A kitchen garden is a garden that provides food for the household. This might be anything from a couple of tomato plants in pots to a huge garden complete with raised beds. A kitchen garden for a castle is just a large-scale backyard veggie plot. Before the modern age, a kitchen garden would also include the herbs needed for vitally important medicines.

Accuracy is important because a mistake can jar a reader right out of your story. See if you can identify the problems with this snippet, which I wrote as an example:

Loren scrubbed sweat from his face, wishing for even a slight breeze to stir the summer air. The bandits’ attack had turned the fields into a morass of mud. He and Rosa scavenged what remained: squash, peas, a few windfall apples. Rosa fashioned a ragged wreath from pansies and delphiniums that brought some scant cheer to the sorry harvest.

We know it’s summer, but the story mentions harvesting peas. Peas are a cool-season crop that withers in the heat of summer. Here in zone 5 I usually sow them around March or April and again in August for a fall crop. And are they snap peas, snow peas, or shelling peas? Snap peas and snow peas don’t store well, so you’re more likely to eat them fresh. Dried shelling peas are the ones you’d find in a castle pantry.

You also don’t harvest apples in summer. The earliest apples you’re going to get will be in August, and those are typically for fresh eating, not storage. Your winter storage apples won’t be ready until October-ish. And the squash? You might be harvesting zucchini or summer squash (unless you’re me), but winter squashes like butternut ripen later. The flowers are another problem. Like peas, pansies prefer cold. You wouldn’t find them growing at the same time as summer flowers like delphiniums.

You could avoid these pitfalls by making up your own flora and fauna, but you don’t want to force your readers to check your world’s glossary every five seconds to find out that “finera” is an apple-like fruit that grows in summer. Here are some easy tips on how you can avoid obvious errors in your own writing when it comes to growing and harvesting vegetables.

Know Your Climate
There’s no way I’m ever going to grow citrus in Chicago. You need to consider your climate when describing what your characters grow for food. One way to do this is to apply the USDA zone map to your fantasy world, then check to see which vegetables grow best in that zone. Is your elven city more like Minneapolis or Miami?

Know Your Plants
Can’t tell a rutabaga from a rhubarb? Stick with easier choices instead. You can’t go wrong if you explain that your starving villagers subsist on onions, potatoes, and turnips all winter. I like this web site from the University of Illinois Garden Extension which describes vegetables that grow best here in Illinois.

Know Your Harvest
You don’t just pick stuff, toss it in a basket, and stick it in a root cellar. Some vegetables need to be processed before they can be stored. Processing might be canning, drying, or even freezing if your world has that capability. Perhaps your wizards have created magical “ice-boxes” powered by spells of cold!

You also can’t store certain foods together. Apples give off ethylene gas which causes potatoes to sprout. There are several excellent books on how to preserve food including The Big Book Of Preserving The Harvest and Putting Food By, which include detailed information on the best ways to harvest, prepare, and store various vegetables and fruits.

When in doubt, do a little research on what real-life kitchen gardeners do. A great place to start is Kitchen Gardeners International. You’ll find that the art of growing and storing food really hasn’t changed that much, giving you plenty of raw material for your next story!

Madeleine L’Engle’s books are such wonderful flights of fancy, it’s hard to put them down. You can’t Hollywood this stuff – A Wrinkle In Time can really only be appreciated in one’s own imagination. The same is true for the rest of the series. I don’t want to see Progo the cherubim as CGI, and if you tried to re-created IT, it would only look like a brain in a jar a la Star Trek: Return To Tomorrow or Futurama.

Thinking about A Wrinkle In Time had me reminiscing about other favorite childhood books. I’m not sure I can pin down only one favorite, but these are some of the ones that still hold an honored place on my bookshelves.

The Girl With The Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts
Katie has silver eyes and weird powers, and has just discovered that there might be other kids like her. Mrs. M in her muumuus, Lobo the cat, Mr. P, Jackson Jones… they all help and hinder Katie in their various ways as she struggles to find the other kids and the secret behind her powers.

Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
When the clock strikes, the door opens onto a magical garden that disappears by day. Tom finds himself traveling back in time into the memories of a girl named Hattie. Is Hattie a ghost, or is Tom the ghost? A story of a wonderful and impossible friendship.

