Report From An Opinionated Gardener – February 17
I spent a good part of the day working on the synopsis of my novel and found that reducing a 78,000 word manuscript down to a page and a half is a bit like ridding a lawn of dandelions: not impossible, but definitely time consuming, hard work.
After working most of the afternoon on this summary, I needed to refresh my eyes and mind so I took a walk around the garden. Once again it is over 50 degrees and the snow is melting. Spring isn’t here, but on days like today we can smell it.
Walking around Poison Ivy Acres, I began to think of how a gardener feels in advance of spring and the ways that is similar to how it feels to be launching a creative endeavor such as this novel.
- Both generate all consuming feelings of hope.
- The impending arrival of spring and preparing to introduce a creative work are both extremely distracting. That hope I just mentioned stimulates wild fantasies of success, perfection and glorious growth.
- Once you put aside the daydreams, you realize that in order to experience that accomplishment you’ll need to put in a good amount of hard work.
- You can hardly wait to get started. All of the effort you’re looking at will definitely be worthwhile (did I mention the hope thing?) and surely growth and bouquets are in the future.
Ready to launch...