Tending the Garden

In this week's Storyteller's Inkpot post alum Donna Jones Koppelman* talks about how gardening and writing have a lot more in common than one might think.


One beautiful spring day last week, I got impatient about planting my garden. Impatience turned to impulse, as if often does, and I bought a rototiller!  I love it.  It’s petite as a hummingbird but does the job like a bulldog. I love to plan my garden, plant my garden, tend my garden, and harvest my garden, but many of those aspects of gardening are vulnerable to conditions I can’t control—like weather. Tilling up the soil is something I can control, and with my own rototiller, I am unstoppable.

Gardening is a perfect metaphor for writing. I reflect on the parallels as I wait for the seed of an idea to germinate, as I edit out the weeds that impede the growth of my prize plant, and as I pray the hailstorm of my insecurities don’t ruin that last chapter. So what is the rototiller in this metaphor?

A rototiller prepares the soil for a luscious garden. It stirs up all that’s hidden, so I can spot weeds, roots, and shells I couldn’t see before. It makes my garden inviting. It beckons me to come and plant, and I like to think well-tilled soil is a glorious, comfortable place for tiny growing seeds.

In writing, my rototiller is my routine. My daily routine makes my work space a fertile place for ideas to grow and blossom. I have a friend who says she cannot write until her whole house is clean. That is not true for me (or I wouldn’t have written a word in twenty years). I just need a clean surface on my desk. I need white paper and a really good pen. I need brushes and paints or drawing pencils close at hand. I need my favorite craft book, THE WAR OF ART by Steven Pressfield, from which I read a chapter every day. I need a poetry book, from which I read a poem every day, and lastly, I need a scented candle.

Whew. Sounds really neurotic, right? But the process of gathering all these things and placing them just so gives my brain the time it needs to shift from who is driving sports carpool to what story I will tell today. Clearing my desk clears my mind. Setting up brushes and drawing pencils signals my brain that it’s time to get creative. It’s time for fun. Mr. Pressfield reminds me it’s time to WORK, and poetry shows me that work should be lovely. Lastly, I choose a scented candle with a smell that fits my work for the day. Smells are powerful stimulants for my memory and thought process. I like to think E.B. White chose a cotton candy scented candle to write those marvelous scenes at the fair. Or maybe it was a pig scent? Or perhaps he had a completely different routine.

In graduate school, I studied routine in schoolchildren, particularly homework routines. Students who followed the same routine at homework time every day had significantly higher grades than students without routines. They finished their homework much more quickly than students without routines, so I know routines are effective.

What is your routine? Be intentional as you till up the garden of your mind. Get the pesky weeds out of the way, so you can nurture those good ideas. Harvest day will come.



*Donna Jones Koppelman graduated from Hamlin's Masters in Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults in 2015. She is represented by Alyssa Eisner Henkin at Trident Media, and she adores her new rototiller. 

Sit in the Discomfort

This week alum Donna Koppelman talks to us about this frightfully fun time of the year as we inch ever closer towards Halloween.  Read on if you dare to embrace your own darkest fears (insert melodramatic evil laugh).

The scary season is upon us. Not presidential debates. Haunted houses. Fright nights. Scary movie marathons. Ghost walks. Imagineers at theme parks brainstorm new and powerful ways to scare people.

Adults are inclined to squelch this emotion in modern culture, but artists must embrace the intensity and power of fear. People who write for children cannot lose touch with this emotion. Fear plays a critical role in the lives of young people.

When children are very young, good parents and teachers honor their fear. It’s real and valid, and keeps them safe. As children grow more adventurous, fear protects them. Still, small children don’t like fear. The avoidance of fear may drive many aspects of a child’s life.

For teen-agers, it all changes. Fear becomes delicious, scintillating, exciting. Young people seek the heart-pounding, skin-crawling rush of emotion. It tests their mettle, their courage, and their confidence. Adolescents embrace scary situations as long as they happen in a controlled environment. In other words, adolescents often play at being scared because they thrive on the intensity.

Adulthood brings with it routine and responsibility and other logistics that allow people to avoid fear as much as possible. Young couples look for a home in a safe neighborhood. Parents seek out nurturing, safe schools and work environments. Adults instinctively consider ways to protect themselves from horrible tragedies reported in the news. They think their way through fear, explain it away and rationalize it. In this manner, sensible adults isolate themselves from the primal fears of childhood.

Writer friends, we can’t be sensible adults AND effectively write for children!

We must connect with the raw, basic emotions of childhood. The children need us to remember, understand and support them in their fears. We must write characters who experience real, knee-knocking fear and then find their way to courage and strength. In this way, our readers will feel less alone in their fears, our work will ring true, and our characters can offer help and hope.

Young readers try on different identities, environments and experiences by immersing themselves in books. We must provide honest, real writing for readers to connect. We cannot do it if we have grown detached from the intense emotions of childhood.

So do your research. Take a ghost walk. Visit a haunted house. Watch a horror movie. Walk around your house in the dark and listen to its sounds.

Scared yet?

Good.

Now, pay attention to your fear. Sit in the discomfort. What does it do to your senses? How does your body respond? What scares you now versus what scared you as a child? What would comfort you? What environment or encounter would push you past rational fear to true terror?

Take notes and put them in a folder marked fear. Add to it whenever you feel afraid or observe a frightened child.  Keep a list of things that frighten you and scary story ideas for the younger set.

Figure out how your own emotions and physical reactions can enrich a children’s story. Then, write one. Or ten.

And every October, get out there and be afraid.

For the children.