Veggies and Babies

Here are today’s Wonderful Words:

A thriving field of vegetables is as needy as a child, and similarly, the custodians’ job isn’t done til the goods have matured and moved out. But you can briefly tiptoe away from the sleeping baby. It’s going to wake up wailing, but if you need the rest, you get while the getting is good.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver, page 111

Background

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle tells the story of a family that moves to a farm in Virginia and spends the year eating only local food, most of which they grew or raised. These sentences come from the Mid-June chapter, where the family takes a week-long vacation away from their farm.

What makes it wonderful?

As I type this email, my wife is soothing our three-month-old daughter in the next room. So I enjoyed these words because they felt like they were written to me, but it was more than that.

A book covering a year in the life of a farm could grow dull. Plan, plant, weed, water, feed, fertilize, hope, harvest, repeat. Early mornings, late nights. Sounds boring, right?

Not for me because I’m fascinated with this stuff, but for plenty of people, yes.

For those people, it’s writing like this that spices up an otherwise bland story.

You could easily describe the messy garden you’d find after a vacation in peak growing season—a tangled web of weeds and vines. A constant commitment you can’t neglect. But that’s boring.

Instead, Kingsolver compared a garden to a child and added some flavor to the story. Much more pleasing to the reader than the muddled mass of words it could’ve been.

Let's get technical

Kingsolver used a metaphor to spice up her writing. A metaphor is a comparison between two unrelated things. And although they’re unrelated, the qualities of one translate to the qualities of the other.

Children and gardens are entirely different beasts, but as Kingsolver showed us, they share the same needy qualities.

The parent and the gardener make similar commitments.

I create you. I clean you. I care for you. I’m a constant companion until you grow up and move out. In one case, to the table, in the other, to independence.

It’s a creative way to describe something that may otherwise be boring.

Every sentence you write won’t be a page-turning masterpiece. But if you sprinkle your writing with metaphors, the sweet sentences will buoy the bland, and you’ll have a well-balanced, delightful piece of work.

Happy writing,

Joe

P.S. Looking to take your writing to the next level? Respond to this email and ask about my consulting services. I’d love to help you write some wonderful words!