Getting dirty

Oh I wish the title of the post meant I'm going to be chatting about smexy, dirty things... but unfortunately it's not.

So I just put my garden in the ground.  So far three kinds of cucumbers, some zucchini, squash, five types of tomatoes, 2 types of peppers, some chives, some onions, some carrots, watermelon and some lettuce.  I have a whole bunch more to go in but it's a good start.

While I was sitting out in the sun digging in the dirt I have a lot of time to contemplate things and one of my favorite past times is to plot out books/scenes, etc.  Today I realized that gardening and writing are very similar and I realized a little about my personality.  That's some serious gardening right?

I love the feeling of planting the garden, it's a lot of work to get the ground ready, but once it's time to start putting transplants or seeds in the ground, it's exciting.  Each plant has serious potential and I don't see the garden for a bunch of piles of dirt with little spindly seedlings, but the potential of a gorgeous lush garden with loads of veggies for my family.

The same can be said about my SNIs (Shiny New Ideas).  I get an idea and it's a major high.  Then as I mull it over in my head, thinking of plot points, characters, it starts to take shape (in case you can't tell - in planning terms I'm a pantser not a planner!).  I start to write and I can see the finished project in all it's glory. 

Then the tough stuff.  In writing a novel - the weeds are those tough middle spots that you have to push through when you temporarily lose your inspiration because the actual work that goes into your masterpiece takes over.  Then there is editing.  I clear the infiltrators of THAT, passive tense, excessive adjectives, excessive dialogue tags... just like I have to clear the garden of infiltrating weeds, pests and my kids. 

Eventually you end up with something.  For me, last years garden was a bomb.  We had 23 days of rain in the 30 days after we got the plants in the ground.  This does not make for a bountiful harvest later.  There have certainly been books that also met the same fate and sit in an unfinished state in my hard drive.  Not even hard work can save those puppies.

When everything comes together well, the completed manuscript is worth every ounce of time and energy you put into it.  

Did I mention I can't wait till my tomatoes ripen?