April is starting off with temperatures well below normal and so my garden is patiently waiting for change.
My English Grandmother was a master at patience and had the skill of sitting quietly in her garden to coax wild birds to feed from her hand. She explained it was simply a matter of waiting for the birds to make up their minds she could be trusted. The Blue Jays loved her.
She intuitively understood the process of synchronicity –of calmly waiting for information and events to occur. The same process applies to this new writing project of mine. I am waiting for several inter-library loan books to come in. I need the scientific information. No matter my work is fiction, I still need to ground it in accuracy. From that point on I can darn well follow my fancy with what I want to do with it!
And this reminds me of one of my pet peeves. Dialogue must also be grounded to the time period being written about. I recently came across a sentence similar to this. “For the moment he felt her intrusion into his affairs too much of a hassle for him to deal with.”
Fine for a character who lives in today’s world, but jarring for a character living in the early 19th century. This was debut novel and I was constantly being bumped out of the story by historically ill placed words and phrases.
Barnhart’s Dictionary of Etymology should be a standard edition on every writer’s bookshelf. It should be dog-eared, look as if it sat out in the rain overnight, which mine has done, and its pages artistically stained with coffee rings and jam smears. It should be christened with love and familiarity.
This week I bought an Olea Europaea in a six inch pot. This “old world” olive tree will definitely need attention and love.
Writing and gardening need mindfulness and patience.
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