Describe My Process

Nexus of Writing and Cooking, Part 13

Aaron LeMay, one of the most interesting people you will ever meet and probably my coolest friend in the world, recently asked me, "Tell me about your writing process." To put this in context, Aaron and I are working together to complete his book, "The Gamer's Way," which is a self-help philosophy based on treating life as a game that you are playing, complete with pause and save-game functions you can use to help you analyze your "game of life" as you play to make better decisions. 

This book and concept are very zen, which makes sense because Aaron has studied Buddhist teachings and many other Eastern philosophies. He also has worked on some of the biggest games you've ever heard of, including HALO and Saints Row. Did I mention that Aaron is one of the most interesting people you will ever meet? I had the honor to work with him at En Masse Entertainment, and not only is he a fascinating fellow, he is one of the best bosses I've ever worked for.

Now, you may be asking me, Will, what the hell does all this have to do with making Chili? I mean, that is a pot full of Chili up there in the corner, right?

Okay, let me get right down to it. When Aaron asked me about my process, I didn't have a great answer for him. You see, even though I am a strong proponent of outlines, when it comes to actually writing scenes and chapters and entire novels, I am more of a "seat of the pants" writer. To be totally honest, I don't fully understand my process. 

A few days after I tried my hardest to convey to Aaron how scenes form in my head and how inspiration for some small detail that occurs to me to place in one scene often burgeons into some huge plot or character point a few chapters later, I was making chili for the family. 

Now, I haven't made chili in months. It's just not a meal that most people want during the summer. So, when I started making the chili, I realized that my chili-making experience is very similar to my writing experience. 

Let me explain.

I've been making chili for a couple of decades now. The basics of it are mostly unchanged. I brown some meat, I add crushed tomatoes and diced tomatoes (for texture), tomato sauce, beans, maybe some onions, peppers, garlic, and/or mushrooms, and spices. Then I simmer for many hours, tasting periodically to determine what more it needs to get it right.

This is also the basics of my writing. I come up with an idea and write some level of outline (from a rough couple of paragraphs listing the main plot points to a multi-page, chapter-by-chapter, outline detailing all the rising and falling action over three acts. After that, I sit down to write. 

With the basics of the plot (like the basics of the chili recipe) in my head, I begin adding action and character moments and dialog that move from plot point to plot point, adding things in here and there as I realize it needs some spicing up here or there and go back to add something or take out something (which you can never do in cooking, so bear that difference in mind).

Now, over the years as I have gotten better at both cooking and writing, my recipes have changed and evolved. I now sear the onions, peppers and garlic in a pan and then add a little crushed tomato and oil and blend it all into a paste, which I add to the meat and beans (an idea I got by watching videos from Binging with Babish).

I still add diced tomatoes, onions (and sometimes mushrooms) to the pot (again for the added texture and flavor). But, where I once relied on chili powder, salt and garlic for most of my flavor, I now use much less to get the flavors right. This provides much more depth of flavor over my earlier, more amateur attempts.

In my writing, I now look for more character moments and delve deeper into their motivations instead of just driving my way through the plot like I once did. Again, this adds more depth of flavor, more depth to the characters and their connection to the plot, which one hopes helps draw readers in and provide some emotional connection to the story and the characters. 

But here's the thing. I still don't know ahead of time how it's all going to turn out. I have NEVER made a pot of chili that tasted exactly like any of my other pots of chili. I am not following a strict recipe of exactly this many ounces of onions to this many ounces of peppers to this many cans of tomato sauce, etc. That's why I taste as I go along. If it is too tame, I add more spice. If it is too spicy, I add more sauce (although that rarely happens). 

The same thing goes for my writing. Even when I have a full outline, I never know when I start a scene if it will go exactly the way I envision it will go. Sometimes the characters want to say or do things differently and I follow them along to see how it all turns out. Sometimes a piece of description will catch my eye and send a scene in a completely different direction than I had envisioned.

Let me give you an example from the new Kolchak novel I am writing. Kolchak is investigating a haunted hotel and needs to speak to the hotel manager. As I'm writing the scene, the manager accosts Kolchak verbally and he responds in kind. This initial meeting, which I had never envisioned when I began writing the scene, colored the entire conversation. It became even more adversarial than I had ever intended, but it provided some great insight into who the manager was and what she thought of Kolchak, which I will be able to use later on.

But I also know I have to hit the points in the plot that I have written down in my plot, so when scenes go in different directions (and sometimes take the plot in a different direction after more scenes continue down that new path, I know I must nudge the characters and the story back toward the plot. This is like adding a dash of salt or garlic to the chili. 

