Hello, and Happy Easter! Maureen Pratt here with my monthly CAN blog – just in time for Easter joy and Springtime green!
This time of year is fresh with promise. Trees are budding, flowers are blooming, and seeds are sprouting. My creative juices seem to flow more freely at this time of year, too, and all sorts of seedlings are popping up, showing off their first leaves, and looking good for the coming warmer months.
What in the world am I talking about?
There are powerful analogies between gardening and growth and solid story-telling. Whether fiction or non-fiction, our writing work is made up of all sorts of little seeds, planted in the fertile ground of the mind and imagination. And these seeds, as all seeds do, need certain things to help grow.
A Biblical reflection to follow… But now, I want to focus on how we plant, nurture, and grow our fragile seeds into blossoming stories that enrich the world and grace our lives.
First, there are the seeds obtained from first inspiration or impression. You hear a name or see a picture, and all of a sudden, you think, "Wow! There's a story in that!" Or, you are intrigued by some thing – a sewing case, a swatch of fabric or an old, dusty piece of pottery, and your mind starts turning on whose it was, where it has been, what history it might have lived through.
I got the idea for my master's thesis by standing in front of a bird cage at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and overhearing the snide remarks made at the birds inside of it, who were quite ugly and forlorn.
Yes, there are these small seeds all around us. And, sometimes, they become as the mustard seed and sprout into strong, large stories/plants.
But sometimes, we have to realize that those tiny seeds, while intriguing, might not make for a full book or a really newsy news article. When I realize this, I still make note of the "seed," because I've found that some have uses as yet unknown.
There are other seeds, which yield more robustly. These are usually helped along by us, that is, we start with inspiration and work at building a world of a story around it. Or, we know a person or situation that lends itself to our "pen," that we cannot let go no matter how we try to ignore it. Fertile soil of time and energy, abundant sprinklings of the Word, even pruning and pulling up weeds (unnecessary elements), when we must. This is really the work of the gardener-as-writer, along with healthy, story-worthy seed.
As we work on our work at hand, we will undoubtedly collect seeds for future use. Much like the displays at garden centers, we can jot these down, file them away, and have them ready when needed. Like nature's bounty, many seeds will keep for years, patiently waiting for the time when they'll be planted and spring up.
There is one more thing about seeds and stories, a Biblical thing, that is worth mentioning. Remember the parable of the sower in Luke 8:4-9, about the soewr whose seed fell on the path and was trampled, on rocky ground and it withered, and on good soil and it "grew, it produced fruit a hundredfold?" Our story seeds are like these, too. If we merely write to the momentary inspiration (to those little, fragile seeds), we probably won't yield full work. If we write, sometimes faithfully and sometimes not, our story seeds will not flourish in that rocky environment. But if we provide "good" soil – time, focus, prayer, energy, and love…Well, imagine how lush, how beautiful the finished product can be!
Blessings to you – for Easter and for Spring!
Maureen
www.maureenpratt.com
http://blog.belifnet.com/gooddaysbaddays/
