Brightening up the endless dreary days of winter, seed catalogs flood my mailbox; a sure indication that Spring is around the corner. To peruse these brightly-colored enticements, is to be reminded of the similarities between gardening and writing. We gardeners thumb numerous catalogs seeking our perfect choices for next year’s garden. In the same way, as a writer, I devote chunks of time scouring my idea files looking for today’s writing project. Ideas for stories or articles are the seeds of a writer’s trade.

Like any conscientious organic gardener, every writer keeps an active compost pile generating; those paragraphs you cut from an ongoing novel, a clipping from the daily paper that waits to become an article, notes jotted down about an interesting character you observed. All these ingredients, you allow to heat up, meld together and eventually transform into rich fertile material for future works.

With lots of compost and love, a gardener makes every effort to prepare the soil, make it friable and ready for planting. A writer plows the fertile field of his/her thoughts and ideas, putting forth the right measure of inspiration and hard work. We writers know how important it is to choose just the perfect word, the correct phrase, the absolute best sentence in making our writing the very best it can be.

Good gardeners know planted seeds need time to develop and form beneath the surface. Like the seed’s germination period, an idea for a novel needs to brew in your subconscious, slowly taking form and substance.

Many who garden in colder climates use a cold frame to sprout and grow seeds before the proper growing season. Nestled in a protected environment, they are nurtured as they await weather conditions conducive to their growth. Like plants started before their season, a piece of writing may need to spend time on the shelf, alive and well but in need of a cooling-off period until you can come back to it with fresh vision.

Our outpouring of words when the muse smiles, tripping over one another in their rush to the written page, reminds me of how weeds seem to materialize overnight some times. They eagerly take over a garden in lush summer growth if the gardener isn’t diligent. For a writer, that’s when revision is needed. Just as we detest the odious chore of eradicating weeds, most writers abhor the labor required to cut away the superfluous words and sentences that threaten to rob the story of its intended message.

Sometimes our garden plants need help, a little staking here, a little pruning there, to achieve their best results. Like caring for growing plants, our first draft emerges as a whole unit but in need of pruning and weeding to help it become what the writer intends.

Every gardener finds the need to transplant a plant at times, move it to a more favorable growing spot in the garden, thus help the plant achieve its full potential. Writers, too, learn to perfect the art of transplanting. A piece of writing can change from a poem to a short story, from an essay to an article. Or a piece of writing may need several revisions - a shifting of a word, the transposition of a paragraph - each change and move improving the finished product.

Gardeners sometimes use the technique of grafting to produce a plant with desirable features. How often does a writer use the same technique? Take a phrase from a poem and insert it into an essay; add a description from one story to another; or combine the traits of two different people to create a character.

Some plants spend their entire lives in a hothouse, the outside environment too harsh and threatening to their survival. Do you have a written piece that identifies with this situation? A short story you’ve submitted over and over that just can’t seem to find acceptance? A piece with unique features you find appealing but can’t seem to find a publishing home for no matter how many times you submit it? Don’t despair, perhaps you wrote it only for your own pleasure. Like a gardener derives intense pleasure in the challenge of growing the perfect rose, you too should enjoy that piece simply because you created it. Give it the special attention it deserves and share its pleasures with a few selected friends. Then go grow some more words.

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About the Writer:

Gay Ingram has been writing for years and has managed to get several books and numerous articles published. To learn more about her and her accomplishments, go to Freewebs.com/gayingram