Writing is like gardening
Writing can be an emotional process
Writing can be a reflective practice. A way to heal trauma. Or an invitation to explore the imagination. It can be a vice and a vocation. Sometimes, I write noise that should have been music. Should have been edited. Sometimes, I make loud declarations that I am a writer, a poet. It’s like I am trying to prove my own proficiency. But more often than not, flowers infest my prose.
If I am honest, my process is more for me than the reader. I’ve been contemplating the balance between emotional exploration and intellectual indulgence. Intimate expression can be interesting. But it slips so easily, from reflection to analysis to critique. And critique is dangerously close to paralysis. Why have I taken a break from writing?
Because the critical judgment of my mind constantly asks — is this enough?
Instead of flowery prose — I should plant kale, spinach, and lettuce. Nutrient rich vegetables that nourish the reader. Perhaps, my diet needs to change. It’s like I have an allergy to my own garden. Like I missed all the dandelions growing through the long grass. Writing should be simple. Pick the flowers. Kill the weeds. Cut anything that isn’t needed. Inhale inspiration.
Exhale prose.
Remember to water the garden.
But gardening metaphors are different from stories that serve the reader.
It’s hard to serve the reader
My productivity brain tells me. All I need is consistency. Dedication. Discipline. My productivity brain tells me I need to offer the revelation of a well-crafted thought. To offer the hard-grown-hard-won harvest of all my hard work. But the bitter and bile part of me was too lazy to water the garden.
Writing should be like breathing but the air is choked with the cigarette smoke stacks of all my bad habits. Writing can be an addiction to the adrenaline of a nearing deadline. But there are no deadlines when I forgot to water the plants.
Writing is the fermentation process. The stinky, sticky, disgusting process of throwing all my waste into a barrel. The good ideas sink to the bottom while the gas rises to the top. Perhaps, I’m so busy trying to breathe that all I inhale are fumes. The question is not — why can’t I write but have I produced enough shit to fertilize my soil?
All I need is to sprinkle a few seeds. Relax with a little lettuce and some parsley.
I need to forget about the water and just wait for the rain.
Talk soon,
Harley.