The interesting thing is that like the seasoning, I know the story needs something to get it where it needs to go, but I'm never certain which small bits of dialog or action or character moments will get it back on track, so I have to keep tasting and changing as I go until I get the result I desire. I can't push it too far too fast or it will leave a bitter taste in the readers' mouths, just like a pot of chili with too much salt in it.

The fun part of all this is when something unexpected happens and it turns out to be the exact thing I needed to really make the story come together. Here is a small example of what I mean. I was writing a short prequel to flesh out the back story of one of the characters in another short story I had written. Lobo is a young star ship pilot. When the ship runs into trouble, he ends up sprawled beneath the berth of a crew mate after everyone else has gone off to battle stations. 

For an extra bit of flavor, I added the name of the crew mate instead of leaving it vague. Now that this crew mate had a name, though, she became a character in my mind with a backstory of her own. She had just been promoted to lieutenant but still berthed with the ensigns (a bit of Lower Decks playing in my head at the time). 

Later, when I decided the emergency was going to cost the ship its entire bridge crew, this brand new character became the acting captain, and it turns out she knows Lobo's value far better than the now-dead officers because she had worked beside him (and even been saved by his piloting skills). This sets up the finale of the story (and the main plot point of this prequel) when this new character I had not even known existed until I named her, relies on Lobo to save the day. 

I often find these small tidbits of flavor in my writing that I have added to a scene come back later and become far more important than I originally intended. I don't claim I can see the future and know these will become important — that I am adding them as some sort of almost as prescient foreshadowing. I think it all comes down to taking the time to add bits of spice that I know will add to the overall flavor of the story and then as I am tasting it later on, seeing how I can use that spicy bit to add some extra depth to the story.

So, yes, my writing process is a lot like my chili-making process. I have a vague recipe I am following that has evolved over time into a more complex process, but in the end, it all comes down to playing with the flavors as I go and tasting it all the way along to make sure the flavors all meld together and provide some depth to the experience.

Making a Roux

The Nexus of Writing and Cooking, Part 6

Sauces are the bane of my cooking existence. They are these magical things in restaurants that make your mouth water with their creamy decadence and their complementary (and sometimes counterpointing) flavors that, as the Dude might say, "really bring the dish together."

Don't get me wrong. I've had successes with sauces. I once made a wonderful Oscar sauce (creamy crab topping for a grilled steak) that was utter perfection, as good as any I've ever had in a high-end steak house. But, the next time I tried to make the same sauce, it utterly failed. In the parlance of a real chef, I believe it "broke!"

I've always been afraid of sauces, which is part of the problem, and I have not spent much time learning the fine points. In fact, until recently I didn't really understand how to make a roux, which is the basis of most sauces. It always seemed so alien. You add flour to melted butter to create these globs of solid matter, and then somehow when you add the liquid in, it all becomes this wonderfully rich, creamy sauce. How in the world do all these disparate elements come together to make something so divine?

Then I watched Andrew Rea (of Basics with Babish) make what he called the "best turkey gravy of all time" (and it was!) on his Last Minute Thanksgiving special. I finally had the"Ah hah!" moment while watching him combine the heated stock to the roux a little at a time while stirring constantly. I realized at that moment that it all works similarly to making risotto (which I learned from another Basics with Babish episode). 

Even then, I have made mistakes because, you see, the proportions are critical. Get one thing wrong and it all breaks. Yes, you can fix a broken sauce, but I am still working on that particular skill as well. Sometimes, I just have to throw it all out and start over.

The Roux of Writing

So, you may be wondering, how does all of this relate to writing fiction? What is the roux of writing? For me, I sometimes find a special, roux-like sauce in the plotting done by certain authors. A wonderful combining of disparate plot elements and characters and story-lines that somehow come together to draw you into the book and sweep you along for a wild ride even though, early on, it all looks like a bunch of different pieces that will never combine into anything coherent.

Let me give you an example: The novel, Leviathan Awakes by James S.A. Corey, which is the first book in the set of eight science fiction novels that are the basis for the hit television series The Expanse, drops readers into a strange future world that they know nothing about. Here humanity works on and travels to many of the planets, moons, and asteroids in our own solar system.

This first "Expanse" novel has two main POV characters: Holden and Miller. Both men live and work in the asteroid belt and both have character flaws that become apparent as the story unfolds. Both characters are following threads of the same overarching plot, but neither even know the other, let alone that they are working toward similar (but not exactly the same) goals. In fact, Miller and Holden don't even meet until chapter 23! More than 40 percent of the way through the book. 

