“As cows need milking and sweet peas need picking, so writers must continually exercise their mental muscles by a daily stint.” Joan Aiken
I grow sweet peas every year, mostly because my mother-in-law loves them and I have grown to love them too. Their fragrance is both sweet and spicy. But the most important part of growing sweet peas is picking them every day after they start flowering. The more you pick the flowers the more flowers you get. A good metaphor for writing. The daily stint as Joan Aiken calls it is an exercise you do because it’s necessary and you love the results. If you’ve taken a couple of days off from writing it’s time to pick the sweet peas, otherwise the sweet pea flowers grow into hard, ugly pods. In writing that’s fear, doubt and uncertainty. Today, write about the first time you gave up. And then write about your first success as a writer. Now get back to work.
Lovingly,
The Writing Nag
I love the word “stint”.
I tend to write in spurts. Think I’ll try a stint.