Second Chances

Baby chicks arrived today. Fifty seven in a box that weighed no more than two pounds, including the eight ounces of electrolyte mix I ordered. I could hear their loud cries echoing through the post office the moment I entered the building, and when the postmaster handed me the box, tiny beaks and yellow fluff peeked through the air holes as if to say hello. I couldn’t wait to meet each and every one of them.

As I lift each fragile baby from the box, I dip its beak in the water, and then set it free to roam the wood shavings strewn across the brooding house floor. It finds the food, discovers the heat lamp, and takes off to explore the far corners with its brethren. I watch them all, and inevitably I find one that stands out from the rest. One that I will name, and keep even once it stops laying eggs, and allow out of the poultry yard to follow me around the garden on sunny days. This year it is a chick that comes to my hand whenever I put it down on the litter to lean in to change the water. A golden one with stripes down each side of its back that I’ve named Speedy. There are others that come to me, others just as fast and cute and interesting. But Speedy is the one that has captured my attention.

I imagine that is what it must be like for agents and editors with all the manuscripts they review. Many manuscripts are worthy, but for no other reason than personal whim, one captures an agent’s heart. If my fifty-seven chicks had gone to another farm, a completely different chick may have been chosen as a favorite.

Unfortunately for these chicks, they don’t get a second or third chance to become a favorite. My manuscript gets to take a tour before deciding on a home. Here’s to an agent deciding mine is a favorite.

Weeding, Writing, and Arithmetic

Today marks the one-month anniversary of my marathon-writing weekend. And I realize I have not written a single new word on my manuscript since then. Not one … stinking … weed.

Did I say weed?

Gardening season hit, and I’ve ignored everything but getting the ground ready and planted. Kind of my marathon-gardening month. Then I’ll ignore it for a month, until I realize I’ve got to catch up on all the weeds.

I love gardening as much as I love writing. They are both creative endeavors, a chance to put something on paper or in the ground and watch the leaves of a story unfold. But to be successful at either takes discipline. It takes visiting pretty much every day. If I were to spend a half hour weeding just 20 square feet of space every day – that’s a four by five foot area – I’d have weeded my entire garden in a month. (Yes, I have an enormous garden.) If I write 2000 words every day, I’ll have finished a rough draft of a novel in a month.

You do the math. A novel in a month. Give myself another month to polish it, and that would be six novels a year. Even if I took two months to polish it, that would be four books a year. Pretty amazing stuff. Most days, if I sit my butt in the chair and write, I can crank out 2000 good words in about 3 or 4 hours. That’s less time than a part-time job. And I want writing to be my job.

So from here on out, I will visit my creative landscapes. I will weed a little bit every day. And I will write a little bit every day. Between the two, I will have the best year of growth ever.

Weed 'em and reap!

Welcome

The cloudy sky barely warms the bare earth of my Alaskan garden right now. The mountains behind the trellis are still covered with snow. The lawn is brown, and the trees have only the faintest haze of green in the distance.

Someone else might look around and think “barren.” I step outside and I see “potential.” Tiny seedlings will soon be poking up out of the ground, and eventually the brown soil won’t even be visible under all the green. The long, long hours of daylight will help create world record cabbages, peonies in July, and carrots so sweet the kids choose them over candy. People will look at my garden and pause, take a deep breath of perfumed air, perhaps ask me a question as I toil. And I will have joy - in the garden and in the visitor.

I write with the same intentions. The bare soil of the page before me will eventually be covered with a proliferation of words. Hopefully people will wander by, pause, and make a comment. There will be weeds. I will have to water it regularly. And sometimes a plant won’t thrive. But that’s okay. Just like a garden, the only way to know what will or won’t work is to try.

To plant a garden is to trust in tomorrow. To write a book is to strive for the future.