February 2009


This month in my garden is all about heavy lifting. The daytime temperatures hover in the high forty’s and fifty’s, so working outside is pleasant –if you keep moving.


Heavy lifting is about moving rocks, building berms, planting bare root trees, pruning and spraying dormant fruit trees, and ordering and spreading mulch.


Heavy lifting for a writer means getting the “crappy” first draft on paper, and finding creative ways to get it done. For example just write the scenes in dialogue and later going back to fill in emotions and surroundings.


The daily progress you make towards the first draft will surprise you. Try for a thousand words a day, and make a goal to have the complete draft done in three months time, set a date. You will pat yourself on the back when your heavy lifting pays off!