Spring stopped tiptoeing around this week and stomped onto the Olympic Peninsula with both feet! I split my time in two different directions with similar intentions.
Violet and I built two pergolas this week, and a few other odds and ends for my big porch glow-up project. I have a huge deck that bakes all summer long and this is the year we are making it into an oasis. The goal was to have all our big pieces in place before the local garden club sale this past Saturday. Thanks to cull lumber prices and a quart of clearance paint—not to mention the rest of that old bunkbed—both projects came in under $50 and turned out better than expected.
Saturday morning rolled around and my mom and I were at the garden sale an hour early to stand in line with the other weirdos who wanted dibs on all the good stuff. We had a lovely time making line besties and sharing around pictures of our plant babies and projects in the works. The neat thing about passionate creatives are that they are generally so excited to meet like hearted people.
Mom and I spent a lot of the day yesterday potting, painting, and arranging things to be just right and now starts the hard part—waiting for everything to grow into my vision. Also watering.
Amidst the garden work I also spent some time on writing. After last week’s wild brain declutter sessions I wasn’t quite sure where to go next until I realized that I needed to spend some time world building; it was like my characters were standing on the edge of a map with only a few spaces drawn in and I had to fill in some lines before they could move forward.
Now at the end of the week I have three actual maps drawn out (not to scale) but they certainly have given me an idea of scale and contents of both the worlds I am working in. Then there are the figurative maps I have on paper. Violet and I spent a day figuring out one of the mysteries in the story, as well as what clues should be left and what order they should be revealed. Writing mysteries is an art I am just beginning to play with but expect an Overthinkings on it soon.
Another element of world building that I delved into is figuring out who my players are in both worlds—who is pulling the strings and what are their interests in my story. This work unlocked some stakes I hadn’t realized were missing, and introduced me to two new characters. It also essentially wrote the ending of three of the chapters I was playing with last week.
Today as my mom and I lounged around the deck enjoying the budding plants and great temperature I was chatting about the world building I’ve been doing. I admitted that every time I run into a plot stall it is usually because I need to do some more world building, or more character work. Just like gardening, I have to prep the ground before they can plant the flowers.
I hope you all have a lovely week ahead. If you get stuck in a story try asking these three questions.
1. What are the truths of my world?
2. Who has stakes in the bigger picture?
3. What are their goals?
Happy Writing!
Mamasquatch the Writer 
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