As we are so often reminded,
for everything there is a season.
And when the season of intense work on writing a manuscript and choosing
dozens of photos to illustrate it ends, it’s time for a season of renewal.
Lucky me—I sent off my next
manuscript and photos just a day before flying off to a beautiful spa in Mexico
called Rancho La Puerta. I get the
best deal there is—for my husband’s efforts in planning and carrying out three
cooking classes using ingredients from the rancho’s amazing garden, I receive a
free week to do as I please in this lovely environment. Opportunities to participate in all
sorts of activities abounded, but I promised myself I would just live day by day,
moment by moment, during our visit.
Time and experience have taught me this lesson. As children’s fiction author Bruce
Coville reminded fellow author Jeanette Ingold when she worried about not
having any new ideas following submitting a manuscript, the well gets emptied
and must be filled again before we can proceed.
 |
| Garden and dining hall at Rancho La Puerta |
I believe this principle is
in play for nonfiction writers just as much as for fiction creators. We fill our brains with facts and
images. We struggle to find the best
way to organize our material to present it to our readers in logical,
easy-to-follow sequences. We get
tired! Our minds need to rest, to
clear out what we no longer need to remember and make room for the new information. And perhaps most importantly of all, we
need to let the enthusiasm for the next project grow and let the “old”
enthusiasm for the previous project fade.
This gradual process
actually serves a dual function.
Not only does it set in motion a new enthusiasm, it helps us distance
ourselves from the previous project, knowing that soon an editor will be
pouring over our manuscript with a highly critical eye, suggesting changes,
preparing queries, and, most dreaded of all, making cuts. We authors must be able to distance
ourselves at least a bit from that “old” project so we can react calmly to our
editors’ reactions.
 |
| "Iris" awaits her mate on her Montana nest |
And while we await that
inevitable pain, we plunge into the next project, becoming increasingly
involved and excited as we see the new possibilities involved with a fresh,
open-ended topic. I want to share
my enthusiasm right now with a new project, a book about osprey research. To me the most exciting aspect so far
is learning about wild bird web cams.
I’d known they existed but hadn’t paid much attention until I got going
on this project. Two of the osprey
nests in the study have web cams that allow anyone in the world with internet
access to “spy on” these birds as they conduct their daily lives. (http://tinyurl.com/6mcdgst and http://tinyurl.com/dyj5ddf)
 |
| http://www.unavitaverde.net/webcam-black-stork/ |
Such cameras are working in countries
around the world on many bird species, not just ospreys in Montana. As I write this blog, I’m watching a pair of rare black storks in Estonia and listening to the unfamiliar
calls of European forest birds in the background. For a person like me, who
identifies so strongly with the natural world, it’s the perfect background
music for writing—one bird chirps a lovely song as a dove calls sweetly, then
passing geese honk overhead.
Writers like me are truly
blessed by the opportunities of delightful discoveries that our work gives us.
