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This week: Observations of the Garden Edited by: fyn  
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To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.~~William Blake
A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.~~Liberty Hyde Bailey
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.~~Marcus Tullius Cicero
Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you.~~Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.~~Daniel Webster
Everyone wants instant everything, and they want instant success, but I always think you should treat things in the arts like a garden, and let them grow.~~Penelope Keith
In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful. ~~Abram L. Urban
The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses.~~Hanna Rion
A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself. ~~May Sarton
My little bit of earth in the front garden is one of the places that I find my bearings. The rhythm of my day begins with a cup of coffee and a little bit of weeding or dreaming. ~~Betsy Cañas Garmon,
Reason clears and plants the wilderness of the imagination to harvest the wheat of art.~~Austin O'Malley
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Writing is, very much, like having a garden. You plant your seeds, water them, talk to them, fertilize them, wait a bit, weed the sprouts, water them some more, stake flowers up when they've been trampled, thin the plants, move around a plant or two so that it looks better, weed out the crabgrass, water when it doesn't, stress when it rains too much, and, eventually, sit there with dirty knees and grubby fingers and be dazzled.
Gardeners learn by trowel and error. ~Gardening Saying
You learn to deadhead so the plant will bloom yet again, you cut a bloom or three to take inside, and then realize the garden looks better for it. You learn that upon seeing it for a first time, the looker cannot tell you had to move a plant, compost one that didn't make it through the hail storm or that the for-get-me-anyway smells absolutely horrid and your daisies ran away from it!
There is a satisfaction from seeing hummingbirds, butterflies and hummingbird moths sharing your calla lilies, butterfly bushes and phlox. There are smiles in every palm-sized tomato I pick and more as they migrate to neighbor's kitchens. What is a garden, if not to share the bounty of vegies and blooms?
A rainbow of soil is under our feet;
red as a barn and black as peat.
It's yellow as lemon and white as the snow;
bluish gray. So many colors below.
Hidden in darkness as thick as the night;
The only rainbow that can form without light.
Dig you a pit, or bore you a hole,
you'll find enough colors to well rest your soil.
~Francis D. Hole (1913–2002), "A Rainbow of Soil Words"
A poem is planted, the seed of thought sends forth shoots, that, with brainstorms, the light in one's eyes and a sprinkle of energetic scribbling blooms that one, perfect flower. Ah but flowers fade, need to be deadheaded (which let the plant bloom again) and 'played with' a bit. Perhaps this verse here, that planting there nudged between the red and blue... verse six between verse one and two.
The writer is a gardener, you see. Every review a chance to show off the bouquets, and then prune or cut back, encourage and flaunt! It is said that a garden never looks the same two glances in a row. So too, it is with a poem: author or readers--the words may lie untouched upon the page and yet, the time between one reading and the next is colored by happen-chance, a kittened- smile or a pot of overdone coffee. Very much like a storm's hail, a blustery day or a a week with a dry well. With care and tending both gardens and writing will endure the storms and spring rains, And each, upon a new viewing has something completely new to offer the discerning viewer!
I like to jot down thoughts and ideas as I tread life's garden, for then sometimes when I am weary I can turn a leaf and find what my mood was on a certain day and that changes a train of thought and brings back sunshine. ~Helen Rose Anne Milman Crofton, My Kalendar of Country Delights, "September Nineteenth," 1903
The searing heat played havoc with the garden until I, brain-numb from editing, tossed the pen and grabbed the shears on my way out to the garden. There, without mercy I cut, beheaded, de-budded and hacked at the over-grown and the 'in desperate need of' cutting back. Afraid, I'd over done the onslaught, I worried a bit, but knew the plants would grow back, if not this year, then in the next. Not too different than the character I'd just performed a theoretical lobotomy on; changing their focus, motivation and destiny in a few swoop of several pages. Feeling somewhat like I'd had a cathartic cleansing, I then washed the dirt from my hands and went back to hack heads off dead plants--only this time in the book.
Funny, a few weeks later, lo and behold, the garden's in full bloom, yet again and the character, having shed the unnecessary plumage I'd buried her in, went on to do exactly what she needed to, wanted to do!
The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character and you reap a destiny.~~James Allen
Harvest time comes round with that last great burst of foods for canning, and sharing, the 'invite the whole block' meals and the plotting and planning for the next garden-generation. The plucking, the plowing under, the reinventing, the tilling, the layering, the mulching...much like the revision/editing of a novel. When the last word is written; tis then the true work begins! What worked, what didn't, what bloomed and which needs to be plucked out and tossed? Was the garden at its prime all we envisioned or was there still more we could fertilize and revamp? Did the bees move from flower to flower or did some plants wither along the way? Were there plants/story lines that never bloomed or plot holes left by the side-tracking moles burrowing through our minds?
The harvest is in, the nights grow cool. Still, after a few weeks, there will be one final harvest: the last flowers plucked, the last paragraph rewritten, the final batch of still green tomatoes bagged and the last proof gleaned for any stray weeds of omission.
It is only through books that we partake of the great harvest that is human civilization across the ages.~~Ibrahim Babangida
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Birthday time is approaching! So much fun and excitement! One contest I'd like to mention specifically, and more, challenge one and all to join!!!
Sign ups are going on now!!! Can you do it?
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Elfin Dragon-finally published  writes:I love this particular newsletter. We all write in different ways. I'm the meandering sort myself. Oh sure, I do a lot of research on whatever subject I'm putting in my novel. And I want it to be as realistic as possible, which means research on different types of world-building and languages. But mostly, I'm a meanderer. I know where I want to end up but I let the characters take me on the journey. And if I have to crop what I've written, well, that's how life goes. Sometimes we have to prune the rosebushes to get the most beautiful blooms.
Rather perfect comment given this week's newsletter!
Happy Earth Day 2024!  says: I love your comparison of planning a trip to writing a book!
thanking you...
Quick-Quill  comments: I have been trying to set aside time to drive 6-8 hrs to a small area where over a thousand Chinese miners were killed in the early 1900's or just before. I've found a deep interest in these people who have not stood up in so many words and staid, "You treated us much like you did the Blacks and now you owe us." The research has been fun so far just emailing historians. I'm starting to read "The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet." I hope it helps get some perspective.
Should be an interesting trip when you get the chance...do let us know how it goes!
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For Authors: August 27, 2014 Issue [#6520]
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