Yesterday, Bobby and I walked on the beach in the chill Autumn drizzle. Among our discoveries of a tiny moss-like crab lurking among the branches of a beached coral, a string of shells, and darting sanderlings, we found a long-stemmed pink rose. Far past its prime, the thing looked sad, dejected, and Bobby asked me for its story.<\/p>\n
I glanced in his direction. \u201cIt\u2019s story?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. You know, how did it get here. Whose was it. Where did it come from. Its story.\u201d<\/p>\n
As we walked, I told a tale of lovers on a cruise ship, one of whom gifted the other with the flower before they fought, and the flower got thrown overboard because it was too painful a reminder of something lost. I rambled about a wedding party taking creative pre-ceremony photos at the beach and when they picked up their equipment and props to go home, the flower got dropped. It wasn\u2019t missed until they were miles away, too late to go back for it and after all, it\u2019s only a flower. Or perhaps it is a clue to a murder. Maybe a young party-goer from one of the beachfront condos had a little too much to drink and slipped out for a waterside stroll to clear her head. Someone followed her, hoping for a little romance and when she refused, things got violent. The flower is a clue because the young killer gifted her with it earlier in the evening and she left it behind in the condo when she went out. Only the person who gave it to her in the first place would have brought it back to her later. (I know. Weak. My defense is that it was an on-the-spot prompt with no time for thought.)<\/p>\n
So now I have a new story concept on my list of potential projects. When I was adding it, I read through the list and was struck by how many intriguing ideas are written there. Writing them in that book and nurturing the ideas into what may become great stories is very much like growing a rose garden. I know they aren\u2019t all destined for long-stemmed bouquets, but all have potential to produce prize-winning blooms. In their early stages, I can\u2019t know which ones unless I tend them regularly, one each evening, maybe two on a weekend.<\/p>\n
With so many rose bushes, my biggest \u201cproblem\u201d is deciding which flower to water on any given day.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s an overview of my current \u201cgarden.\u201d I am presently working on book two (and by connection, book three) of a novel series, four incomplete short stories, and several poems. In addition, I\u2019m searching for magazines to print the six completed short stories already on hand, nursing ideas for another novel, taking a fiction class series, and reading as much as I can in various genres, savoring other people\u2019s \u201croses\u201d so that I can know what makes a good one and what flaws I want to avoid in my own blossoms.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, garden maintenance overwhelms me. Each rose is exciting in its own way, and I certainly don\u2019t want to plant a seed only to let it wither and die. At the same time, if I see a rose will die whether I tend it or not, I\u2019m likely to set it aside and work on another instead. I don\u2019t know how other gardeners maintain a large plot, but even a master rose grower has to start somewhere before her canes produce winning blooms.<\/p>\n
If it sounds like I\u2019m complaining, I\u2019m not. I\u2019m just thinking out loud, so to speak, trying to make sense out of a crazy, self-imposed regimen of learning when to fertilize and when to prune, and how to recognize when a rose has reached its prime and is ready to share.<\/p>\n
How about you? What\u2019s flowering in your garden? How do you manage its regular maintenance?<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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Far past its prime, the thing looked sad, dejected, and Bobby asked me…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8n0kX-6N","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":647,"url":"https:\/\/www.dremadeoraich.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/26\/sound-the-retreat\/","url_meta":{"origin":421,"position":0},"title":"Sound the Retreat!","author":"DremaDeoraich","date":"March 26, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my biggest hurdles to meeting a daily word count is diversion. 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January 2022 (so far) So much has happened since my last post that I don't know where to start. But I'll give it a try. (Grab a cup of something...this post is long.) 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