Green on the vine

I took this a few days ago as frost was coming.

Tomatoes are kind of the easiest thing to grow, so often the only thing I am growing. This is a remarkably hardy heirloom tomato called Robin that needed three frosts to really take it out; generally the first night that dips below freezing does it.

The thing about tomatoes is that right up until that first frost, they keep putting forth new blossoms and fruits and making them bigger. There are plants that recognize when the solstice has passed and the days are getting shorter - even thought it's only by a little bit at first - and they start going to seed right away. As the human observer, I know there's not enough time and sun left for them to ripen, but tomatoes keep going all in.

I'm sure this is why there are so many recipes for green tomatoes - gardeners adapt - but it still makes me kind of sad.

I achieved my October goals. As November was approaching, I started thinking about trying to do NANOWRIMO. (The very name irritates me, so I wasn't really calling it that in my head.)

That is the abbreviation for National Novel Writing Month. By the time I learned there was such a thing I had already written at least one novel. Also, the writing samples posted I saw posted tended to be pretty terrible. That made me more against it.

Then I thought about how creative expression is good for people, and writing for a month is a positive experience for many. Plus the roughness of first writing, just underscores the importance of rewriting. Because of that I have tried to not look down on it; it just wasn't something I needed previously.

Right now my blogging is a little sporadic. My journal writing is pretty regular, though I often realize it is not getting at everything that it needs to get at. I have not written anything creative, though, for a while.

I was thinking that maybe it would be a good way to get back in, write a novel or a screenplay in November. I totally could. I'd had two novels started back when my hard drive crashed. That's been over a year. Rewriting three chapters is not that bad, once you get over the initial discouragement. I could pick either novel back up, but I haven't.

I had to accept, though, that this is not the right time. There's not enough time and not enough sun.

I have thought sometimes - when there are so many things I would like to write - that I don't know that they can all possibly be done. New ideas come frequently, so even if every idea I have a desire to write now does get written, chances are that there are still some that wouldn't. I'm not the first creative person to worry about that.

But then, when I get really reflective, I also think it would be horrible to have everything done and nothing to look forward to. I spend so much time trying to get caught up. On one level I know it's a delusion, but perhaps on a different level that's a good thing.

Besides, not all of the ideas are that great. My idea for dinosaurs in the modern world was not nearly as clever as Jurassic Park (though I bet it was better than Carnosaur). And sometimes you don't even need to finish writing. Charles Dickens never finished The Mystery of Edwin Drood and it still became a musical.

I believe I will get to write things again. It's okay that it's not now, despite occasional pangs. It's just mortality, and it has different seasons.

It must be time to start writing about death.

Well, after some concert reviews.