She Has a Point

Jo, of Jo on Food, Life and a Scent of Chocolate, commented here the other day that perhaps I should change my profile to gardener instead of writer. I can see why. My posts lately have been more gardening than anything else. I seemed to have lost my writing mojo with my illness. No matter how I tried my creativity had fled and all I managed to do was to struggle through each day and - if I was lucky - fiddle around a little in the garden. I'm not sure if growing food counts as creativity but it should. You're making something out of soil, water and seeds after all.

Not that I haven't always gardened, of course. I mentioned once before how I was gifted with my own garden when I was nine and in one way or another I've gardened ever since. The thing about gardening is that it's restful on one level - pulling weeds is hardly mind stretching, just methodical and repetitive for instance - but needs careful thought on another, especially if like me you like to grow at least some of your own food. You have to plan to make sure you have a regular supply of crops coming in or you will end up hungry.

In this it's very similar to writing or any other creative activity. Even for a pantser like me you have to have some idea of where your story is heading - so planning - and there's a lot of time spent on the repetitive task of just getting words on the page. Finally, though, you get to pull it all together and that's the harvest of the finally completed and edited story.

The thing is I wasn't able to do any of this. I started blogging more regularly in the hope that it might help but I had not one creative thought in me and I had just about resigned myself to just messing around with plants forever - until yesterday that is when an idea suddenly sprang into life. It's been percolating all day and for the first time in over a year I feel that wonderful rush of wanting to get words down of the page. Whether this will develop into anything worthwhile I have no idea but for now I'm heading to Ulysses (the writing program I was using before this hiatus) and I'm going to see what happens. Wish me luck.