Visiting (and Supporting) Local Lavender Farms, Building Your Own Residency, and When You Know You’ve Done Enough for Your Book

Mt Rainier with wildflower patch

Visiting and Supporting Local Lavender Farms

Glenn and I went to visit our local lavender (and later corn, and pumpkin) farm on its opening day, also the first day I felt well enough to get out of the house. It was the one cloudless sunny day before a string of cold rainy days (it was 54 degrees and rainy two days ago! In June!) And rain today. And tomorrow. After a hot dry May, our June has become June-uary.

We are thankful to have beautiful spaces in our neighborhood to celebrate. My own yard is pretty small (like most yards in the Seattle area—pricey real estate means small yards), so it’s nice to see what happens when you can plant acres of flowers or herbs or vegetables. Not to mention it’s good for local pollinators and birds. Look at this wildflower patch! And even though the lavender is just starting to bloom, it already smells amazing.

Flare, Corona in the lavender field

When Do You Know You’ve Done Enough for Your Book?

A friend of mine reminded me that I hadn’t posted a picture of my book on Instagram for a while, and also reminded me that most of my friends still don’t know I have a new book out (despite postings here, on social media, etc, for three months). And she was right! A friend just congratulated me on my new book after an Insta post this week.

This brought me to think about how and when you know you’ve done enough promotion for your new book. Even when you think you’ve done enough (and even if you wrote a book on book promotion for poets) you probably haven’t. So, Instagram post it is!

This also makes me think about my upcoming radio interview this Thursday on a radio channel in New England. Things like this are lucky breaks and bring attention to your book outside of your hometown. I’m also thinking about booking more readings this fall, and of course, still waiting for reviews (crossing fingers) and prizes (crossing fingers even more). It’s June and the book came out officially in May, though it made its debut in March at Seattle AWP. It feels like I’ve been promoting it for four or five months. But really, we should probably plan on about six months of solid promotion time for the launch of our books, including the months before and after. And for a whole year (or two), depending, we should plan to keep doing readings, interviews, or if other opportunities pop up. Poetry books have a long roll out—sometimes they sell better in year two than in year one, simply because word of mouth finally gets around, or someone teaches your book months after it comes out.

Fluffy Hummingbird

Building Your Own Writing (or Artistic) Residency

As a disabled and chronically ill person, most residencies are not built for me. If they require ladders to loft beds, or building fires, or steps, or even providing food that isn’t food-allergy safe (I’m allergic to about nine things, the most dangerous of which is wheat, in almost everything)—yeah, they’re not a good fit. I stopped applying for most residencies years ago when I realized—hey, they’re not built for non-perfectly healthy, able-bodied people. They’re not built for me. But I hear from a lot of people that they can’t do “normal” writer’s residencies for a variety of reasons besides their health—kids, jobs, or caretaking roles among them. So, here’s some ideas for people who can’t do the “normal” residencies.

Build your own! I live in a lovely area and there are a variety of places to stay at a variety of prices (yes, they tend to be higher in the summer as that’s our high season, but not always). If you can housesit for a friend going out of town, that can also count as a residency. Renting an AirBNB down the street. Anytime and anywhere you can get away—even just for a couple of days—to focus on your craft, your art and your writing, that counts as a residency in my book. I’ve got one planned in a couple of weeks, and I’ve already printed out poems for my next book to look at and started some relevant reading to prepare for it. Just this last week I spent over fifteen hours sitting in (virtual) doctors’ offices. Health problems are time-and-energy-and-money consuming. If I don’t set aside time (and energy, and money) for art and writing, it won’t happen—everything else will swallow it up. I’m sure you know how it is—if it’s not doctor’s appointments for you, it might be your family’s needs, your job’s needs, or the seven things you volunteer for (hey, I used to be addicted to volunteering, too).

Residencies should involve down time, too—you don’t have to spend the whole time reading and writing—you can goof off, sketch, visit local things you don’t normally get to, have a picnic, listen to music at full blast—anything that helps you get into your writing groove. And you can involve writer friends! Inviting a friend might help your residency to be even more productive, as you can get together and talk shop, plus friend time is important for artists of all stripes. Think about as building space for your creative self. It is just as important as any other aspect of your life, and deserves time, money, and attention. You know how, if you’re married or living with a partner, you reserve “date nights?” It’s the same for your creative self. So, think about creating your own personal artist’s residency. Good luck! And leave a comment if you’ve successfully done this!