Celebrating my 100th Blog Post and Reflecting on the Writing Journey

As I sat down to draft this month’s blog, I happened to glance at the statistics posted on my WordPress “dashboard” and noticed that this will be my 100^th blog. I can hardly believe it. I have written the equivalent of another novel without even knowing it! What started as a way to dust the cobwebs off my analytically-wired work brain and begin creatively writing again, has evolved into something much more.

Back when I posted my first blogs in the summer of 2018, I was trying to juggle too many things and finding it difficult to find time to write—the dilemma faced by nearly every writer I know. I was also full of insecurities, unfamiliar with the publishing world, intimidated by the supposed need to find an agent, and sure that my writing wasn’t “good enough” for people to want to read it. Those first blogs were about trying to find your way as a writer in a world that was changing at a bewildering speed, with printed books moving to digital and audio, fewer people reading in general, and AI competing with honest-to-goodness human writers.

Now, two published books, 100 published blogs, and hundreds of (mostly positive) comments on my books and blogs later, I am at peace with where I am on my writing journey. For that I have you to thank, my blog readers, for it is you who have given me the confidence to soldier on through the murky world of publishing today and continue to write what is meaningful to me, and hopefully, to you. And now, the blog from July 2018, for your reading pleasure.

I am a gardener. And I’m a writer. So naturally, every day from 9 to 5, I am wracked with guilt and mild self-loathing. When I am outside in the garden, I feel guilty that I am not at my desk, butt-in-chair, working on my next blog or novel. When I’m at my desk, I wonder what kind of idiot willingly sits in a dark basement on a beautiful gardening day.

Recently, though, I had an epiphany. Rather than be at war with myself every warmish day, I decided to think about this internal conflict in a completely different way. Why not “write” while I’m gardening? How’s that you say? Haven’t I mentioned that I write novels? Not about roses or rutabagas?

Once I opened my mind to it though, I realized all the essential elements of a novel are there in the garden. The life and death struggles. Helpful companions and diabolical adversaries. Bold characters that hog the sunlight and secondary characters content to live in their shadows. I began to see the narrative arc that begins in spring with the struggle for life, followed by the triumphs and tragedies of summer, and finally, a satisfying ending—or a disappointing one— in the fall, depending on the skill of the “author.”

Armed with this revelation, I came to my garden one morning with new eyes. As I weeded beneath a “Roma” tomato plant, I paused to consider what it had to tell me. Instantly I was transported to a small patch of garden in the backyard of my Sicilian grandmother on the West Side of Buffalo. I remembered how she favored this fleshy cultivar for the Sunday sauce we could smell as we came up her front walk. So I added a section to my novel about grandmothers and this beloved Sunday ritual.

As I continued with my creative riffing, I began to think about the tomato as a character—how it dominates the home vegetable garden, needs constant attention, and can’t share a bed with either corn or potatoes. But like many complex characters in literature, I knew the tomato, like Severus Snape or the Frankenstein monster, was misunderstood long before it was loved. I did some research.

For many years in early America, the tomato was avoided, even shunned, because of its family history and physical appearance. A member of the deadly nightshade family, some thought the tomato was poisonous and possibly used to summon werewolves. Others of a more puritanical bent believed the succulent, red orb was too sexy, possibly an aphrodisiac in disguise. It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that respectable gardeners finally accepted the tomato as a character they wanted in their garden. Now this Casanova (it still bears the sobriquet, the “love apple”) has a starring role in many of our favorite meals.

And so I’ve learned to come to the vegetable garden with a writer’s mind. The stories are there. All I need to do is bring my imagination along with my watering can.

Moxie Gardiner is a writer, gardener, and traveler who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, NY. In a previous life she was a journalist, magazine editor, speech writer, and policy wonk. Back in the day she made three solo parachute jumps, flew in an F-15 fighter jet, and crawled through mud pits at the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama. She now meditates, grows tomatoes, and enjoys a good online Zumba routine at home on winter evenings. Virgin Snow, her first novel, was published in 2023, and Black Ice, Book Two in the Buffalo trilogy, was published in July 2026. Stay tuned for updates on Book Three!