Permaculture principles
28-07-2021
Hi, this is Rehan. Welcome to this month’s update. In July I travelled to one of the most fascinating places I’ve ever been to in my life. My family and I were blessed to have spent about 2 weeks in Andalusia, southern Spain, where we attended a course on permaculture.
Permaculture? You might be asking, what is that? Well, it’s a closed energy agricultural system, where you minimize the loss of energy, or what is known as entropy. It works well on small scale farms and plot holdings and seeks to use the basic patterns we see in nature: such as Branches. Waves. Clad forms. Lobes. Scatters. Nets. Spirals. Streamlines. All of these minimise entropic forms, or the loss of energy.
As a family, we spent about 10 days up in the Sierra Nevada mountain range close to the village of Lanjaron with a group of other students learning about the ethics of permaculture, followed by technical details related to trees, water systems, insects, soil, hardiness zones and how to plant in different climates. One really interesting fact about trees, which I learned was that of all the water a tree takes in, it only uses 5 per cent. It sends back into the atmosphere 95 per cent of the water. In other words, trees are essential to make clouds. If you cut your trees down, you reduce your clouds.
What also amazed me was that fascinating things are always happening at the edges of ecosystems. Boundaries are places where species from different systems can co-exist effortlessly. Animals, such as foxes are found more at the edges, because they can get something from both systems and give to both systems
As a novelist I know this is also where the best stories take place, on the edge between two systems, beliefs, ideas, worlds, or whatever. It’s the coming together of two different things, which can create a compelling plot for a novel. So, this month, let me leave you with a writing tip, as this is something I am often asked.
I would suggest that before you start writing your story, you need to spend time designing it. You need to design your setting, character, plot and then infuse it with conflict, because that’s when you will get an emotional response from the reader.
I often come across people who say “I have this great idea for a story, I know how it starts and I know how it ends, it’s so clear to me”. I ask: “And what about the middle?” To which the response is a blank. After much effort many of them give up, because they’ve thought about how to write a novel but they haven’t thought about how to design the novel. Design comes first, writing second. A metaphor from the construction industry would be: first the architect defines the vision, sketches the drawings and produces the architectural blueprints. When this is approved, the project then moves into the construction phase. Designing a novel is akin to undertaking the work of an architect, writing the novel is akin to the physical building process.
This is how I’ve done it. For my first novel, I spent about 30 per cent of the effort on designing it. Now I spend about 20 per cent of the effort on design.
Anyway, that’s all for now. If you have any questions about any of my books, or you have any questions about writing, then drop me a note and I will do my best to come back to you. Bye for now and peace be upon you.
