Maintaining Garden Like Maintaining Career

I spent the morning weeding my rose garden. The weeds pulled easily since the ground was so soft from nearly a month of rain. As I removed the impediments to a beautiful, healthy garden, I found myself thinking how maintaining a garden was like maintaining a career.

Weeds Plague Gardens and Careers

A beautiful garden needs tending. So does a career. The problems that plague a garden are obvious: pool soil condition, insufficient water, not enough sunshine, and the aforementioned weeds.

The problems that plague a career are very similar: poor support where you're "planted," insufficient "watering" with new ideas to create growth, not enough "sunshine" or validation to encourage you, and "weeds" that should be removed lest they choke the life out of your career. Those pesky weeds might mean drifting along without doing anything to improve your situation.

If one applies those ideas to a writing career:

• poor support means you don't have a cheer team to keep you "up"
• not "watering" your career with new ideas, new blog posts, new books published regularly
• not getting enough reviews to make you realize your books are being read and appreciated
• not controlling the weeds until they nearly kill your career.

Weeds that threaten a writing career are:

• ignoring social media
• not learning how to place effective advertising
• not updating your websites
• not keeping readers who like your work informed about your works in progress
• not keeping up with popular culture including apps and tech.

Takeaway Truth

Always do your best to pay attention to your writing career. I know it's hard. I've been faced with chronic medical problems for my family since 2009 so I've had to choose family first. My career has suffered, but I still keep trying. If you're in a similar situation, never give up. Just keep trying and hoping that life will eventually be a bouquet of roses--with the thorns removed.