Gardening & Writing: Mostly the Same

Planting and Drafting

Some of my gardener friends sit down with graph paper to plan their landscape and vegetable gardens. And some writer friends use detailed outlines.

 I just can’t do either. Yes, I can draw a garden design and write a series outline. But when it comes to planting or drafting, I end up somewhere I never planned. I wander. My characters tell me new things—usually in the middle of the night. I get brainstorms.

 No clue what the word for the accidental gardener is, but when it comes to drafting a short story or a novel,  it’s called pantsering, as in by-the-seat-of-my pants.

For me, once I’ve prepared the soil, I lose my mind a little and plant where the seedlings or seeds lead. One year, I planted delicata squash with melons and ended up with a mess of squash bugs. Lesson learned.

I now know a bit about what veggies do well together. Carrots and onions. Corn and beans. Marigolds with most plants. Tomatoes and basil. Lots of online sites offer help with companion plantings.  

 Same is true for me as a writer. My initial ideas simply refuse to stay fixed, and that leads to multiple revisions, and sometimes, starting over. The solution—something I’ve learned over time—is to keep things simpler, since my other (bad) habit is complexity.  

Since I write horror and dark fantasy, I often have to deal with paradoxical world-building—contradictions I’ve created myself. My goal now, like following the strictures of companion planting, is to minimize the foundational lore of my settings. I force myself to write in opposition to my nature. Keep It Simple, Stupid is my new motto.  

Got magic? Limit what it does and what it costs. A favorite TV series, Carnivale (TV Series 2003–2005) - IMDb offers a great example. Here’s a character who can bring the dead to life, but something else has to die. A simple tit for tat. Understandable stakes. Exactly what I need to emulate.

Weeding and Revision

My least favorite chore in the garden is weeding. I love to water—it’s a meditative task. Love to plant and harvest—both are satisfying. But weeding means something I don’t want has made its way into my space, and I have to kneel down or bend over to get rid of it.  

When I was growing up, my mom gave her kids the chore of weeding the fruit trees. She never let us weed the garden, having early on learned we didn’t bother to distinguish between plants and weeds. But you can’t mistake a tree for a weed. In childhood, I learned that weeds always return. Even when you think you’ve pulled out every root.   

To make the task easier I’ve tried a hoe, a hori hori garden knife, a cultivator, a dandelion weeder, and sometimes a shovel. Sadly, there’s no good way to get rid of weeds, and did I mention they simply grow back?

(Image by Maria from Pixabay)

Editing may seem a lot like weeding, but while weeding is my least favorite gardening task, I love to edit. This is a time to zhuzh the story and make it shine. Like weeding, editing takes a host of different tools to eliminate a multitude of errors.   The tough fixes: story arc, character arc, world building to allow the reader to suspend disbelief, consistency, pacing, and the right amount of show and tell. Then the simple fixes: spelling, grammar, syntax, and word usage. The sad part is simply this. I can always find more to edit. Errors multiply. Contradictions creep in. Commas (especially commas) seem to move around on their own and end up in wrong places. At some point (like today, for example), I need to tell myself, “Stop!” Whatever’s still wrong will have to stay wrong.

Conclusion

Gardening and writing are both organic activities. Tending a seed from planting to fruit is a lot like taking a premise and turning it into a complete story. Both are life-giving and life affirming tasks that calling on your creativity. Yes, there are plenty of tough times, lots of tedium and even confusing. But in the end, you have a harvest, and isn’t that wondrous? Here’s hoping I get to share more of my vegies and more of my words with all of you. If you haven’t yet signed up for the newsletter, please give it a try.

Next Month - Look for the next blog on March 31, 2026

Why I write horror.
Novel update.