These were the only three words a writer I once met said to me when I asked him for some writing advice. I tried to press him for details but he repeated the same three words- plough the land.
Every so often I think about that brief encounter and why he chose those precise words- perhaps he knew I came from a country where agriculture makes up a large proportion of the GDP, and would therefore get a farming reference? Perhaps he was a farmer himself?
(I then have to stop myself because I am obviously over-thinking it. It is a terrible habit and I sometimes wonder whether it has something to do with this one time when I was twelve and...aaaagh! Must stop.)
Anyway, the point of this post is to say that I thought about it again today and have decided that what he meant was essentially this: Do the work. The dull, repetitive, unglamorous, hard graft type of work. The reading, relentless research, the note-making. Confronting the daily tyranny of the blank page.
Because if you're a writer, the one thing you might have in common with a farmer is this: you need to prepare the ground.
Just so that, hopefully, at some beautiful moment in the indeterminate future when the stars seemingly align and a seed of inspiration arrives unbidden like rain, it falls on the fertile soil of your imagination, takes root, and turns into a magic beanstalk that keeps growing till it kisses the clouds.
There. I am certain that is what he meant.
Every so often I think about that brief encounter and why he chose those precise words- perhaps he knew I came from a country where agriculture makes up a large proportion of the GDP, and would therefore get a farming reference? Perhaps he was a farmer himself?
(I then have to stop myself because I am obviously over-thinking it. It is a terrible habit and I sometimes wonder whether it has something to do with this one time when I was twelve and...aaaagh! Must stop.)
Anyway, the point of this post is to say that I thought about it again today and have decided that what he meant was essentially this: Do the work. The dull, repetitive, unglamorous, hard graft type of work. The reading, relentless research, the note-making. Confronting the daily tyranny of the blank page.
Because if you're a writer, the one thing you might have in common with a farmer is this: you need to prepare the ground.
Just so that, hopefully, at some beautiful moment in the indeterminate future when the stars seemingly align and a seed of inspiration arrives unbidden like rain, it falls on the fertile soil of your imagination, takes root, and turns into a magic beanstalk that keeps growing till it kisses the clouds.
There. I am certain that is what he meant.
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