The Ghosts by Antonia Barber
When Lucy and Jamie see the ghosts of two children in the garden, they are thrown into an adventure in which the past must be changed to set things right. The children, Sara and Georgie, died in a fire almost a hundred years ago. Lucy and Jamie have to find out how their ghostly friends died and change the past to ensure their own future.

The Case of the Vanishing Boy by Alexander Key
If I did have to pick a single favorite, this might be it. It’s from the author of Escape To Witch Mountain – now, get the movie out of your head, because the book was SO MUCH BETTER. And this book is better still. Jan has lost his memory and is fleeing from something he can’t remember. He encounters a girl, Ginny, who is blind and yet still appears able to see her surroundings. Together they uncover a plot involving mind control, kidnapping, a mad scientist, and a strange place called Elysium.

What are your childhood favorites? Share in the comments!

And I’ve discovered the big secret to re-inventing yourself as a writer. To become a writer, you have to decide you are a writer.

It doesn’t have anything to do with how many stories you’ve published or how well you’ve built your author platform. Don’t get me wrong, those things are important. They develop you as a writer, but they don’t make you a writer. Only you can do that.

I sat down a few years ago and decided that I wanted to write about business and technology. Actually I was already writing about business and technology, for my clients and on my Tech Tips blog. But I wanted to pursue it in depth, because I love writing about things like social media, cloud computing, and data security. Today, I’m a successful freelance IT writer – because I decided I was. And because I decided I was, other people (read: employers) saw me that way too.

I’m applying the same strategy to fiction. I love science fiction and fantasy, as anyone who’s had the misfortune to utter the words “doctor” and “who” in the same breath around me can attest. You can achieve your goals, too. Just decide whatever it is you want and go for it. If you fail, so what? Isn’t that better than not trying?

There it is, the super-duper big secret to re-inventing yourself as a writer. Hush, don’t tell anybody how basic it is. Everyone thinks “becoming a writer” is such a big deal. Your first published piece, that’s a big deal! Becoming a writer is a mindset. And in that mindset, here are my New Year’s writing resolutions for 2012:

• Write more
  Number one on the list. A writer has to write, and I write a lot, but this year I want to focus on getting these fiction pieces off the back burner. I’m also continuing to spread my wings as a freelance IT writer.
• Submit more
  Which brings us to resolution #2. My goal this year is to finish stories and get them out the door pronto. No sitting, no waiting, and NO MORE REVISIONS. It’s easy to say, “This piece isn’t quite ready yet” when you really mean “I’m scared to submit this.”

But it’s no good writing in a vacuum, which is why I’m also going to:

• Interact more
  On Twitter, on blogs, in the sf/f community. I’ll also be sharing tips for writers based on my experience as an IT consultant and social media expert, so stay tuned. (If you want a head start, check out my Tech Tips blog where I have oodles of information on everything from marketing via social media to protecting yourself from viruses.)
• Read more
  The more you read, the better you write, and I could never resist a book anyway. During my sabbatical I returned to devouring novels like candy. (Or, in the case of A Song of Ice and Fire, more like poisoned gruel.) I’ve got Paolini’s Inheritance lined up next, and when that new Pern novel is out it’s mine, baby.
• Buy more silly geek toys
  Because the only thing better than a sonic screwdriver is another sonic screwdriver. And doesn’t every garden need a Weeping Angel?

What are your goals for 2012? Share them in the comments!

See Tech Tips for more information on the SOPA/PIPA debate, including links to the latest news and resources you can use to contact your legislators:

Tech Tips: What You Need To Know About SOPA And Internet Censorship

Uh-oh. And it’s January. That’s significant for me, like a cosmic message saying, “You are supposed to write about this.” (I believe the universe added, “Now, stupid,” but that part was muttered under its breath.)

Because I suffer from depression and anxiety, too. Not offically, as I have an abject abhorrence of anything approaching therapy, but I’d be a fool to think it was anything else. In my case it revolves around my adoption, hence my issues with January because that is when I was born and adopted. There is evidently also some biological basis, but that’s one big joojooflop situation better discussed on my 73adoptee blog.

