Reading time: 2.23

Hey Reader,

What with the impending zombie (or otherwise) apocalypse, I’ve been obsessing over growing my own vegetables.

Again.

And pickling things.

Only, last year I killed a lot of tomato plants and annihilated a melon.

My tomato plants weren’t as productive as they could have been because WHO THE FUCK KNOWS WHAT “PINCHING OUT TOMATOES” MEANS?

Not me. I’m not a gardener with 583 years’ allotment experience, and every single “instruction” I found was pompous and incomprehensible to me and assumed a level of knowledge I did not possess.

So I covered my confusion by creating layers of complexity with paper notebooks, Notion documents, my iPhone Notes app, and a spreadsheet Joe made for me while rolling his eyes so much he could see the back of his own skull.

I had seed trays and little pots for each seed type and log books. I had watering schedules. I had a ground plan in which I divided up the raised beds into sections and made space for companion planting. I had a planting schedule for different “rounds” so I could have, for instance, peas for months instead of 8,502 peas in July.

Do you know what I did not have?

Chill.

I had no chill at all.

Nor did I end up with any peas.

I got thoroughly overwhelmed and most everything died and I hated myself because what could be simpler than putting seeds in the ground and growing them on a tiny scale?

Why couldn’t I just get on with it, as Joe not-unreasonably suggested?

Why did I “need” all these layers of complexity?

Cos I didn’t even know where to start.

What I needed, it turns out, was the Pot Gang. My friend Sarah told me about them and I immediately signed up for their subscription service because they assume you are a total beginner and make it absolutely idiot-proof, which is good because I am a gardening idiot.

You get three seasonally appropriate things a month, just the right amount of seeds, the right sized pots, compost, and clear, step by step instructions to follow so you don’t annihilate your melons.

You also don’t get melons because WE LIVE IN THE UK WHERE IT IS COLD AND WET.

I needed someone who knew exactly what I was struggling with and how to make me not struggle anymore.

It’s funny because I couldn’t recognise my vegetable-struggles for what they were until someone showed me what was missing.

Which is exactly what I do for my clients and their books.

You struggle along, failing to get words on paper day after day, and the book gets more distant as you add writing schedules, colourful timetables, reminders, convoluted plots and plans that mushroom your book idea until it resembles that terrifying marshmallow from Ghostbusters.

And the book never gets off the starting blocks.

The reason you keep trying and failing to write that book isn’t devilry. My MicroBook Magic clients are able to quickly see what’s keeping them stuck and overcomplicating their book idea, which is invisible until we work together — and keeps repeating until we address it directly.

And then that book gets done — or, at the very least, started and progressed with joy and enthusiasm.

That could be you.

​MicroBook Magic Season 7 begins on April 28.

Get the right seeds and the right equipment to grow your own book right here:

TTFN,

Vicky