Amanda Lewis

We have a saying in Canada: Good weather, eh? We’ll pay for it later.

Canadians have a lot of sayings about weather 😉

It has been a cold, wet spring in the Pacific Northwest. A lot of my veggies and herbs bolted early (went to seed). I’m now drying kale pods in my house so I can harvest the seeds. Summer is so short here that we all hope for the shoulder seasons (spring and fall) to be warm, too, and sometimes we don’t get that warm weather.

One of the secrets to a happy life is managing expectations. Sometimes we don’t land that writing job, or our draft isn’t singing, or our garden has a poor initial growing season. But it turns out that your draft just needed another pass, and summer is arriving right on time. The pollinators love the flowers on the bolted kale, and I can dry the seeds and put in a second planting.

Hannah Beach, co-author of Reclaiming Our Students, often talks about creating the ideal conditions for growth. You may have been diligent in watering and fertilizing, and still…poof. You need to adapt for the conditions as you go.

How are you constructing ideal conditions for growth in your creative life? How are you managing your expectations around your own writing life as it evolves?