Gardening And Writing

I live on a smidge more than quarter of an acre, and over the years I have planted about ten trees, a dozen shrubs, countless perennials, herbs, vegetables, and fruits. Some of these gardening experiments turned out brilliantly – the wispy stick of a birch stuck in the ground the fall we moved in is now a looming tree, whose cinnamon bark peels off in layers. Other choices have been less than stellar, such as the heavenly-scented Daphne that cost a small fortune and caught a chill her first winter, promptly keeling over.

I’ve come to realize that gardening has taught me much about writing.  

Lesson one: ideas need to be tested to see if they work. 

In my mind, that costly Daphne, whose tiny variegated leaves I drooled over in a catalog, would happily flourish just behind my garden gate. I was so sure, until I tried it.

The same is true in writing: what seems genius — in the middle of the night, on a long walk with the dog – does not always pan out. An idea may bloom on the page — sometimes even better than imagined. But there is also the chance it will be an unsalvageable disaster.

My laptop is a veritable cemetery of ideas – opening chapters that took too long to get to the point, alternate points-of-view that added nothing but word count, endings that confused more than clarified. But like the melon vine that consumed my yard by the end of one summer – without producing a single melon — sometimes you just don’t know until you try.

Lesson two: the experts are right, most of the time.

Let’s take the hydrangea I planted in front of my house. Morning shade, scorching afternoon sun, precisely the opposite of what is recommended for hydrangeas. But I so wanted a house framed by hydrangeas! I refused to acknowledge the truth, hoping my passion, my vision would bend the natural world to my desires. Doesn’t work that way in gardening. Neither, it turns out, does it in writing.

A respected writer I knew examined the first thirty pages of a manuscript for me. He said he found the social comedy I was writing wry and witty, and recommended I read Tom Pallotta and Anne Tyler for further inspiration. It was great feedback, only I wasn’t writing social comedy — I was trying to write a thriller. No, scratch that, it was great feedback because I was trying to write a thriller.

I learned that what is in my heart and head are one thing, but reality is another. Just ask my singed hydrangea. Like plants, genres have requirements. I removed the snark, inserted some tension, and that manuscript became I DON’T FORGIVE YOU – my debut thriller.

Lesson three: the experts are not always right.

I defy convention all the time in my garden, like putting my French climbing rose in semi-shade. Most roses want full sun, but mine defies the rules thanks to its position against a white wall, which reflects light thus making up for its shady spot.

When I showed my (revised) manuscript to my then-agent, a bright and accomplished woman who had been in the business for years, her reaction was lukewarm. She thought the book would not sell. We parted ways. I ate a lot of ice cream. I wondered if she was right and if I ought to just hide the thing in a drawer and move on to another project. She was the publishing expert after all. I gave myself a few days to sulk, then I re-queried and found a wonderful new agent who loved the book, and sold it.

Lesson four: yank your darlings

Some plants are the bones of a garden, like evergreens, and others are seasonal surprises – Cosmos that reseed come to mind. Still others are pure unadulterated joy: long-necked, creamy-white Maureen tulips in the spring, night-blooming Nicotiana that perfumes the air. And nothing hurts more than having to yank one of my pets, but sometimes I have to. The hellebores that I adore, which provide the first blooms in the midst of dreary winter? They like my garden so much they are reproducing like rabbits. It kills me to pluck these babies, but each spring I do.

And in my writing, I also have had to take a red pen not just to sentences, or to paragraphs, but to entire scenes. Writing that made me cackle with joy, that left me so giddy I didn’t mind the mud the dog tracked in, or the pile of laundry still to be done that day. Like my favorite plant, I had to admire it, and then say goodbye.

Lesson five: beware your go-tos 

Some plants are workhorses in my garden – Sedum Autumn Joy, for example, seems to thrive in both full sun and part shade. To propagate this guy, all I need to do is break off a stalk and stick it in the ground. Taking stock of my garden, one might say I lean a little heavily on this plant.

Turns out there are words that are my workhorses as well. My literary garden is overflowing with “flashed” and “pinged.” A judicious culling of these and other overused words always improves my writing.

And finally, the most important lesson of all: no matter how tough the day in the garden is, how many mosquito bites I get, or how poorly my tomatoes are performing – I am lucky to be able to do something I love. And I know that tomorrow I will get another crack at it.

And the same applies to my writing. 

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As a reporter, Aggie Thompson covered cops, courts, and trials, with a healthy dose of the mundane mixed in. Her writing has appeared in newspapers such as The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. She received her undergraduate degree in English from Columbia University.

An avid gardener she grows everything from tomatoes to figs in her teeny-tiny front-yard garden. When the weather’s nice, she can be found wandering among the herbs, dead-heading plants, and slipping a sprig of mint into a cold tumbler of gin.

I Don’t Forgive You is her debut novel.

Find her on Twitter: @thompson_aggie and on Instagram at:@aggie.thompson

Find out more at: https://www.aggiethompson.com

I DON’T FORGIVE YOU

Allie, a young mother and up-and-coming photographer, is struggling to fit in among the mom cliques in the DC suburb to which she’s just moved, when she finds herself in the cross-hairs of a police investigation as a murder suspect.

A flirtatious moment at a neighborhood party. A dead neighbor. And vicious social media posts in her name that Allie swears she didn’t make.

But no one believes her.

Someone is out to destroy her marriage, her reputation, her life.

As Allie’s world unravels, she must summon all her strength to uncover who is behind this campaign of destruction. Facing the dark secret from her past is the key to unlocking the truth and unmasking a murderer.

A compelling psychological thriller, I DON’T FORGIVE YOU takes readers on a twisty ride of one mother who will do anything to protect herself, and the life she has worked so hard to create.

 

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips