How Plants Can Help Your Writing! They can... I promise...

I have a confession:
I’m a plant killer.
I don’t wanna be … but I am.

Every spring I buy an ungodly amount of flowers and hope, nay, pray, beg and promise to the flower gods that I will remember to water these new bulbs of life.  Sadly, without fail, I kill them three or four weeks later.  I over water them, under water them, forget to water them and ,only once, accidently water them with sudsy water. 
ACCIDENT!
I promise.
My reign of flower carnage was so epic, the eldest mini-me asked the granny, aka my mom, if she could come over and plant the flowers because, “Mommy’s flowers always die…"

 *whisper*

"I think all flowers are afraid of mommy.” 

Fruit of my womb right there!  Turned traitor on me for a few petals of pink and chocolate chip cookie.  

So why would this spring be any different?
Because, the flowers I bought last year for my writing room are still BLOOMING!!!!!
I have three plants.  Yes, THREE PLANTS that have survived the curse of my brown thumb and declared an end to the rein of houseplant terror that has plagued me for YEARS….
I spend soooo much time in my writing room.  Sometimes there’s just the mad click of fingers on a keyboard, but often—more frequent than I’ll ever admit— there are times where I just need a sounding board, an ear if you will, that will just sit there and take whatever I dish out. 
Let me introduce you to my cheerleaders:

This is my inspiration plant: 

When I’m feeling full of self-doubt.  This is the plant I turn to: 

It was given to me, not on Mother’s Day, put on an ordinary day by middle-me.  MM came into my room and said, “Momma, Daddy said you weren’t feeling very good so I asked him if we could buy you this.”  Hands me the plant. I weep and give the petals their initial assault of salt watering.  “I know this will make you feel better momma.” 

Now don’t laugh, but this next plant is my whipping plant.  It’s gangly and ugly and really should be shoveled somewhere!  When the WIP or revisions aren’t going as planned… well, just look at this thing! Scrawny little thing needs some love, but when I tell those beany barbs how pretty they look … we both know I’m lying. 

Finally, my OMG-holycow-how is this even existing in the same space as me- plant.

Take a minute.

This beauty’s been with me for almost THIRTEEN MONTHS!!!!!!

I named this plant HR.  This orchid is where I turn to when I think one day, just one day I may sign with the agent of my dreams.  It’s for every book I read that made my head shake in awe; for every passage I’ve written that could be as awesome as those before me.  I talk to THIS plant: 

HR sits right next to the whipping plant to remind me that every line that looked like this…

 could one day look like THIS!

I really do think every writer should have at least one plant in their writing space.  If for no other reason to hold you accountable.  It's easy to let an hour slip into a day.  A day to slip into a week. A week to... well, you know where I'm going with this.  Three very different plants on different watering schedules require my toosh to walk by my computer when I'm in a funk.  If those plants are dying... then so are my dreams of being an author and that's just not acceptable.
Now go water your WIP plant!