The Care and Tending of a Writing Life

 Last week while we vacationed in the mountains of North Carolina, my flowers back home thrived thanks to the efforts of our grandson, assisted by his parents, who faithfully tended to their care and watering. While we relaxed and took in the sights with hubby’s brother’s family, our kin back in Indiana took our place toting buckets of water to twenty flower-bearing potted containers of varying shapes and sizes.

Days later when we arrived home less than an hour before midnight, I made a beeline for the front door. I switched on the light over the front steps, unlocked the door, and stepped outside. A glance to the left and then to the right brought a relieved smile to my face as I was greeted by the sight of deep-toned purple and pink blossoms spilling over the edges of pots large and small.

Despite leaving detailed instructions and offering our grandson a hands-on demonstration, I worried that the plants wouldn’t fair so well in our absence. I should have known my concern was unwarranted. My grandson had assured me they would not let my flowers die. 

All this thought and energy directed towards my flowers set my mind to wondering about the care and nurturing of my writing life. While some scribes found the past year-and-a-half to be a productive time for putting words to paper, that wasn’t the case for me. I soon realized that the very things that fed and nurtured my writing life took a major hit thanks to the pandemic. And it would seem a slower-paced life doesn’t work as well for me as does a busier schedule. Who knew?

What about you?  How do you care for your writing life? Maybe the first question should be do you tend your writing life? Feed it, water it, nourish, and care for it? 

What works for you? What doesn't? What have you newly-discovered and/or resurrected from the past?

Please share your best bets in the comments below. I’m all ears!

Beth’s combined experiences teaching the high school Sunday School class, substitute teaching in the public school, and connecting with the teenage staff at the fast-food joint where she claimed a “back booth office” helped inspire her young adult “Choices Matter” fiction series. She's a "cheerleader" for saving sex for marriage and for "renewed waiting" because it's never too late to make wiser choices. Her “Waiting Matters … Because YOU Matter” blog helps people of all ages navigate the choppy waters of saving sex for marriage while her “Slices of Real Life” posts find GOD in the day-to-day moments of real life.

 As a genetic genealogy enthusiast, she writes and speaks about her experiences as a "foundling" who located her birth parents. Her journey to find and connect with her biological family is chronicled in the blog series “A Doorstep Baby’s Search for Answers.” All of her writing endeavors can be found on her website, https://bethsteury.com.