Prepping a Garden = Preparing to Publish . . .

June 3, 2016A. Keith Carreiro

Prepping the Vegetable Garden. (Credit: photo by Keith Carreiro, June 2016, Swansea, Massachusetts.)

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

I thought that once my college classes were over for the spring semester the time, formerly spent in preparing classes, getting there and back, teaching them, responding to students’ questions and comments and reviewing and evaluating student work, could be used on my own creative writing.

Was that a mistakenly held truism! Instead, I have been awash in working on projects inside and around the house and yard.

The inside work involves taking care of electrical systems, washing windows, installing air conditioners, setting up outdoor furniture, moving plants outside, spring cleaning and clearing away all the piles of papers and documents that have been accumulating around every available space that was generated during the school year.

The outside work . . . OMG, these now seem like Herculean tasks to accomplish! I’m not getting any younger. Better perhaps, though that’s in much doubt, yet certainly needing to take more time to do physical tasks that once seemed almost effortless.

Raking . . . (Credit: photo by Carolyn Carreiro, May 2016.)

Raking, weeding, sweeping, cleaning, pruning, cutting and trimming grass. Don’t even think about re–staining the exterior sides of the house, garage and shed. Reseeding and fertilizing the lawn. Shopping at the local nurseries for vegetable plants and flowers. Then, of course, they need to be planted, along with the plants and seeds ordered from Burpee Seeds.

And, what about working on publishing the first part of the Penitent? Wait, I’ll get to that in a bit.

And, what about starting the new book the Pilgrim? In a bit; wait while I get through talking about what a property demands from its owners. Or, should I rephrase that last comment and say, “Let me digress for a moment and explain how a house owns the folks living in it?!?”

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

? Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

One of the most enjoyable activities I do around my home is to work in our vegetable garden. The target date to plant here in this part of the word is around or after Memorial Day Weekend, which we just commemorated this past weekend.

In getting as many tasks done outdoors that I could in the good, and sometimes not–so–good weather, I would pass by the garden and do my best neither to look at it, nor consider what needed to be done to it to get it ready for planting.

Of course, the idea also started to stalk me, as I was trying not to size up working in the garden, that the target date (which was eight days before Memorial Day) to start writing the second novel was the week of May 22^nd.

Henry and Vavu. (Credit: photo by Laura Carreiro, May 2016, Norwalk, Connecticut.)

I also had to go see my new grandson and attend my other grandson’s birthday party in southwestern Connecticut. The new baby, Henry, is about a month old and the other, Jackson, turned two. They represent our twelfth and thirteenth grandchildren. It was two years ago that I made the same pilgrimage to see Jackson. That was during the week when I started writing the Pilgrim. The pressure was on to duplicate the literary effort made in 2014.

I had an interview to do and write about with David Estes, which was an absolute delight to do.

Review invitations were sent to those individuals I had selected in hopes of being able to use them as blurbs for my first novella and to help in launching it in this July.

The logo design for Copper Beech Press had to be started so that I could have it completed soon to use in the Penitent – Part One.

Decisions were being considered over cover design details for it, along with no resolution seeming to appear on what this design will finally look like.

Writing the Pilgrim, while becoming implacably imminent (just like prepping the vegetable garden), needed considerable time to storyboard and “clear the ground” me to have a secure enough grip to begin this story once again. It had remained fallow for two years.

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

— G. K. Chesterton, The Autobiography of GK Chesterton

I also investigated what it took to make an audiobook. I learned that I could create a passable recording space in my home with a minimum amount of materials and free software that can be downloaded from the web. I also learned that audiobooks are an increasingly viable and economically attractive way to increase the amount of potential sales an author can generate along with eBook and print on demand [POD] formats.

Not having the time to get a recording space together and learning how to use the equipment and software to make an MP3 file, I thought I would see what it would take to record my own voice at a nearby sound recording studio.

Hiring someone to read my writing is way over my budget, let alone adding more bells and whistles to it. I had read that people who like using audiobooks appreciate hearing an author narrate his or her own work.

Turning over the Soil. (Credit: Photo by Keith Carreiro, May 2016.)

Armed with this information, I contacted several nearby sound recording studios. I visited with the sound recording engineers and learned what it takes to narrate a book and how much it would cost.

Costs ranged from $750.00 to $1,600.00. Hours involved in such a project varied from ten to nineteen hours. Studio time ranged from $50.00 to $175.00 an hour.

