Writing is like Growing Your Garden
Reflections on writing short stories and good tomatoes
I still reminisce about one summer harvest, where I remember eating a whole cucumber a day. My friends described me like a horse chomping down carrots. To my eyeballs in nutrients and minerals. Garden boy strong.
Dear readers,
Way out in suburbia, growing up in the 2010s, my dad tended a garden. Summers were abundant in cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, oregano, parsley, fruits, and whatever else he decided to grow that year.
I will never forget 2017. The year I started to work in the garden before I went off to university in Montreal in pursuit of becoming a lawyer.
Gardening was important in our house. And while I didn’t fully participate until I grew older, I eventually discovered the meditative quality of working in the soil. Hands forgaging through the dirt of the hyperborean earth, an occassional worm slithering across your fingertips. (slimy)
I realized this was growing for tomorrow. Sowing the seeds of life that I would not see for a long time. Something inside me responded to the effort that I was putting into the garden. And I concluded gardening was a metaphor for many things in life; patience, success, and human existence.
But what stuck with me is that growing tomatoes is a lot like writing.
From fiction and screenplays to nonfiction articles, personal memoirs and poetry, anything I’ve ever written or will write, you will find evidence of the lessons learned while kneeling in the soil under the hot summer sun, lessons burned into my mind and my being.
My Declaration of Writing Principles.
ii) Growing
Gathering the seeds
Before going crazy and planting random seeds everywhere, what are you even planting? What do you want to spend time and effor growing? Planted seeds are written ideas; make a repository for them.
When I make a “seed repository” to store ideas (I use a folder on my desk and a notes app), it helps with a few things:
- Your brain becomes accustomed to finding ideas in a free flow kind of state; there is nothing I find more off putting than sitting down to “write ideas”. Because in reality, the easiest and best method is to relax.
- It will keep track of your “train of thought”; what your influences are, where you are in life, and what inspires your mind at this point in time. The best writing reveals the writer, and hopefully, parts of the reader.
- You group your seeds (ideas), envision the plant you want to grow (story) and start the gardening process! (the actual writing!)
Choosing the right soil:
Choosing a space for your seeds is just as important as it has the best conditions to grow; not just the right amounts of water and light, but the composition of the soil itself.
Oh, and soil = the influences and inspirations behind your writing.
The soil is the best part because it can be anything good that feeds your seeds and allows them to grow. History, video games, music, sounds, animals, plants, flowers, bees, trees, marijuana, great writers, tales of great explorers. Whatever inspires you is worth growing your idea in. You can switch in different fertilizer, change the composition, to nurture your idea and really grow it.
Ask yourself: Which genre are you writing in? Who has grown something similar? And what does that plant look like? Try to deduce the composition of the genre, the characters, and the stories that best made them grow.
Keep an Eye on the Roots:
Just like any good gardner, check the roots often. This could be looking for plot holes, making sure your characters are acting, well, in character. Healthy roots lead to the healthiest plants.
Watering and Sunlight:
When you decide to water your plant, you water the characters. You water the setting, the sounds of the writing read aloud, the way the words flow across the page. Watering a story involves developing it.
Caring for a plant, because you want it to be healthy and bore the fruit of the vine, is like caring for your written word. Eventually it’s going to feed someone, so make sure it receives plenty of water and care.
Maintain the ground around your plant as well — taking out the rocks, the debris, bits of ideas that are long not used, sentences that run on. Prune the obstacles that life throws into your writing.
Trimming Dying Branches
I read this article recently by Deya Bhattacharya, she presents a simple question when writing; “is this necessary?”. The same applies here.
Other variations include:
- Rick Rubins Creative Cut — pick the 5-6 things that are integral to this idea, and then cut the rest
- How does the final work compare to the outline you envisioned
- Do the physics of the world make sense to the characters, are they acting accordingly, and are there missed opportunities for growth?
I wrote a short story recently about the afterlife, and I brought it to an author (Thea Lim). During the review, she questioned the physics of the world I created, opening my eyes to the importance of worldbuilding. I watched “The Invention of Lying”, a Ricky Gervais comedy, the day after. I was taken out of the movie constantly because the world rules made zero sense (they seemed not to apply to the main character, it was weird and I could definitely write something on it if people are interested)
Triming the branches that are dying involves examining your idea, preferrably after a couple days — and then trimming the parts of the work dragging the overall quality down. A plant is healthier with less.
iii) Selling
Taking the fruit off the vine
Notice how your plant grew. If the roots are alright, the plant should be healthy for the season. Good writing will bore delicious, sunsoaked fruit.
Notice what you did right, how the words roll off your tongue, how you feel after you read it. Notice the flavour of the writing. Take a moment to feel proud.
Try other fruits you love from your fellow gardeners (writers), see how they compare to yours, and think how your style of writing might mix with what others have created. A vital step for the next time you pick up the pen.
The Farmers Market of Ideas
I struggle with this part the most. I hate feeling like I’m selling my writing, and the parts of me in it. But remember why you do this, recognize you deserve to eat the fruits of your labor.
But, if we compare this process to a farmers market, and writing is the harvest, I feel better in a sense. Like I’m selling food for people to discover and love, and come back for more because they enjoy being fed.
And like any good farmer, when you go down to the farmers market, you have to advertise your wares. And it’s not malicious or greedy. At the end of the day, you grew your writing with love and care, and people need to eat.
Social media, Medium, blogs and boards, etc.
The Internet is a marketplace of ideas on the largest scale possible, a marketplace of information. But sometimes, it can be a farmers market.
Alphabet Soup for the Soul
Some read for information, but a lot of people read for nourishment. So they can feel seen by someone, or so that they can see others. People look for writing that emotionally resonates with them. If you write what resonates with you, what makes you feel seen and understood, chances are, others will feel that coming off the page.
The World outside your Garden
At the end of the day, you will never master all there is to growing. You will need to experience how other people grow in their life, put yourself down as the student. Being the student is the adventure of life.
Recognizing this, it will be easier to learn. And to try again for the next season if your batch of tomatoes gets rot or grows the wrong way.
If you are a writer, life outside of your craft. If you are a gardner, leave the garden and let the plants grow. With the trust that you have given your best, the best soil, water, and sunlight, so the life you grow can thrive.
