With spring almost here, I'm going to devote more effort to my writing project and my veg garden. Both often neglected in the past.
Refining my outline this week before beginning another draft.
In the garden, I straightened my tumbledown greenhouse tent and planted my first seeds. Up first: chard.
![extract from The Long Game by Elizabeth McCracken [1]
140 Don't default to the ordinary or average in
fiction altogether. If either is your subject, yes: you'll...](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xtq4fo3mvzmllvnatn42v72s/bafkreiar2ct4ew3rnl6fcdnaxccqj2lnz7irpt4u2pxo6wk5gzzbhuc4xu)
![extract from The Long Game by Elizabeth McCracken [2]
... find meaning in the ordinary and average, and strangeness
there, too, because even the seemingly ordinary are very
strange indeed, and no human being is ever truly average,
average being a mathematical term, not a human one. No
default average plot is interesting, no average language
(which can too easily mean clichés that you don't notice
are clichés, like blood-curdling). If you're tempted to think
of yourself as ordinary- think of the things you d be hor-
rified for other people to know about you, your genuine
hidden freakishness, the most inexplicable thing you did as
a teenager. Something you've never told anyone, or nearly
nobody. Then give that kink or shameful secret to a char-
acter. Who'll know? Only you. That's what fiction is for.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xtq4fo3mvzmllvnatn42v72s/bafkreihqghuevvffw2nerwzyzolig4es6dnl6kts4dvyemmcgoaepbm5aq)
