How Does Your Garden Grow, August 5, 2017

I see writing, being an author, as not unlike being a gardener. A manuscript is something that is fluid and organic. It starts with an idea, a germination, becomes a scribble, a seedling, something taking root.

From there it sprouts and grows, branching and expanding wildly until the first draft is complete. It is a feral plant, crazy and twisted. Then along come the edits. Each revision is an act of pruning, of taming, of carving. A cover is chosen, a placard giving name to the creation. A synopsis, a summary, become the instructions of care. A genre becomes a genome.

And the reader? They are the consumers, they digest the fruits of your labors.

Maybe, just maybe, from there, another idea sprouts or encourages a pruning and shaping elsewhere. Encourages the beginning of someone else’s topiary.

A short becomes a Bonsai project. A novella, a well kempt shrub, a novel, a majestic tree, towering and imposing. Flash fiction, ornamental mulch and pebbles.

I encourage you to take root with your ideas and begin farming your words. I encourage you to reap your harvests and share what you sow. There are so many of us starving for intellect. Do not hesitate to show us your creations.

I, for one, want to see how your garden grows.