Good Writing: It's All in the Recipe

I've spent the better part of my married life learning how to cook.  Those early months were not pretty.  Though I enjoyed eating, I lacked the capacity to simmer, steam, and stew the raw ingredients.   Dinner often consisted of Tuna Helper or fried ham steak.  Eventually, we progressed to something more "gourmet."  Gavin took chicken breast, seasoned it with whatever we had on hand, and then sauteed it in a mixture of liquid flavorings--worcestershire, soy sauce, or lemon juice.  We tossed the result with buttered rice or noodles.  Bon Appetit!

When I brought my firstborn daughter home, I found myself with large chunks of time on my hands.  Since newborns do just three things--sleep, cry, and nurse-- I found myself rocking the baby and watching endless hours of programming on the Food Network.  And thus, I learned to cook.  I began to understand the value in marinating meat, being careful to use just the right pots and utensils.  When marinating with something acidic like lemon, you couldn't leave it on the meat too long or it would actually "cook" it.  You couldn't use a metal pan.  To make spaghetti sauce taste like it had been simmering all day, add a little beef stock.  Don't over-mix the bread dough or your pastry would be tough.  I watched, and I remembered, and I experimented.

Little by little, our limited menu expanded.  I tackled stuffed pork tenderloin and grilled salmon.  I began to add my own twists to some of the dishes--a pinch of cinnamon here or a touch of tabasco there.  I printed out our favorites, refining them until at last I had my own cookbook of sorts--family favorites I could make again and again.  I declared each dish delicious because I had studied the technique, then perfected it myself.

Oh, I made mistakes in the process.  Once I tried to heat the ceramic insert of my crock pot directly on the burner of my stove.  After a series of puzzling pops, all six quarts of a very chunky vegetable soup exploded in my kitchen.  Another time, I drizzled hot chocolate over inflated balloons in an effort to make these darling little chocolate nest bowls I had seen one beloved pastry chef demonstrate.  The hot chocolate caused the balloons to burst, and I ended up scraping the cocoa confection from every surface and crevice in my entire kitchen.  Two years later, I was still finding chocolate on isolated door hinges and light fixtures.  And yet from both of those experiences, I learned some important lessons.

1.  Having the right parts on hand make a big difference.
2.  Process matters.
3.  Patience prevents disaster.
4.  Persistence pays off.

So writing is a lot like cooking.  I have all these ideas just jiggling around in my head like the ingredients for a gourmet souffle.  I want to get them all down as fast as I possibly can.  That souffle is going to be really good when it's done, but I don't want the whole thing to collapse.  The perfect combination of plot, characters, conflict, and climax can be pretty fragile.   I don't want to get ahead of myself.  I'm spending some time studying the masters and learning the craft, practicing with proven exercises, then beginning at the beginning and proceeding step by step.  Good art is rarely accidental just as a good dish is rarely the result of unguided happenstance.  In the creative recesses of my imagination, something delicious is percolating.

As Julia Child noted most sagaciously, "No one is born a great cook.  One learns by doing".  Hunched over my keyboard as I am right now, I can eat that up and taste the satisfaction of having done all I could to perfect the technique that makes for a great dish...or a great script.