From SRP author Mark Posey:
This weekend, instead of sitting at the keyboard making things up for a living, I’ll be in the backyard with lumber, screws, soil, and a tape measure. We’re building twenty raised beds for a vegetable garden.
Now, I realize that sounds either wonderfully wholesome or like the opening sentence of a man having some kind of late-life episode. Possibly both. But the truth is, I’m looking forward to it more than I can properly explain.
There’s something deeply satisfying about work you can see at the end of the day. Writers spend a lot of time dealing in invisible progress. You write words no one has read yet. You fix scenes no one knows were broken. You move commas around like they owe you money. At the end of the day, you may have accomplished something meaningful—but it can be hard to point at it.
A raised bed, on the other hand, sits there in plain view like a smug little rectangle of achievement. Yes. I was a pile of boards this morning. Look at me now.
And then there’s the meditative side of it. Measure. Cut. Drill. Carry. Level. Repeat. There’s a rhythm to physical work that quiets the noise in your head. No notifications. No headlines. No email subject lines containing the phrase “just circling back.” Just the next board, the next screw, the next task. By the time you’ve been outside for a few hours, moving dirt and building something useful, the brain has a way of settling down.
I suspect part of the appeal is this: gardening is an act of optimism. You do the work now for rewards that come later. You build the beds now. You plant the seeds now. You water, weed, wait, and trust that in time something good will grow. That’s not a bad philosophy for writing, either.
You can’t rush tomatoes. You can’t rush stories. You can only give both what they need and keep showing up.
So this weekend, if you need me, I’ll be in the backyard building a small empire of future salads. And if all goes well, sometime this summer we’ll be eating food that began as a sketch, a plan, and a bit of hopeful effort. Not bad for a few boards and some dirt.
Do you garden? Grow flowers? Vegetables? Tomatoes that become a personality trait? I’d love to hear what you’re planting this year.
–Mark
P.S.: If you’re looking for a new read this week, since I’m currently writing Fall From Grace, this is the perfect time to grab your copy of Saving Grace, the first book in the Thomas Billings thriller series. You can get it in the SRP store.