Pulling the Weeds

Not too long ago, I blogged about how a shiny new idea is like a seed. This is kind of a corollary to that idea.

My family bought a house last October. The ground was hard and all the plants were mostly dead. We had no idea what we were going to get when the spring weather hit. We waited with anticipation to see what plants were going to come up in our flower garden. The snows died away. They ground started to get soft. The world started to turn green and plants sprang up all over the place.

Every night, we walked around the yard, looking for new signs of life. Beautiful things started happening. We discovered a clump of tulip bulbs. Then another. And another. Literally hundreds of tulips broke through the ground. Irises started to wake up. Grape Hyacinths and other Hyacinths started to peak out. Bushes and trees started to blossom. Rhubarb and Daffodils and Scilla and others we couldn't even name popped out of the ground.


Along with all these unexpected beauties, other plants came up, too. Weeds. Prickly plants. Grassy foxtail things. A type of mustard that just takes over everything. They came up right in the middle of all the flowers. The problem was that we couldn't know for sure what was plant and what was weed. We had to wait until the plants and weeds both grew into something recognizable. It wasn't until we could tell that the flowers were flowers and the weeds were really weeds that it became time to decide which to keep.

This is like our writing. We have an idea. We put time into it. We give it fertile ground and let it grow. We pour out the words until we see something amazing and new. And then, we have to revise it. But, just like with my flower garden, we don't know what to pull out and what to keep until it's had a chance to really grow, until we know what works and what doesn't. If we try to pull out things too soon, we may be getting rid of something beautiful without realizing it and leave the weeds behind.

This is why we have to take a break from our manuscripts before we prune them. We have to know which parts to prune and that only happens when we let them grow for a while.

So, friends, how are your stories going? Are you at the let it sit and grow point?

Children and Writing

So, yesterday, we talked about children and the lessons we learn from them. Here's a few thoughts about what they can teach us as writers.

The world is full of wonder. My four year old thinks that scaring the robin in the front yard is the most exciting thing you can do with your day. One of the very first posts I wrote was about the joy my little boys found in spitting in a beam if sunlight and seeing the light glint of it. Everything is amazing. And everything is worth exploring. In writing, we have to have that sense of wonder. The desire to see what's just around the corner.

I love watching my boys play. They can turn a few, completely unrelated toys into a full afternoon of games. They chatter at each other and see the little world they have created all around them. They don't need anyone to entertain them or tell them what the rules are. They just make it up and have the best time ever. In our writing, we need the same imagination and abandon. No one can tell us the best way to write or what our stories should be about.

My kids just amaze me with their ability to make the most of their time. They squeeze in every last minute of the day from the time they wake up until we put them to bed. (And sometimes after we put them to bed.) Everything they do is the most important thing they could possibly do with that moment. "Mom, I can't eat lunch right now. I am jumping on the bed." (Yes, that actually happened today.) In our writing, it's really easy to wish we were doing something else. Instead of writing for that extra half  hour, we wish we were watching that TV show we used to. Instead of getting the dishes done, we wish we were reading the next book on our TBR pile. Instead of enjoying quality family time, we wish we were writing. There's lots of things to do with a limited amount of time. And just like a little kid, we can make the most of our time and make the thing we are doing the most important for that moment.

I've posted previously about some of the things my kids have taught me. You can check it out here.

So, friends, what have children taught you about writing?

A Place of Pain

I was going through some old notes and critiques on the first draft of the book I'm revising. I had asked a friend of my husband's to read through it and give me some pointers. He has been trying to write the great American Novel for the last decade. He has lots of life experience that I can't really relate to. His writing style is very different from mine. I respect his ability.

This is one of the things he had to say. "There is no fire and there is no tortured contention lying beyond and below the words on the page. To put it another way, this is the work of someone that has no clear problems. I might be biased in assuming that all writing comes from a place of pain, but to clarify that contention it is more that no writing can come from any place but strong emotion. And this piece doesn't know what it is angry about. It doesn't know what it is trying to fix about the world."

I don't remember reading this particular critique two years ago when he first gave it to me. I would have been devastated at the time. Not only does he think my writing is shallow, but I'm shallow, too. Fortunately, time has leavened the lump and there is something of real value there. I wanted to share it with you.

Writing really does come from a place of strong emotion. It doesn't have to be pain, per se, but it does need to be an emotion. That is what makes it relatable. It's true that I don't have a checkered, angst filled past. I have still felt pain in my life. And love. And fear. And loneliness. And a bunch of other things. Just like everyone else. If I write from that very human part of myself, others will connect to my writing.

So, friends, how does your own experience and emotion surface in your writing?