What the Farmers’ Market can Teach You About Writing

This little community of early-Saturday risers have known the delicious secret of our town’s Farmers’ Market for quite a long time. Since I’ve recently joined the community of early-Saturday risers, the Farmers’ Market has become a weekly morning date for my husband and me. With tasty, fresh results! Peaches, grapes, tomatoes, Door County Coffee (Mmmmm….)

But, it got me thinking, as most things do, about writing. Here are some ways The Farmers’ Market can teach us Writers:

1. Fresh is Best.  the freshest ideas, like the freshest, in-season produce totally outweighs the mass-produced, convenience packaged ideas (and foods!) Fresh, as in, Do Not try to write the next Harry Potter or Twilight or even 50 Shades of Gray. If you’re quirky, run with it! If you’re a poet, a romantic, a sci-fi fanatic – write your freshest stuff, and rewrite it, caring for it until it’s ripe.
2. Presentation is Everything: I kinda feel bad, but not really. Those wobbly folding tables displaying pitiful containers of blueberries, raspberries and a few bedraggled ears of corn. Looks skimpy, gives the feeling of picked over produce, not a lot of love. Present your best work. Don’t send it out or share it until it’s ready. Really ready. And LOVE your work or no one else will.
3. No Preservatives: OK, this goes against lesson #2, but there is such a thing as holding on too long. Our stories should not sit and ferment while still in the drafting phase. I know this from experience. There are no preservatives in my novels. And unfortunately, because I lost faith in my first few attempts, when I go back to resurrect them, the tone has changed. I have changed. It’s no longer the same story. And my characters tap their feet, impatient with me.
4. Being Outdoors makes EVERYTHING better: Shopping, eating, talking, walking, kissing. And Writing. Write outside a coffee shop. Write while sitting on a bench in the park. Write next to a gurgling water fountain. Write on the train platform. Write on a grassy slope just outside the tents of the Farmers’ Market.