My BFF (howdy, sis!) calls me “high functioning” because I can go about my daily world while depressed. As far as I know, most people aren’t aware of my inner struggles. Maybe that, too, is naive, and everyone is really whispering behind my back. It’s not something I want to talk about in public – which is why I’m blogging about it. I might not have bothered if The Bloggess hadn’t brought it up, but too many suffer in silence and that’s a theme I know all too well. I’ve discussed it at length on 73adoptee. Adoption and depression go together like peanut butter and chocolate, only not as tasty. (There’s a related entry that I posted on 73adoptee this week: my annual thoughts on adoption, birthdays and depression.)

Just as people in the adoption community are not supposed to talk publicly about the downsides of adoption, people who suffer from depression are not supposed to discuss it either. That’s why The Bloggess’s post is so important. It’s rare to find someone who is so honest about her experiences with depression. I wonder how someone who doesn’t suffer from depression would read it. Would they find it disturbing or unusual? It resonated to me.

I use writing, both fiction and nonfiction, to combat depression and anxiety. You could call it a crutch, or creative therapy without shelling out the health insurance. To me it’s more of a spiritual necessity, a formative part of an identity already fractured by adoption: I-Must-Write. Not-Writing equals walls closing around me. I can’t let my imagination stay in one place. Reading, writing, blogging keeps the depression at bay, like a single candle in the cavernous dark.

It’s also why I love science fiction and fantasy. Escapism is my coping strategy. I don’t care if it’s inappropriate to admit that. Why should it be? It’s how I’ve always lived. I don’t know another way. I’m not sure there is one. I’m not sure I want one, because it also gives me incredible strength. I see strange and often beautiful things in the world around me that I might otherwise miss. I appreciate my husband and kids more. I can enjoy things with the wonder of a child. I get to talk with really cool geeky people about really cool geeky things that other people might think stupid. Like, does it really matter exactly how long you can run the Enterprise NX-01’s engines at Warp 5? Of course it does! It makes life more hopeful to pursue the things that make your heart soar. If no one did we would all be like the people of Camazotz, forever hypnotized into a dull routine.

I wasn’t sure if I should post this or not, because it exposes a lot of my personal life and because it may change the way some of you think of me. But then again, I’m the person who used to run down the halls of my all-girls school with a phaser and a Starfleet comm badge. I have always erred on the side of independence versus conformity, struggle versus stagnation. If what I have to say bothers you, you’ll unsubscribe and ignore me. If it interests or inspires you, you’ll stick around and maybe we can all learn something from each other.

It’s good to be reminded that depression comes in waves and it is possible to ride the crest for a while. I guess it doesn’t matter if we come crashing down afterwards as long as we know we’ll eventually rise again. So big thanks and thumb’s up to The Bloggess. Your message came at just the right time for me and a lot of other lost and lonely souls.

(She wrote a followup post which you should read also. The Internet community is rallying to the cause of those who suffer from depression and it’s already making a difference.)

Image: m_bartosch / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Ah, Christmas Special!
Narnia’s better than sharks,
and moms rule the day.

Matt Smith one-liners!!
Androzani got some props.
Love the weepy end.

For those who think it
wasn’t epic enough, grief
is universal.

Zany. Heart-breaking.
It’s classic holiday Who.
With hammocks. I KNOW!

Yes, I get the politics. The Tribune owns the Cubs and DS9 was aired on the Tribune’s TV station, WGN-9. Meaning that every time there was a Cubs game it was a near-certainty that DS9 would get pre-empted. Actually it was worse than pre-emption, because they always jumped into DS9 episodes “already in progress,” sometimes by a half hour or more. That’s enough to make any fan madder than a pack of rabid Cardassian voles.

Thus was DS9 completely ruined for me. I enjoyed the first couple of seasons but once the pre-emption started, I simply gave up. This was in the days before DVRs and Netflix, and syndication was years away, so it wasn’t like you were going to be able to watch it later. Sometimes they’d re-air that day’s episode late at night… but it was never on the schedule and seemed to be a last-minute decision. I wasn’t about to stay up all weekend long to see if they might deign to do so.

