I received my seeds for this year’s garden yesterday and was reflecting on the joy of gardening in the depth of winter. We are having mild weather in Oklahoma this week, but the nights are still in the 20s, even though the afternoons may top 60.

So, a thought for me and my writing. I want to focus on my writing like I do on my garden. There is a starting point and that is in my thoughts first and foremost. I begin to think about the garden long before I begin to write down what I want to grow and where. There is a joy that develops as I anticipate what the backyard and the garden plots will look like as I foresee the various plants in their places. All of this is in my imagination. I find winter-time joy in gardening through imagination.

Now, fast forward to my writing life. I also begin thinking about what my next book will be in my imagination. I can get excited about where the book will go and what will be said, but am not ready to put any of it on paper quite yet. I do capture my thoughts in my “morning pages” [hat-tip to Julia Cameron] and rough out the text in Scrivener, but the work of writing will take place with the hard work of actually writing, much like what I will do next month when I prepare the garden beds for the spring crops.

So, for today I am imagining “Seeking Serenity”. Part of it is written but the bulk of the writing remains to be done. I will enjoy the imagination part of the writing and look out for the blocks, the resistance that attempts to thwart my progress.