Happy Spring, Dear Readers.
It’s that time of year when I must desert the comfort of my writing desk to focus on springtime gardening. I’m grateful for the extra six more weeks of winter when Punxsutawney Phil popped out of that hole of his to prognosticate spring’s late arrival. It bought me more time to edit what I’d written the last couple of months. Midnight Publishing offered Ten Tips to Spring Clean Your Writing to scrub wordiness, troubling words, run-on sentences, and problematic punctuation. They also suggest hiring an editor or proofreader and subscribing to the Chicago Manual of Style Online.
Five Gardening Tips for Authors draws a few parallels to nurturing story seeds. However, when I survey a back yard that resembles a blighted lot where single-wide mobile homes would feel right at home, it’s going to require more than written words to salvage my one-acre mini-ponderosa. My spine insisted on a preemptive dose of ibuprofen before I even stepped outside.
On my annual spring walkabout to see what died, I had to consult the bird guide to identify competitive males who warbled the most obnoxiously. Gayle Brandeis’ What Kind of Writer Bird Are You? looks at different species of birds along with their nest-building techniques and considers how our fine feathered friends’ creative processes might intersect with our own as writers. When robins duked it out on my patio table and left it whitewashed with excrement, I don’t see myself as one of them.
Daffodils, the yellow-petaled flowers shaped like an antique candlestick telephone mouthpiece in 1920s movies (number please), have awakened from a long winter’s nap. Whenever I gaze upon this herald of spring, it reminds me of William Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. Of course, my daffodils came up by a line of six laurel bushes, of which the middle one was eaten by deer. Now I have to plant a replacement half the size of the others for contrast. I’ll tell the neighbors they had a baby.
Flowers have always been an inspiration for me, both in planting and writing. Commaful, a site that offers storytelling advice, offers 1001 Writing Prompts About Flowers. It might help me get through the summer when rabbits send me thank-you notes for providing the floral salad bar. Doesn’t look like I can rely on the hawks anymore, and the neighbor’s cat only visits my garden as a litter box.
As spring unfolds with a promise of warmer temperatures, I’ll head to the nursery for tomato seedlings and hope I don’t incorrectly guess the last freeze. Reading Pablo Neruda’s Ode to Tomatoes, I can already smell and taste the summer bounty to come.
That is, unless Punxsutawney Phil doesn’t get to them first when Punxsutawney Phyllis kicks him out of the den for being a lazy fur-butt.