There’s a metaphor in here for the creatives, makers, and artists so hang in there with me.

If you want to know how to grow fruit trees from seed, it’s pretty simple:

1. Germinate the seeds in warm water after getting them clean.
2. Pick good black soil, preferably worm castings or something loamy.
3. Select a good depth and breadth for planting, meaning put them deep enough based on your seed type. Make sure to be mindful of the future size of the tree.
4. Take care of that soil with light and water and crap.

Funny thing is, even after all of that and other more arcane knowledge on how to grow fruit trees from seed, you’ll still be waiting years for fruit. Years.

• 2-5 years for apple trees to bear fruit
• 4-7 years for sweet cheery trees
• 2-3 years for most berry bushes
• 2 years for pineapples

But that’s not even half of the reality. The reality is for something really good to come from something like an apple tree, it takes ten years.

Ten years from seed time to get substantial fruit.

Ten years ago, I still hadn’t graduated college and was still fumbling through my first professional submissions (even though I’d sold a couple of smaller things). Thirteen years ago I started my first novel. I am, just now, feeling as if I’m starting to bear some fruit with this. And I’m worn. I’m weathered. My face frowns more than I’d like and the lines are showing from the canvas of my microexpressions.

Kind of like a scored tree, lightning and rot, nails from signs and knots from unexpected detours, barbed wire that got caught in the stock along the way. Lots of things, but the roots keep going deeper, looking for a tap straight into that single source aquifer. And I feel as if I might hit a clean source of deep, cold water soon.

Featured download: here’s a white page on how to make brave art.

Our generation’s way too impatient. They want masterpieces delivered in an afternoon so that they can just throw them away again. That’s wrong on so many levels. I can’t tell you the number of projects that have crawled along or slowed down even though I worked as fast as I could: I’m working on a project right now that, thanks to the New York State and Tennessee State government offices, has slowed to a crawl.

Do I despair?

Or did I despair when similar things happened on the Alaska project? Or the album? Or the best novel I’ve written? In my worst moments, yes, I did. But not when I’m at my best or even when I’m just marginally operating with the deeper hope I have — see because patience comes directly from hope. Impatient people don’t believe in better tomorrows. Here’s what I do when I’m at something better than my worst and a project stalls out:

I add water. A bit of indirect light. Let the crap and dark soil hit me.

Then I incorporate whatever obstacles emerge, metabolize them into my ever-growing trunk.

Fruit will come.

Johnny Appleseed did not plant in the late 1700’s with next year in mind. He planted and moved on to the next patch of land with generations of Americans in mind. He had in mind a tree that would still be around today in 2018 in Nova, Ohio:

We are what we come to see.

I see orchards in 2336.

Tangible orchards and imaginative orchards.

What do you see?