I’ve realized that the two main things I’m focusing on right now, gardening and revising a book, are actually somewhat similar. Both involve nurturing good things to make them better and killing and getting rid of bad things.

Or, as I’ve joked, gardening is satisfying because you get the joy of nurturing the life of beautiful things and the catharsis of killing things you don’t like.

In dealing with my crazy yard, I’m digging through all the mess to find the good things hidden among the weeds and invasive plants. Removing or killing the bad plants reveals the good, pretty plants and makes them healthier. It opens up the space and makes the flowers “pop.”

Sometimes, a plant that needs to be removed isn’t necessarily bad. It’s just excessive or in the wrong place. I have raspberry plants all over the yard. They may produce fruit, which would be nice, but in the flowerbeds they’re ugly and thorny. Meanwhile, all the trees in the yard have been allowed to seed offspring. I love redbuds and maples, but I don’t want that many of them, and I don’t want them in places where they’d cast shade on all the flowers. There are plenty of trees on this lot, enough to make me feel like I live in the woods. I can do “forest bathing” in my backyard. I’ve joked that I’m one of the missing Entwives from The Lord of the Rings, I love trees so much. The trees were one of the reasons I wanted this house. But I need to kill some of them and remove them so all the other plants can thrive and so that the trees themselves can be healthy.

Revising a book works the same way. You have to get rid of the stuff that doesn’t belong so that the good parts can shine. There are parts that keep the good bits from standing out or making sense. Sometimes meaning can be distorted or clouded by not using exactly the right word or by using too many words.

And there may be stuff that’s good — fun details, vivid writing, beautiful prose — that doesn’t belong. It’s good on its own, but it’s in the wrong place, where it slows down the pacing or changes the tone of the scene. It needs to be moved to a better place or even eliminated.

I’m not sure whether it’s good for me to be doing similar kinds of work in the two main areas I’m working on right now because it keeps me in the same mindset or if I need to maybe mix it up and not be having to make the same kinds of decisions all day. But this is the work that needs to be done now, so maybe I should just add some other kind of work that’s different.