Unlocking the story

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A happy tomato plant; I can't wait to partake of its fruits!

So around ten-thirty this morning I started a new book. The opening hit me while I took a shower and while I had other things in mind for the day, instead I sat at my computer and ninety minutes later I had accumulated a little over seventeen hundred words and quite the appetite, it was after twelve noon by then. A rainy start to the day precipitated the noveling, then a break in the rain got me outside to put seven tomato plants in the ground. While that was immensely satisfying, even better was slipping back into my office to add another thousand words to Chapter One. Ah, a new book, what a thrill!

Not that a plethora of tomato plants isn't cool; I put in cherry toms and bigger fruits, several of them from my eldest daughter who loves potting up seeds, then watching for the ensuing tiny plants. Which is a lot like fleshing out a story in one's head, then tap-tap-tapping away all those thoughts, dreams, schemes, and a hefty dose of dialogue. Plants don't talk much, but boy this new tale begins with lots of yakking between a widower, his five-year-old daughter and some strange folks that little Gilly Lund finds out in the field. Where this story goes is pretty well settled in my head, heart, and soul. How it gets there is the adventure.

After giving the new plants a little water, I found my other half, reporting on all the varieties that are now pushing roots into the very soft ground; Brandywine and Paul Robeson, Sweet 100 cherries and organic sweetie toms, plus a Black Strawberry cherry tomato, a Prairie Fire cherry, and Cherokee Purple, most of these from Baker Creek Seeds. Oh and one tiny Pantano Romanesco tomato that went into my salad patch where a bunch of purple carrots seeds bombed out. Not sure how the smaller plants will fare in our relatively mild climate, but I can't wait to see what emerges, what I told my husband, then gushed about how while I love gardening and quilting, writing fulfills a creative urge no other hobby or pastime manages. I haven't been as authoristic lately as I used to be, but while I'd planned to start this book in a few weeks, somehow the timeline has altered, yet I'm not complaining. Rather I'm celebrating because unlocking the story doesn't merely mean I'm freeing the characters that have been trapped in my head for the last few weeks. I'm finding liberty too.

And isn't that what creative endeavors are all about? The writing process is far more than delving into Richard and Gilly's lives and those they just met today, and it's well past the butt in chair notion. It's about accepting that while I'm a wife, mother, grandmother, and purveyor of tomato plants, I am ALSO a writer. In telling stories, I allow my imagination to often run away with itself and at times I struggle to keep up. Yet the injection of purpose that writing brings me, while solitary, is so NECESSARY. A few years ago I wasn't so sure about that. How tremendously cool it is that I still need to tell a tall tale. And remain mentally nimble enough to do so.

So that's the latest. I've started a new book. I know where in Part Two of That Which Can Be Remembered I'm going to extrapolate a bit about one particular character who requires a little emotional boost. And I have a load of tomatoes in the ground, whew! More than a few wins for a random Thursday, very very cool.

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