Such a shame, too, because there was a lot of good stuff in DS9 that I quite enjoyed once I had a chance to watch it properly. Like Far Beyond The Stars, which as far as I’m concerned is one of the best stories ever, not just in Star Trek but in science fiction as a whole. The pilot episode Emissary is also notable for the kickass way a grieving Sisko lashes out at Picard, whom he views as the reason for his wife’s death during the battle against the Borg at Wolf 359. Many fans felt it was about time somebody gave Picard attitude, and Avery Brooks delivered in spades. I would totally have him at the negotiating table over Picard. None of this diplomatic bullshit, no sir.

It’s ironic that baseball was the cause of DS9′s Chicagoland pre-emption given the role baseball played in the series itself. Eventually I got caught up via re-runs, but it was never the same. At least Voyager was on Wednesday nights and wasn’t likely to be interrupted by wrestling (not until Tsunkatse, at any rate). To this day DS9 remains my least favorite Trek. I’m not sure if I liked the Voyager (and later Enterprise) crews better, or if the continual disruptions of DS9 left a bad taste in my mouth.

Enterprise deserved better ratings than it received. The crew had good chemistry, the episodes were well-written, and the exploration of Starfleet’s early days made for interesting watching. Here’s why Enterprise has an important spot on my shelf.

Scott Bakula as Captain Jonathan Archer
As a Quantum Leap fan, hearing that Scott Bakula was going to captain the next Star Trek was like being told they were going to bring back Doctor Who. (Wouldn’t that be cool?) I’m just sorry we never got to hear him sing.

The Enterprise NX-01
It’s a sweet little ship. No wonder Archer stole it from Starfleet and took it for a bit of a joyride (just to prove a point, mind). Trip Tucker will scold me if I don’t mention that the NX-01 has the first Warp Five engine, designed by Archer’s father. Just don’t stay at top speed too long. It’s very much like Microsoft system requirements: technically it’s a Warp Five engine, but you really don’t want to go above four point nine.

Shran
How can you not love Shran? He’s blue. He’s Andorian. He’s Jeffrey Combs, for pity’s sake. Cut off his antenna and it only makes him more cynical. His blood runs cold and his weapons run hot, and he doesn’t have much tolerance for pink-skins.

New beginnings
No holodeck. No replicator. The captain doesn’t even have a swimming pool to play water polo. But we get to see Hoshi invent the Universal Translator and Phlox discover medical breakthroughs that will affect Treks to come. It’s nice to see how it all starts, especially the interactions between original alien races like the Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites.

The intro
Why does everyone hate the Enterprise opening credits? It’s a montage of important figures and events in space history (including a few fictional ones as segue into the Star Trek universe). Considering what real-life people go through in the name of space exploration, the least you can do is sit there and offer a moment of silence on their behalf. </rant>

Honorable mention: Gary Graham as Vulcan Ambassador Soval. After Alien Nation I kept expecting him to shout and pound on things.

Plus, five don’t-miss Enterprise episodes:

Terra Nova
The Enterprise discovers a long-lost Earth colony, where the inhabitants have forgotten they’re human. A good early episode that gives us a chance to get to know the crew, plus intriguing backstory about the Novans and their colony.

The Andorian Incident
This early episode, in which Archer, T’Pol and Trip are held hostage by Andorians at a Vulcan monastery, exemplifies a lot of what makes Enterprise worthwhile. We’ve got some nice interactions between our three top officers, quick-thinking military maneuvers by Reed, and sulky, sneaky Vulcans sparring with uptight, gun-wielding Andorians. And we get to meet Shran for the first time.

Shuttlepod One
“The universe can giggle all it wants, but it’s not getting any of our bourbon.” Trip and Reed end up trapped in a shuttlepod and running out of air, after believing the Enterprise destroyed. So much fun you’ll forget it’s The Galileo Seven without bothering to file off the serial numbers.

E²
The Enterprise encounters their own ship from seventy years in the future, now crewed by descendants who are determined to help them prevent the Xindi from destroying Earth. Timey-wimey episodes are always fun and this one has a lot going for it, especially the fabulous acting by David Andrews as Lorian.

Babel One/United/The Aenar (Okay, so that’s three episodes counted as one.)
Andorians! Tellarites! Romulan drone ships! The beginnings of the Federation, plus plenty of screen time for our man Shran.

