What I've learned from watching things die

Comparing good work to planting seeds is probably one of the most overused metaphors in storytelling. Yet all those examples have done is convince me that 99% of people haven't planted anything in their lives.

I've always liked gardening. I'm no expert on it and probably have whatever the opposite of a green thumb is, but I've helped enough things grow to give my 2 cents on it.

It takes a lot of seeds to grow just 1 good plant. For whatever reason, a seed you throw into the ground and water well may never grow at all.

You can do everything right, and it still may not work out.

Other times, they'll sprout up and wither after a few weeks with no indication as to why.

And in special cases, you get the one seed that makes it through to maturity. The fruits it bears make all the failed attempts worth it.

Ernest Hemingway is one of the best writers ever, and this is how he described his writing output:

"I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-nine pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket."

When you look at someone else's garden, you see the beautiful trees and flowers but not the dead saplings or the seeds that never made it out of the dirt.

When you envy someone else's work, you see the fruits of their labor but not all of the failed attempts and wasted time, money, or relationships.

Relax and just keep doing the work.

Keep your masterpieces and "put the shit in the wastebasket."

It's a skill. You plant all of these seeds, come up with these ideas, and try to get them in the ground as quickly as you can to see how much you can help them grow.

And while your goal is a bountiful tree, a great novel, a successful company, or even a relationship, you have to accept that most of your seeds won’t survive infancy.

Over the last few years, my family has grown two papaya trees in our backyard. We didn't plant the seeds, but we got the trees young enough so that they weren't already bearing fruit.

When they finally began bearing fruit in bunches, it was cool to watch. But what was cooler was watching one of them die.

You see, one grows along our home, and the other stands a few feet across by the fence separating our yard from the neighbor's.

The one by the neighbor's yard was always eaten up by birds and other insects and animals, while the one immediately beside the house was relatively unharmed and still stands today.

There are a few reasons why this might be the case:

• I live in Florida, and it's hot in the summer. The house provides some shade to the closer tree while still allowing it to receive sunlight, while the other tree is exposed to the unforgiving sun at all times.

• The neighbors rarely go in their yard, so it's often home to all kinds of stray animals and creatures that can creep onto the tree through the 3-foot-tall fence beside it.

I'm sure there are other reasons, but I'm no master gardener, so I have no idea what they are. These are just the two obvious ones.

The point is that you need to learn from the deaths of seeds and plants you grow. Otherwise, they die in vain.

Similarly, I start a new essay almost every day. I write something that I picture as this beautiful new story, newsletter post, or even book. But I've killed so many of those ideas because they refused to grow.

But they are never a waste. Sometimes, I take parts of those ideas and save them for later. They are the "compost" that I use to feed the dirt where I plant the next idea.

Most times though, I just learn from the failures.

• Did I wait too long to start on the idea?

• Should I have waited until I was done with this big book idea I'm working on to start the next one?

• Was it simply the wrong season for me to plant this tree?

These are the kinds of questions I ask myself when my seeds don't grow.

These questions make me a more skilled gardener. I'll be able to better care for my seeds because I won't repeat the same mistakes again.

But it doesn't mean I will be able to look at a seed and tell if I can grow it fully or not. That's impossible.

The only way to know if a seed will grow is to throw it in the ground, nurture it, and wait.

But even if you want to grow just one tree, make sure you’re prepared to try a few times. Never throw all of your hope on a single seed.