In one studio, I spent about an hour and five minutes in the recording booth reading the first four chapters of the Penitent – Part One. Out of that time, about 34 minutes were successfully recorded. A completed audiobook of a 50,000 word story has a playing time of between five to six hours, depending on the speed and pacing the narrator takes in reading it aloud.

Despite the manuscript being my writing and my being as familiar with it as it is humanly possible to be, I found it was not easy to read what I had written in a graceful manner, as well as with the right tone and emotional emphasis. Never having done anything like it before, except for playing the guitar and recording in a studio with it, I humbly saw that I need to get some voice coaching.

That’s now on hold, and so is the audiobook.

Gradually, many of the spring tasks indoors and outdoors were being completed.

Jackson and Vavu. (Credit: Photo by Laura Carreiro, May 2016.)

Memorial Day Weekend loomed ever more closely, until the Monday before, being May 23, I drove back from seeing my grandsons, settled in, taught a guitar lesson and went outside to the vegetable garden and started getting rid of the weeds.

In between taking the mulching covers off of the eight raised rows and in the walking spaces of the garden, I would take a break and try writing the beginning of the Pilgrim. I wrote about two hundred words and came to a halt. I had too many metaphorical weeds in my mind and not enough clarity on a variety of issues.

My emphasis shifted from composing to doing background research to the setting, characters (new and old) and storyboarding.

In the meantime, all the rows and spaces in the garden were weeded successfully. Most of the mulching fabric was savable and can be used for another season.

The second part of the interview with David Estes was completed and posted.

Instead of taking a rototiller into the garden space, I use a long handled, pointed shovel to turn the soil initially over. Once all of the soil in the eight rows is initially tilled, they can be leveled out on the top.

This took me one day to do. While working in brilliant sunshine and being surrounded by the call of many innumerable songbirds, I knew what was going to happen to the characters in the story. The image, sound and appearance of an evil force of wraithlike beings appeared in my mind who were seemingly opposed to the main protagonist in the story. The manner in which they attacked the company she was in, the approach they make to her, the battle that breaks out between them and the resultant effects it has on her and her party were envisioned.

The nearest I have to a rule is a Post-it on the wall in front of my desk saying ‘Faire et se taire’ (Flaubert), which I translate for myself as “Shut up and get on with it.”

— Helen Simpson, The Guardian

I went to a nearby nursery and bought some organic chicken manure and applied it to the top of the eight rows of the vegetable garden. Also spread on top of the rows was a grade of 10 10 10 fertilizer, containing equal percentages of nitrogen (N), phosphate (P₂O₅) and potash (K₂O).

This mixture was gently turned over in the top eight inches of soil by my using a pitchfork to do so.

Prepping THE PILGRIM. Screenshot of the beginning of Chapter One.

After this work was done, I went back in the house and sat down at our computer to work once more on the story. Another breakthrough occurred in my creating the names and profiles of several new characters who were helping protect the main character as well as the name, geographical setting and mapping of the capital city towards which they were headed.

This Saturday, I’m having seven yards of compost brought in to help further enrich and mend the soil.

After I get through attending two graduations this coming weekend as well, one at a nearby community college on Saturday, and the other at the high school I graduated from only fifty years ago, I can settle in and get the garden and my story ready for planting.

There’s got to be a moral, or a message, to this reflection. What do you think it might be? . . .

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products or services that I have mentioned here. I am disclosing this information in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

For information about the series, The Immortality Wars, please go to my home page: https://immortalitywars.com/

Tags: Gardening, inspiration, writing

Previous post The Storytellers (Part XII) – An Interview with “Storyman” David Estes . . . Next post The Storytellers (Part XIII) – An Interview with Author James Hankins . . .

Prepping a Garden = Preparing to Publish . . .

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

I thought that once my college classes were over for the spring semester the time, formerly spent in preparing classes, getting there and back, teaching them, responding to students’ questions and comments and reviewing and evaluating student work, could be used on my own creative writing.

Was that a mistakenly held truism! Instead, I have been awash in working on projects inside and around the house and yard.

The outside work . . . OMG, these now seem like Herculean tasks to accomplish! I’m not getting any younger. Better perhaps, though that’s in much doubt, yet certainly needing to take more time to do physical tasks that once seemed almost effortless.

And, what about working on publishing the first part of the Penitent? Wait, I’ll get to that in a bit.

