Advice from Masters

All around me, the garden is in some ecstatic state that makes things grow fast. But gray skies make me feel lazy. The late John Leonard, my beloved college writing teacher, told me that laziness is a writer's biggest problem. Starting pieces you never finish, he warned, is the scourge of the profession. Since he'd published a few novels and been editor of the New York Times Book Review, he knew a thing or two about the rewards of perseverance.

Persistence is clearly a trait that drives success in this business. It may even matter more than talent, since many talented people give up before they get published -- and lots of mediocre writers end up in print. A recent computer crash taught me something about the limits of my own ability to persevere. One afternoon the laptop I'd been using for two years went dead -- just dead -- without warning. I was in the middle of a high profile assignment with a no-nonsense deadline. The project had to be finished, so I went to work on an old, injured IBM. It was once a great machine but had developed electrical problems that allowed me to type only when I held down the left corner of the keyboard. It's not a very comfortable arrangement, but I managed to complete the work on time.

Later when I had a chance to scroll through files on the old laptop, I found a couple of stories I'd written two years earlier but never edited. One had a special place in my heart because it was written in honor of a friend who'd lost his life. The discovery made me think about John Leonard's advice and the many great pieces I'd seen friends write but never finish.

It's really never too late to go back to a story you care about. Like certain books, some can lose their appeal when you hit a wall. But if you go back to them, it's possible to rediscover the magic that drew you to the tale in the first place. When I need inspiration for writing, my garden at Pennsyl Pointe always helps me find it. Last fall I put a leafless hibiscus in the ground without expecting much. The winter was cruel and I wrapped the roots of the plant to protect it. All through March and April it just looked like the grey stick you see in the background of this photo. Then suddenly, in early May, it pushed out a green shoot. For the past week it's been growing at least an inch every 48 hours. Now it's got real Jack-in-the-Beanstalk propulsion. It's quite possible that those old abandoned stories conceal the same kind of surprising potential.