The original version of this post was written last October for Write to Done.
Flowers feed the fire in our souls like little else, stirring several of our senses in a single swirling second. Language is the landscape, populating the white space of an otherwise empty page. Our ideas are the seeds we plant and our words are the blossoms in spring time.
I worked in a flower shop for a dozen years, back in the first few chapters of my adult autobiography. In those years, I arranged flowers one by one into the perfect bouquet; peeling petals, laying layers, and designing displays intended to halt the heartbeat of whoever happened to see them.
Now I’m a writer and so I do this with words.
I was young when I first nudged my heels into the shoes of head designer, eighteen as a matter of fact. Circumstance had set me there when everyone ahead of me fled in the middle of the night for some rather nefarious endeavors. I had no experience, but I was hungry, and had an innate belief in myself. Without training, I could only rotate my wrists according to instinct, slowly bringing every bloom into brighter focus. I ignored the rule book, following only intuition.
Within two years, wedding seasons were thriving.
Flower design is about color and texture, married in immaculate measure, not too different from writing great copy. Each of us sees the world through a different prism, the view prepared by our own million moments. Individual interpretation dictates design. Just as we all see color a little different, so do we hear the hues of language.
The way in which we string our syllables is our art to share, with no two thoughts the same. I am thankful I never sat for a class in flower design. I would have spent countless hours in earnest study of all the things I should never ever do. Instead, I discovered there are no limits.
Again, I would argue that writing is no different.
Each of us has what it takes to be a better writer. It is already sleeping inside us, waiting for its salutation. For some, this means discarding the rules the gatekeepers have handed down and listening to the quiet whisper of our instinct. Only we know how we view the world, and it is us who best understand how to make our thoughts sing with all our soul.
I’ve been writing now for a year and a half, each day arranging my words with a better measure of color and precision. Now I am a ghostwriter. Whether I am penning my next post or working on a novel, it is I who ties the bow around the bouquet. Let’s close our eyes and forget what we think we know.
We do not think of the book of love when we whisper to our lover.
When we speak through our heart, as our fingers dance across the keyboard or glide across the page, then we can make every post as pretty as a bouquet, each word placed as perfect as a posy.
Writer Dad
Sean Platt is a Ghostwriter and creativity consultant who knows a thing or two about potty training help.
