Things have been quiet around here, the fast and furious (yet silent) crank and spin of brain wheels, the sounds of finger pads prodding at laptop keys, dog toenails pacing on wooden floors (in between naps, of course).

Today, I turned in the first round of manuscript edits to my editor at HarperCollins (that’s draft two in book-speak!!). She’ll send it back to me once more with additional edits here and there, but the bulk of the writing is finished!

To commemorate this monumental achievement (for the girl who isn’t a big finisher of creative projects) I’d like to re-introduce my guerrilla garden.It’s hard to remember when this little patch was just a jagged-concrete, mostly-dirt-filled hunk of sidewalk. Over the past four months it’s become the physical manifestation of turning nothing into something with a little water, sunlight (and the occasional worm poop).

There’s no end to my amazement in this tiny plot that used to accrue rubbish on windy days:

• My prized globe amaranth flowers, the ones I sprouted from seed when it was still freezing outside (and then puzzled over for three months wondering if they would ever grow, much less flower)
• A still-alive cutting of the purple coleus plant that plummeted from our neighbor’s window box
• Mint that died and then came back to life
• Marigold starter plants (now doubled in size) my neighbors planted once I’d fenced off the plot
• The DIY fence that fails to physically form a fence any longer (thanks to a few inexpert parallel parking endeavors), but remains there in spirit

Enough waxing poetic on the miracle of creation and diligence, the dog needs walking.

What inspires you? Keeps you going?