Gardening versus construction

I’m doing a lot of yardwork and gardening in this stay at home summer. It makes me think about my writing. My first novel felt like a piece of heavy construction work. BAM BAM WHAP WHAP. Get the foundation in place. Shore it up here. Fix the leak there. Patch and paint, patch and paint. Very much like building a house.

In contrast, writing the sequel, SUNRISING, has felt like designing a garden. Throw some seeds in the air, see where they land and what flowers come up. Transplant these flowers to the front, move a few to the back. Cut some tall stalks here, prune a little there. SNIP SNIP, RAKE RAKE.

Compared to my construction work, the process I used to write the sequel felt more “organic,” a term I ordinarily hate to use. Ideas were fertilized, they blossomed and grew. Nothing seemed hoisted or levered into place. Sure, in a garden, there’s still lots of moving and shaping to do, but it all felt gentler, less noisy or convulsive.

Does all this gentleness make the new book better than the first one? That, reader, is for you to judge when SUNRISING finally appears above the horizon.