Planting Seeds Patiently

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.         Robert Louis Stevenson

Even though I taught writing for decades, I kept my own writing—poetry and ramblings—to myself, bound in stacks of brown, wire-bound notebooks. Publication never interested me. 

Then one day in the mid 1990s, I set a goal of getting something published by the year 2000, and luckily, hit the mark.  

After that first essay was in print, I was surprised by my strong desire to have my more of my writing accepted, a motivation that fueled my writing days for the next decade. At the same time I found an absorbing book project that defined a good chunk of my life. 

Obstacles interfered, life got complicated or I let it, and I lost the constancy of that drive and focus. It’s nothing I regret as I think I was doing what needed to be done, but I’m ready once again to organize my free time around writing.

I miss being in that zone, that attractive groove I've touted recently. I miss settling into it, into the absorption and pre-occupation in creative thought that remains more nourishing than the harvest. I remember the disconnect I felt when my book was published, knowing for sure that all the pleasure had been in the process, and then having to summon enthusiasm for its promotion. The story I’d spent a decade eagerly researching had become a sudden artifact to me the day I sent the final manuscript to the publisher.

It’s important that writers appreciate the reward in the doing, that we don’t judge ourselves by the quantity of our publications or by the possibility of sales. Though it's said that "art without commerce is a hobby," making art with commerce in mind too often warps creativity. It’s more productive to develop the habits of a writing life, to find patience with ourselves as workers, to plant seeds in our thoughts, on the page, and in conversation. The best writing comes when we can harvest a few seasons’ worth of such plantings.