Writing a Book Is Making Me A Better Cook
And no one is more surprised than I am.
The guides and gurus were nearly unanimous. When you are writing a book, all else drops. Off the face of the earth, into a deep pit, onto the to-do lists of those slacker others in your life.
It drops because you drop it.
You drop it because a good writer devotes all to the book.
Maybe that works for some people, deciding to live on coffee and take-out, getting others to run errands, walk the dog, do the laundry…all those annoying real-world realities that must be done or else.
Or else what?
Or else you’re not doing writing right.
Your book will never be any good — and you will not have fulfilled your intense, immense potential if you are dragged down into the mire of small, of physical reality of having a body in this world.
Oh, no.
I’m not doing it right.
And it’s working out great.
Maybe it’s me.
Of course, it’s me. Who else would it be?
But devoting my entire heart and soul, body and mind, to this story is not good for any of us, not me, not the dog, not my loved ones, and especially not the story.
The story needs nourishment — and for me, that comes with tough exercise class, standing outside at dawn flashing a light so the coyote won’t attack my fluffy white dog, cleaning up mess, yanking out stunningly devious weeds.
When I am swinging that flashlight back and forth, making noise and trying to look threatening in slippers and bathrobe knotted grim around my waist, I see. I see the first light of the day flickering on the trees. Both the dog and I stare at creeping dawn and it feels like we both know what’s coming and stand united against it, the it being death and coyote and change.
Yeah, that’s what I think about, sleep-stunned and fierce. Don’t you dare come near my dog.
I take that fierce, unthinking decision to story later on. A character stands up for a dog without hesitation. The dog doesn’t need it, but she does.
As the dog and I go back inside, there is the exuberant mint, bursting from clay pot safety, aiming for elsewhere. I think about mint.
Last night, I made a favorite Tuscan recipe featuring mint. My writing was done for the day and I couldn’t wait to plummet back into Barbara Delinsky’s Before and Again.
Dinner was in the way.
I wanted to chop and slice, mix, and shape with my hands. Cookbook opened to the recipe, I started. When there wasn’t enough of an ingredient, I improvised. Garlic and mint are favored, so they were measured by generous eye.
I looked at the clock, thinking it was taking longer than I’d planned. Other nights, we’re already sitting down to dinner by now. Was this okay? Was I okay with less reading Delinsky’s book?
It was all okay, I decided. These are incredible meatballs. No real deadline, no true urgency, so take your time. For once, I took the time to shape all the meatballs before heating the pan, instead of surging into panicked last-minute preparation mode.
Here is the difference as the story progresses. The protagonist dices the onion, makes sure that the meatballs are uniform, well-browned before sliding them into homemade sauce. A woman lived on takeout and rushing now thinks, feels, enjoys cheering for the Yankees. The dog leans his head on her leg, knowing that he is going to get a meatball.
No cooking, no big moment in my story. No time with the dog, a pale wraith of dog character.
I write contemporary fiction, stories that could happen in real life with a twist — because real life is like that, twists and all. Twists enrich, delight, inspire — but you have to be paying attention, doing something other than agonizing over your story, shoving aside the reality and joy of real life so you can make something up.
For some writers, it might work to shove aside all the business of real life and write. For me and for others, we need to cook, to walk the dog, do the laundry so we have something to write and so what we do write is grounded in the reality we splay on the page for everyone to read.
