A Writer’s Garden–Spring has Sprung by Catherine Castle

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A Groom for Mama., A Writer's Garden, Cathrine Castle author, container gardening, flowers, Garden blog, plants

Welcome to the 2021 A Writer’s Garden Blog series!

Each Thursday until fall, I’ll be bringing you a post from a Writer/Gardener about gardening. Post content will vary, but it will always focus on gardens.  In addition, each writer will post a book blurb to entice you to find something new to read underneath your favorite shade tree.

Spring has sprung. I know because my garden bench has come out of storage.

I don’t know how spring is shaping up in your part of the world, but here in southern Ohio we’ve had enough warm weather to coax the day lilies up.

Unfortunately, they are predicting three nights of 20ish temps. So, I’m hoping the day lilies won’t suffer like they did last spring.

My columbines have lovely growth on them, too. My hope is the hardscape around them will gather enough heat during the day to protect the tender leaves. I’d like to see another blooming bed like this come May.

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My big project for this spring is to make a container bed garden along the south side of the house. Last year we covered all the ground level beds that ran along the south pathway to the back patio with landscape fabric and my husband leveled all the beds raised them to heights that do no require me to bend at the waist or crouch on my aging knees. Compressed lower back vertebrae are making gardening below my knees impossible. If I can’t sit on a wall or reach a bed without bending, I can’t work in the garden any more.

Here’s what we’ve done, well, I should say HE’S done to keep me gardening. You have to love a man who would haul so much gravel and wall stones just so his wife could play in the dirt.

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My goal is to get some pots, troughs, whiskey barrels, or what every containers I think will work best and place them on the gravel beds.

Then I’ll plant a container veggie garden. The only hitch I see in the plans this year are the 17-year cicadas that are supposed to arrive in May and die off sometime in late June.

Photo courtesy Pixabay

And no, that is not my hand holding said bug! Ugh! I hate those things. I’m hoping I get a reprieve from the large dive-bombing insects.

When we moved into our house 17 years ago the surrounding area had been scraped clean because of new construction, and we didn’t see cicada one. If they do show up this year, I hope they’ll become lizard dinners. I know lizards eat katydids and grasshoppers because we used to have so many of them in the north hosta beds that they would keep me up on a summer night with their calls.

Until the lizards arrived. Now we sleep like babies in the silent summer nights. We have a bazillion lizards in our hardscaped yard. So many that the landscaper who mulched the hill garden this spring said, “You don’t have a flower garden, you have a lizard garden.”

I don’t mind. They eat the insects. And as long as they stay off me and out of the house, the lizards and I will get along just fine. But if they venture indoors I’ll have a lizard war on my hands.

Now, if they’d only eat the wasps, I’d be really grateful.

Happy Gardening! I hope you’ll come back every Thursday to see all the writer/gardener’s posts and gardens. I guarantee you’ll love them. Enjoy the garden blogs! Catherine

About the Writer/Gardener:

Multi-award winning author Catherine Castle loves writing. Before beginning her career as a romance writer she worked part-time as a freelance writer. She has over 600 articles and photographs to her credit, under her real name, in the Christian and secular market. She also lays claim to over 300 internet articles written on a variety of subjects and several hundred poems. In addition to writing she loves reading, traveling, singing, theatre, quilting and gardening. She’s a passionate gardener whose garden won a “Best Hillside Garden” award from the local gardening club. She writes sweet and inspirational romances. You can find her award-winning Soul Mate books The Nun and the Narc and A Groom for Mama, on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Follow her on Twitter @AuthorCCastle, FB or her blog.

A Groom for Mama

By Catherine Castle

Beverly Walters is dying, and before she goes she has one wish—to find a groom for her daughter. To get the deed done, Mama enlists the dating service of Jack Somerset, Allison’s former boyfriend.

The last thing corporate-climbing Allison wants is a husband. Furious with Mama’s meddling, and a bit more interested in Jack than she wants to admit, Allison agrees to the scheme as long as Mama promises to search for a cure for her terminal illness.

A cross-country trip from Nevada to Ohio ensues, with a string of disastrous dates along the way, as the trio hunts for treatment and A Groom For Mama.

You can find A Groom for Mama on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Microwave Writing

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blog about writing, Cathrine Castle author, first drafts, Microwave Writing

We live in a microwave world. Pop a meal into the microwave for a few minutes, and—bam—dinner is ready. Our obsession with fast doesn’t end with a “home-cooked meal.” We want everything done in quickly, from making our first house a McMansion, to watching multiple television channels at the same time, to being published in two weeks.

The thing I’ve noticed about this obsession with fast is that the quality is lost. Anything heated or cooked in a microwave doesn’t stay hot. Within minutes it’s cold and unpalatable. People with McMansions are often house poor—lots of house, not much to put in it or money do other things. When you watch more than one television channel simultaneously you don’t really know what’s happening on any of the channels. The bottom line is—things done quickly aren’t always done well.

And so it is with writing. A good story takes time to “cook.” From the inception of an idea to the last words on the page, a writer must be patient. I discovered this at the beginning of my writing career. As a new, inexperienced freelancer with no formal training, I usually spent time thinking about articles before I wrote them and did revisions as I wrote. Often times, however, I would be under a looming deadline with numerous pieces to finish. When that happened I would dash off article after article in order to make the deadlines. Even though I thought my first drafts were good, I would set the pieces aside for a few hours, or days if I could. Then I would go back and look at them. Invariably, in the pieces I had dashed off, I found errors, sloppy writing, and a number of places where I could have improved on several aspects of the story.

In my quest to meet deadlines and put out as much work as possible in the shortest amount of time possible, I became a Microwave Writer, producing less than stellar work.  After discovering this, I made sure I gave myself plenty of time to develop, write, and revise any article I wrote.

Here are a few things I learned about Microwave Writing along the way to publication:

• The first ideas you have for a story are probably not the best ones. First ideas are generally the most common ideas. Spend a little time digging deeper into new angles and plot twists.

• The first words dashed off are never the best ones. Generalities, repetitious words, passive language and telling are hallmarks of easy, sloppy writing. Recognize your words are not golden and accept it if you vomit on the page the first time. Just don’t let it stay.

• First drafts are just that—first drafts. They are meant to be revised, several times. Don’t rush your article or book, and when it’s finished give yourself time away from it before you start the revision process. You’ll be surprised at the mistakes you find even if you revised as you wrote.

• The first drafts shall be last, and the last drafts shall be first. Writers who don’t nurture their writing and give their manuscripts enough time to develop and become the best they can produce will not reach the level of success they hope for. The writing world is very competitive, especially with today’s ease of self publication. Bad writing will always be present. Make sure it’s not yours. Good writing will always rise to the top. Strive for that. Take time. Learn the craft.  Put in the hours, and leave microwaving for the cardboard tasting frozen dinners.

Have you ever been a microwave writer? What did you discover when you took a second look at your work?