) You have to attack the parts of your book that intimidate you the most, no matter how little you believe in yourself and your writing abilities. You MUST continue writing, and editing, until the glorious end. You must never give up!
Going back to that gardening analogy, I started my task with weeding. That's editing. Digging into a certain spot, and pulling out what I didn't want. Sometimes tiny things, sometimes an entire salad's worth of dandelion leaves. The rabbits appreciate those. Along with those green, leafy weeds, what are they called?
Stay on task, now.
It's so important to remember that, no matter how much you weed away the unwanted words, sentences, paragraphs, pages (those you might want to save on a different file, just in case), there will always be more. You have to be able to recognize when it's time to move on! Filling in those now-empty places, that's equal to planting new flowers, hanging wind-chimes, and scattering bird seeds. Breathing life into old, once-dead areas of your book, and making them the crème de la crème (I think I'm using that phrase correctly), of your book!
Both writing and gardening, when you give it all you've got, will always end up really, really beautiful, no matter if you're an 'expert,' or whatever.
And when you finish one bed of flowers, you emerge with more energy and wisdom to tackle the next. So. Remember that vegetable garden I mentioned I had been dreaming about during the Winter?
Oh, you've got that manic gleam in your eye...
That's another writing rule: never stop growing! Just like a garden!
Alright, that's one analogy too many, love.
Which is the cue to make my leave, offering you this advice: find inspiration in everything you do, tackle those bits that you've been avoiding head-on, and be satisfied when you find yourself with a job well done!
...And then see that one sneaky weed, and yank him out!
Read well, and Write on!
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