Honorable Mentions:
Shadows Of P’Jem, Fusion, Minefield, Regeneration, First Flight, Twilight, North Star, Home, The Forge/Awakening/Kir’Shara

Somebody out there owes us three more seasons of Enterprise to bring it up to the Trek standard of seven. I want to find out how Travis Mayweather’s family is doing, if Hoshi’s students miss her, if Trip and T’Pol are ever going to end up with a halfway normal relationship. (Yeah, I know, never mind the final episode or the retcon in the novels.) Enterprise may be underappreciated but I suspect that, like the original series, it will become more popular over time.

Meanwhile, we Enterprise fans will be here, enjoying our chamomile tea and Chilean sea bass. Drinks at the 602 Club? Be sure to ask for Ruby.

The reality is, I spent my sabbatical fighting darkspawn with only my mage staff and a few trusty friends for company. I’ve traveled Westeros from South to North, and looked upon the icy Wall and the wildling hordes beyond. I traveled through time – well, I always do that, but this was to attend the wedding of River Song. I cried my eyes out over the loss of our beloved Sarah Jane, Elisabeth Sladen, and laughed myself silly over the ending of Torchwood: Miracle Day. In other words, I flung myself headlong into my favorite genres: fantasy and science fiction.

Sometimes you approach a crossroads in life and have to make a choice. I enjoyed my job as a freelance computer consultant, and in some ways I’m still doing it. But there was something missing in my life. I didn’t have time to read or watch my favorite sf shows. It got so bad there were NEW PERN BOOKS I HADN’T READ. I couldn’t let a travesty like that continue. (And if you don’t know what Pern is, drop everything and go read some Anne McCaffrey. Right. Now.)

So I decided to rediscover what I loved about sf/f, especially fantasy fiction. I attacked my long-neglected reading list and found out why everybody thinks George R. R. Martin is the best epic fantasy writer of our time. I began playing Dragon Age, fell in love with it, read two of the books and watched the DA: Redemption series on the Web. I subscribed to blogs, attended webinars, followed people on Twitter. And I was astonished at how much fun it all was!

And how much I missed writing fiction. I meant to work on some stories during my sabbatical, but I found it difficult to concentrate. In retrospect I needed the down time to mull over what I wanted to do with my professional life. I’m glad I took the time, because my fiction is the better for it and now I’m ready to throw myself at writing full-force. This blog is the expression of my journey. I’ll be discussing things I’m enjoying in the genre, plus seeking and offering advice for fellow writers. And hopefully down the road I’ll have some publication details to share!

If you’ve found your way here from one of my other two blogs (Tech Tips and 73adoptee), welcome. I assume you’re here because you were curious about what I’ve been up to, or wanted to figure out why in the name of sanity I’ve chosen to run THREE blogs (and believe me, some days I ask myself the same question). I’ve created a handy list that explains the blogs I write and how to find me online.

Questions? Comments? Ask away. If you’d like to receive notice of new posts, you can subscribe via email or follow me via RSS or Twitter @trionaguidry.

Triona’s Tech Tips
Blog: www.guidryconsulting.com/techtips
Web site: www.guidryconsulting.com
Twitter: @trionaguidry
My professional blog is for people seeking computer help. I offer tech support tips, security advice, and help with blogs and social media. Tech Tips grew out of my consulting business, as a way for me to provide timely information to my customers about computer news and security. Anyone is free to subscribe by email.

living in a fantasy world
Blog: www.trionaguidry.com/blog
Twitter: @trionaguidry
My personal blog is for anyone who, like me, is addicted to fantasy and science fiction. I talk about geeky stuff and seek advice from fellow writers in the genre. If you like swords and time travel, stop by and say hello.

73adoptee
Blog: www.73adoptee.com
Twitter: @73adoptee
My adoption blog. Mostly for members of the adoption community, though guests are welcome (open minds preferred). Here I speak as an adult adoptee about the issues facing us today including stereotypes, bias, and the restoration of our identities and civil rights.

If you’re interested you can also contact me via LinkedIn and Facebook:

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/trionaguidry
Facebook: www.facebook.com/trionaguidry