I have this great writing life.

I have this great writing life where I actually produce sentences by breathing, mostly. If not, then by eating or going in to and then back out of rooms.

I have a few electronic and physical folders where I put nonce phrases. The slowest, most personal mid-week hours produce them. It is just like the plants in my garden: from a barren, cakey bed (otherwise fertile, if mismanaged) sprouts appear. No thanks to me, they just must (earth, water, sun, seed). When I notice that one has broken through the ground, I play a sound in my head, audioizing growth: crumpling paper bags or a limp celery stalk crushed under foot. My sharp pen briefly dragging across soft, cotton paper.

Muddling through, I often water my garden at night. Equally bad, I tend to look for writing work in the fridge. When the silence reminds me that I am alone, just two eyes and stocked shelves, I decide to get on with other chores to clear my day for work. I get that reading done. I make sure I’ve taken a shower. I wipe down the ever-filthy bathroom sink…

Ick. Clean.

At the end of the day, hands on my hips, I tell people (if I see them) that I am pursuing a writing career. Then I sleep and start over exactly the same the next day. In bed, I tell myself I am surviving.

"I’m worried about you," someone said.

So, out of thin air, I decided to write or die. And lately, I’ve been watering the garden before the sun comes around.

Pulling together a writing life and a productive garden requires a few well-documented habits. On writing, Annie Dillard will tell you about them, or Natalie Goldberg or Stephen King. On gardening, I follow Barbara Damrosch and my father.

If you’re interested in either or both of these struggles, unpolished, you can follow this blog.

This year, the number of active blogs approached a plateau. I find the stasis inviting, like rubble, a flushed toilet, trees at mid-summer foliage — these and the blogosphere are the welcome mats of aftermath. So’s the wake of my writing life.

Carolyn Petri