And, what about starting the new book the Pilgrim? In a bit; wait while I get through talking about what a property demands from its owners. Or, should I rephrase that last comment and say, “Let me digress for a moment and explain how a house owns the folks living in it?!?”

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

? Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

One of the most enjoyable activities I do around my home is to work in our vegetable garden. The target date to plant here in this part of the word is around or after Memorial Day Weekend, which we just commemorated this past weekend.

In getting as many tasks done outdoors that I could in the good, and sometimes not–so–good weather, I would pass by the garden and do my best neither to look at it, nor consider what needed to be done to it to get it ready for planting.

Of course, the idea also started to stalk me, as I was trying not to size up working in the garden, that the target date (which was eight days before Memorial Day) to start writing the second novel was the week of May 22nd.

I had an interview to do and write about with David Estes, which was an absolute delight to do.

Review invitations were sent to those individuals I had selected in hopes of being able to use them as blurbs for my first novella and to help in launching it in this July.

The logo design for Copper Beech Press had to be started so that I could have it completed soon to use in the Penitent – Part One.

Decisions were being considered over cover design details for it, along with no resolution seeming to appear on what this design will finally look like.

Writing the Pilgrim, while becoming implacably imminent (just like prepping the vegetable garden), needed considerable time to storyboard and “clear the ground” me to have a secure enough grip to begin this story once again. It had remained fallow for two years.

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

— G. K. Chesterton, The Autobiography of GK Chesterton

Not having the time to get a recording space together and learning how to use the equipment and software to make an MP3 file, I thought I would see what it would take to record my own voice at a nearby sound recording studio.

Hiring someone to read my writing is way over my budget, let alone adding more bells and whistles to it. I had read that people who like using audiobooks appreciate hearing an author narrate his or her own work.

Armed with this information, I contacted several nearby sound recording studios. I visited with the sound recording engineers and learned what it takes to narrate a book and how much it would cost.

Costs ranged from $750.00 to $1,600.00. Hours involved in such a project varied from ten to nineteen hours. Studio time ranged from $50.00 to $175.00 an hour.

That’s now on hold, and so is the audiobook.

Gradually, many of the spring tasks indoors and outdoors were being completed.

Memorial Day Weekend loomed ever more closely, until the Monday before, being May 23, I drove back from seeing my grandsons, settled in, taught a guitar lesson and went outside to the vegetable garden and started getting rid of the weeds.

My emphasis shifted from composing to doing background research to the setting, characters (new and old) and storyboarding.

In the meantime, all the rows and spaces in the garden were weeded successfully. Most of the mulching fabric was savable and can be used for another season.

The second part of the interview with David Estes was completed and posted.

Instead of taking a rototiller into the garden space, I use a long handled, pointed shovel to turn the soil initially over. Once all of the soil in the eight rows is initially tilled, they can be leveled out on the top.

The nearest I have to a rule is a Post-it on the wall in front of my desk saying ‘Faire et se taire’ (Flaubert), which I translate for myself as “Shut up and get on with it.”

— Helen Simpson, The Guardian

I went to a nearby nursery and bought some organic chicken manure and applied it to the top of the eight rows of the vegetable garden. Also spread on top of the rows was a grade of 10 10 10 fertilizer, containing equal percentages of nitrogen (N), phosphate (P2O5) and potash (K2O).

This mixture was gently turned over in the top eight inches of soil by my using a pitchfork to do so.

This Saturday, I’m having seven yards of compost brought in to help further enrich and mend the soil.

After I get through attending two graduations this coming weekend as well, one at a nearby community college on Saturday, and the other at the high school I graduated from only fifty years ago, I can settle in and get the garden and my story ready for planting.

There’s got to be a moral, or a message, to this reflection. What do you think it might be? . . .

Ray Bradbury:

G. K. Chesterton:

Sylvia Plath:

Helen Simpson:

If you enjoyed reading this post, please share it with others.

© 2 June 2016 by A. Keith Carreiro

For information about the series, The Immortality Wars, please go to my home page: https://immortalitywars.com/

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Of course, the idea also started to stalk me, as I was trying not to size up working in the garden, that the target date (which was eight days before Memorial Day) to start writing the second novel was the week of May 22^nd.

I went to a nearby nursery and bought some organic chicken manure and applied it to the top of the eight rows of the vegetable garden. Also spread on top of the rows was a grade of 10 10 10 fertilizer, containing equal percentages of nitrogen (N), phosphate (P₂O₅) and potash (K₂O).