My blog as a guest on Birth of a Novel.
Deadheading for Fun and Freedom
First, an brief explanation of the process of deadheading: with a very sharp secateur, you snip away the dead parts of plants so that the plant no longer pumps energy into the dead area. This somewhat similar to ‘phantom limb’ sensation. Since my secateur is buried in storage boxes awaiting the acquisition of a real […]
Anticipation 101
If you’ve ever traveled with children, you have a good sense of what anticipation means. “Are we there yet?” repeated a gazillion times from the moment the car door is shut at the front door of your house until either they are worn out or your destination is reached. Anticipation is that state of excitement […]
Nurturing Pomegranate II
Between growing, nurturing and pruning pomegranate, this plant and I have had a turbulent 15 months. At the height of spring, I held my breath when no signs of green appeared. All the rest of the garden was blooming. I am rarely hasty with my decisions to abandon the potential of success so I let […]
Proliferation of Characters
I’m beginning revision work on Salsa Dancing today. After reading an article about the invasion of characters, I have some thinking to do. As I write, I allow free-reign (which can sometimes become a free rain) to my imagination and thought processes. This gives me the freedom to explore direction, characterization and the story itself. […]
Compost
The natural world has a way of dealing with trash. Gardeners call it composting. Green warriors call it recycling. Publishers call it pulping. Writers call it so many different things, I can only list the a few of those I’ve heard recently: material, research, edited cuts, bits. What’s your way of dealing with the parts […]
Guest Blogging: 28 April 2011
I’ll be a guest at Four Foxes One Hound this coming Thursday, writing about how Wait a Lonely Lifetime developed from an idea to a soon-to-be-published novel. http://fourfoxesonehound.wordpress.com
Pruning Pomegranate II
Rich, fertile soil, a shining sun, chance encounters: these all add up to possibilities. But one day of sun isn’t enough to encourage the budding of a dormant bush. Most of my garden is budding, flowering, blooming and generally running over with life. My pomegranate is not. After a reminder that the pomegranate, in Armenian […]
Pruning Pomegranate
Some soils are so rich with nutrients that pomegranates can grow to wild proportions. And yet, they bear no fruit. A good gardener will know when and where to prune. At the height of the growing season, pruning can kill the plant. So much of its energy is invested in stem elongation, leaf production, root […]
Nurturing Pomegranate
In any other habitat, persistance and fertility are encouraged, not so in the cultivated garden.