Talking about muck-raking, sorry, rock-raking, reminded me about the parallels of writing a novel and creating a new garden.
 With a novel, you start with a blank sheet of paper, or a blank computer screen, with a garden you start with something like this.
You carry out a survey and draw up a scale plan:
 
Or for a novel, you carry out research (current knowledge, what’s possible, what’s already there in your brain) and write out an outline (how you hope it might turn out, but like gardens, it’s subject to alterationi the further you get into the work).
Assessing your own abilities and competence, you go on a course: Hadlow College of Agriculture for garden design, Arvon Foundation for writing. You talk to people, get a mentor, attend events, conferences.
And then in comes the first mark on the blank surface…
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Friends who follow me on Twitter (@alison_morton) have been hearing about my rock-raking in recent days. Let me explain. We live on top of a chalk cliff. The view is magnificent, but the soil is crap. That’s a bit harsh. The soil is fertile, fine, and the weeds grow as if on Viagra. But there was a maximum of 20cms (8 inches) in ‘best’ part of the garden. Mostly, it was about 12cm (5 inches).
So enter the rotavator…
 We now have 30 cms (12 inches) to play with, but it’s full of chalk rocks (toes included at lower edge of photo for scale):
To get something like this, the rocks have to go.
Rock-raking is hard, monotonous work, but as the sun warms your back and a light breeze plays the leaves, your brain is free to wander off on plot points, characterisation, scenes.
Creating a garden from an open area of plain green is like writing a novel. Rock-raking is like editing and refining once you’ve got a surface to work with.
(To be continued)
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The correct answers were…
- How many numbered tips did I give you when researching? 4 numbered tips
- What speed was my heroine doing in her Giulietta? 130kph
- How many attended Lumb Bank? 16 ‘students’, including me
- How many things do we learn when taking it on the chin? 7 things
- What page had I reached in my first novel when I blogged about confronting it? page 41
- How many named people in the photo at the RNA Winter Party? 3 people
- How many years would I get in Holloway? 20 years
- How old is book 2? 9 months
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With a novel, you start with a blank sheet of paper, or a blank computer screen, with a garden you start with something like this.
