Safety Nets

 

Back in September I wrote a piece for MTW on Word Blending using the image of making wine and blending grapes.  It so happens that I am back in South Africa currently and have just had a relaxing holiday in the Robertson wine valley, two hours out of Cape Town.  

Below the equator, the start of the year marks the harvest season for grapes.  Wine makers begin the challenging task of selecting the best grapes, choosing how to ferment them (oak barrels – first, second or third fill? – French for ‘oakiness’ or American for vanilla; stainless steel tanks; cement ‘eggs’) and how, or whether, to blend them and in what proportions for maximum flavour etc.

As I walked through some of the vineyards here, I noticed that many of the vine rows have been wrapped in netting.  There are a number of reasons for this:

1. To protect them from birds.  The closer to harvest, the more sunshine the vines have had which increases the sugar content of the grapes and therefore their attractiveness to birds looking for a sweet treat.
2. Hopping insects can damage the leaves by transmitting devastating diseases that can ruin a crop. Nets discourage this.
3. Bees and wasps can split grapes open which renders them useless to the winemaker.
4. Climate change exposes vines to extremes of weather.  Hail can bludgeon a crop to pulp but nets provide a measure of protection.
5. Nets can provide a modicum of shade because, although sunshine is desirable, increasingly high UV and temperatures (over 35ºC) slow down synthesis but can accelerate something called ‘malic acid degradation.’  Reducing the temperature within a vine by bundling it up this way allows the grapes to maintain their colour and acidity levels.
6. The nets protect grape clusters from falling to the ground and so reduces the bruising and rotting damage.

My photos show simple side netting which protects both sides of the vine while still allowing worker and tractor access and with the advantage that they can stay in situ all year round.

‘What,’ I hear you ask (again), ‘has all this got to do with writing?’

Anyone who’s put their writing ‘out there’ knows the wobbly feeling in the pit of your stomach as vulnerability uncoils itself.  ‘What if no one likes it?’; ‘What if it’s no good?’; ‘What if it/I get rejected?’ (Yes, try as we might, we still all take it a bit personally.)

I don’t think it matters how many times you have been published – if you’re fortunate enough to have broken through that barrier – the feeling lingers.  Once your words are out there you can’t take them back.  Like feathers on the wind, they disperse themselves and increasingly so if they are accessible through social media.

And that, my fellow writers, is why we have our very own safety nets in the form of copy editors, developmental editors, beta readers, agents with eagle eyes and, of course, groups like the ACW.  We need objective eyes on our work so, while it’s wonderful to have the support of your family, we need less emotionally invested pairs of eyes to scrutinise our work.  Core groups of pray-ers are a great boon too.

Our words reflect back on us, they reveal something about us and may linger long after we’ve shaken off our own mortal coil.  Ensuring that they’re the words we want to send and leave behind is prudent and wise.

There are genre groups within ACW full of lovely people who are there to encourage not to tear down.  Many of them have years of experience and can gently, kindly, let you know if you’re on the right track.  If you’ve made a glaring faux pas in your writing it’s better to find out sooner rather than later.  I've been so grateful for the readers who found these for me before anyone hit a 'publish' button. Finding mistakes after you’ve published will be embarrassing at best. 

There are specific people who will review your manuscript or poem who are listed at the front of the ACW magazine.  Check it out.

Making use of these ‘safety nets’ is a strategic and sensible way to ensure that your manuscript baby is as healthy as it can be before it’s 'bottled' and sent out into the world. 

Jenny Sanders has spent the last twelve years living between the UK and South Africa. She writes faith-inspired non-fiction: Spiritual Feasting (2020) asks how we can ‘feast’ when life serves unpalatable menus; Polished Arrows (2024), explores the allegory of God shaping us to be fired effectively into our culture and contexts.        

         

Jenny also has two published collections of humorous short stories for Key Stage 2 children: The Magnificent Moustache and other stories, and, Charlie Peach’s Pumpkins and other stories. She is available for author visits and creative writing sessions in primary schools.  She loves walking in nature, preferably by a river, and has a visceral loathing for offal, pineapple and incorrect use of car indicators on roundabouts.