This post over on Olivia's blog got me thinking (no wonder I've got a headache).
I think that writing is a casserole. You take the basic ingredients and then you add this or that to taste and you let it cook for so long or maybe a bit longer depending on your oven or the way you feel. Writing, like the casserole is an extension of you and the way your feeling on that particular day. The casserole is made up of what you've bought from the grocer or what you've got left over in the fridge. Likewise what you write comes from what's going in in your head and what research you've done or what it is that you want to say.
When the casserole comes out of the oven or the piece of writing is finished, it may be perfect it could be okay or maybe the only place for it is in the bin. Either way you'll have learned something. Perhaps you realise that you have found the secret to perpetual success in which case you carry on doing what you did or you try a new recipe.
Like the casserole writing is not a precise formula. It is not cake.
2 comments:
Ooh, Colette, I love this analogy! Sadly, I'm the kind of cook who never uses a recipe book (unless it's a very special occasion!), rarely weighs or measures anything and forgets to time things. Strangely, though, most things tend to come out more-or-less OK - well, edible anyway! I guess that's just from years of practice.
I think this works the same with writing too (for me) - I write best if I just go with the flow and don't worry too much about the mechanics of it.
How does everyone else's cooking compare with their writing?
Good question Olivia. I'm a follower of the same philosophy as you. My cooking tends to be a bit of this and a bit of that and although the same dish probably never tastes exactly the same twice its usually okay.
As for writing I tend to go with what I feel like. Quite often I come up with a sentence and take it from there. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. C'est la vie.
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