Book Written Published and Launched - What's Next?

Books can be like gardens, I think. And writers can be like gardeners. The writer toils away to do their very best, planting their words into some kind of ordered way, pruning anything not needed, taking away weed-words to let the useful and/or beautiful stuff prosper.

A book that has been written well, will bring joy to many, as a well-made garden can bring joy to others. Both books and gardens, if neglected can turn to unwanted rubbish too, though. Many writers, like many gardeners, can begin their task, but due to a variety of reasons, neglect to finish off what they began, and so what could have been lovely, languishes in a far less than lovely condition.

When you do the work though, what lovely gardens and books can come into the world! I'm a writer. I think about things, lots of different things, and I look at the world, think about the world, in a variety of ways and in a variety of forums. Twitter and Facebook have been places where I have placed many words, perhaps wastefully, or perhaps not. Who can tell if and when something a person writes might connect with someone else and inspire more, and one may hope wise, words.

The garden related images here are both from our garden - the rose bush the rose bud grew on has now been pruned and is ready to burst back into action now that Spring is rapidly approaching. The bush with the orange flowers is a Cape something or other bush (I always forget its name). The two bushes were already growing here, as the rose was, when we moved to our home nearly forty years ago. My husband has done much of the work in our garden, and I certainly am thankful for that. He toils outside as I toil inside, with my writing. We both work at what we do, with good results, most of the time.

The book here, '"Dog Buddha's Thoughts", is my most recent one, a funny book, which is the third in the Buster the Dog series, which began with "Dig It - Gardening Tips For Dogs", many years ago, and which gave the name for this blog. We moved out to the country so we could breed dogs, and we did that, and the related dog showing for quite a while. But life changes and things we want to do, and get joy from, can change too. When the fun faded with showing our dogs, it was an easy enough thing to simply give it all away, and retake our weekends for other pursuits.

Life and meaning go together, and to live a life well, you must be able to find meaning in the living of that life, I think. This issue is one I've begun thinking much on in the past days, and perhaps my next book will be an exploration of meaning, and senses. The 'senses' issue certainly follows on from the "Dog Buddha's Thoughts" book. In the book, Buster the Dog has a bit to say about the sense of smell, well quite a bit to say, actually. Who knows, maybe the writing of those words has prompted me new mindful meanderings around various 'senses'.

Until very recently I hadn't consciously thought about the senses that go beyond the obvious basic ones of senses of taste, touch, smell, hearing, and sight. But there are so many more senses - sense of self, sense of self-esteem, sense of wonder, sense of understanding, sense of humour, and I'm sure many more. As I wrote, I've only just begun thinking about these things, there may be plenty more to come!

Thank you to readers of this blog, and if anyone knows the name of this plant, please tell us! I will send a copy of the second book of this Buster the Dog series of books to the first Australian person who leaves a comment here! This second book is "Doggone It! Mindfulness from a Dog's Point of View".

I am going to check myself to find the correct answer, and will award this prize to the person with that correct answer.