A Trip to Mexico, A New Book, and This Blog

Goodness, look at the time! The last time I posted to my poor, neglected blog was at the end of January, when I was trying to grow an avocado plant from the pit inside one I'd received in a Blue Apron shipment. So much has happened since that time - unfortunately, that doesn't include a new avocado plant - that I don't know if I'll ever get caught up writing about it all, but you've got to start somewhere, right?

I wrote my latest book during the fall and early winter, and that involved some pretty intense writing time. Here's how I did it...

I literally holed up in a bedroom and did nothing but write, research, and write and research, for four straight weeks. The bulk of my book got written in that time, with many other small writing sessions and lots of editing in the weeks that followed that writing marathon.

For some odd reason, I tend to write better and am more prolific when I'm under pressure and there's nothing like a looming deadline to provide that. With a project as large as writing an entire book all by yourself (my first one - Indoor Plant Decor: The Design Stylebook for Houseplants - was with co-author and friend, Jenny Peterson), concentration and staying on task is paramount and there's no one more easily distracted than I am. Thus, pretty much shutting myself off from the outside world was the only way I was going to accomplish everything I needed to do to get that book out the door.

My bed was my desk for weeks.

After I got home from the GWA (Garden Writers Association) Annual Symposium in Atlanta last September, I looked at Romie as I headed into the bedroom which became my office, and said, "See you in three weeks," and went to work. That three weeks became four.

Jenny and Brett Davis
November 5, 2016

During that time, I got bronchitis and sure didn't feel like writing, but the book didn't care. So I slept and wrote and slept and wrote, and took my antibiotics. I got well enough to travel to Texas to see Jenny get married and visit a couple of other friends, Diana Kirby and Pam Penick, only to return home and contract pneumonia. Romie joined me in that fun. Not the trip to Texas. The pneumonia.

Then it was Thanksgiving, and then Christmas, and then book editing with both St. Lynn's Press editor, Cathy Dees, and Art Director, Holly Rosborough. Just when that was almost finished, Romie and I went off to Mexico, chasing monarchs, but not before I had another bout with bronchitis. I have to think stress had something to do with my less-than-stellar immune system, which has never been all that fantastic since I had bacterial meningitis in 1999.

Overwintering monarch butterflies cluster on the oyamel fir trees at
El Rosario sanctuary in Michoacán, Mexico.

By the time we got back from Mexico in early March, last minute book editing was the order of the day and then the book was finally off to the printer, in time for its release date of April 12th. The book has enjoyed the position of #1 Hot New Release on Amazon, off and on, ever since its release was first announced back in August, but nearly always has held that spot in the month prior to April 12th and in the month since. It has also received 21 5-star reviews so far on Amazon, and some very positive reviews on blogs. I'm grateful.

So, with my next post, which WILL be within the next week, I'll just dig right in and start telling you about the events I've attended, the gardens I've visited, the new (to me) garden products I've tested, and of course, that fabulous trip to Mexico. I promise.