How to begin: Susan Orlean on "The Orchid Thief"
Spark & Fire: Fuel Your Creativity
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Chapter 5 Into the Swamp
When you stop worrying and start working, the momentum begins. I convinced myself that it was essential in order to write this that I see a ghost orchid. Ghost orchids are evanescent. They bloom very briefly. You might walk past many ghost orchids, and none of them are blooming. This was the great prize that LaRoche had been after. The entire story revolved around this single special orchid. I had to see it. But the thing about swamps is they have a kind of repetitiveness of plant life. There's penny wort everywhere and the same scrubby trees and the same fallen logs,. so it's very easy to get lost
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