Miller and Holden are the butter and flour of this story. They are two wildly different pieces that you follow through separate adventures until they come together in a clump, waiting to be smoothed into a cohesive whole as the rest of the story unfolds.

I love this type of story. I enjoy following a story where not everything gets explained up front. This means that you, the reader, must deduce certain things from context as the story unfolds, which allows for surprises later on. This love of murky stories might have come from my early love of mysteries. I love when I get that "I knew it!" moment when my deductions were correct. And, sometimes I would get the "Oh. I get it now" moment instead when the big reveal happens. Of course, this assumes the writer was doing their job right and didn't leave gaping plot holes that broke the story. 

Another example of this in recent times was the HBO miniseries, The Watchmen. Set in the same world as the original graphic novel. this series takes place many years after the climax of the original source material and involves a different set of characters. There are many big mysteries in this series that the viewers must wait and watch to see how they unfold. Questions like: who is involved, which side is everyone on, why are things are happening the way they do and, sometimes, who the heck are some of these characters abounded in this series, especially in the first few episodes. I loved it. That was a complex sauce that looked like clumps of lumpy flour for a long time before the story started to come together. But come together it did!

Intricacies of Making the Sauce

I have tried this in my own writing with some degree of success. As with making sauces for my meals, I sometimes get it right and sometimes miss a bit. The toughest part for me is tamping down my urge to explain everything. This is something that does not come easy to me. I'm a chronic over-explainer (just ask my family).

I attempted this (fairly successfully, I believe) in my recent novel, Soulless Fury. The story has two main characters who, like Miller and Holden, don't meet until about a third of the way through the book.  I also have several other POV characters and, in fact, the novel starts from the POV of a fairly minor character.

As with making a roux, however, writing a novel with multiple, completely separate POVs, or where the story unfolds at a slower pace, or where the author doesn't explain every intricacy of setting, character and plot as soon as they are introduced, can be tricky. Here are a few ways to avoid pitfalls so you don't end up breaking your story.

Engage the Reader. A well-made sauce is rich, flavorful, and velvety. It delights your taste buds. If you're asking readers to come along with your characters for several chapters before they begin to understand what is happening in the story, you have to make it worthwhile. Engage readers with some strong action sequences, glimpses at the deeper mystery, sparkling dialog or descriptions. In short, give them a taste of the rich payoff they will receive if they stay until the end.

Know Your World. If you are spinning a complex yarn with multiple characters, exotic locales, and/or a complicated set of plots and subplots, it is pivotal that you know how that world works, who those characters are, what those locales look like, and how all the pieces interact with one another. You absolutely cannot wing this and expect the whole to stand together. You may want to keep your reader in the dark about certain things, but if you are in the dark about them you will end up with gaping plot holes that will break the story.

Provide Enough Context. Readers need some information about characters, plot, and locales to keep them grounded in the story. This is where the proportions of the roux become important. If you explain too much early on, the story can get bogged down in descriptions and nothing will ever happen. On the other hand, if you don't provide enough context, you run the real risk of losing the interest of your readers. Small bits and pieces added in at the right moments can go a long way. Make it feel natural, too. Don't force it. And never, ever, ever, use the phrase "As you know." If that character already knows this information, why is the other character telling them about it?

But Don't Overwhelm. the flip side of providing enough context is overwhelming readers with too much information. This is especially true (and all too easy a trap to fall into) when you are writing in fantasy or science fiction worlds. By their very nature, they are filled with strange creatures, places, and technology (or magic) that the readers won't understand. And then there are the names. Some authors just love to use long, fanciful names for their characters, which can make it nearly impossible to remember them later.

Example: I will admit that as much as I loved Leviathan Awakes, I got a bit lost early on as Holden and his eventual shipmates, Naomi, Alex, and Owen started on one ship, spent time on a smaller ship, and then got captured and held on a third ship, only to escape from that ship on the vessel that would, finally, become "their" ship, the Rocinante. Each of those ships had a name, but I couldn't tell you to this day, what they all were. 

Bring Everything Together 

This is the most critical piece. With a roux, it is the stock (or whatever liquid you use to turn the clumpy bits of buttery flour into a milky smooth sauce). For a novel, the secret ingredient is often the overarching plot or the disparate goals of the main characters that somehow align in the end and bring all the different strands of plots and subplots together in a mad rush to the climax. 

In my novel, Soulless Fury, one main character is chasing the other, who it turns out also is searching for a third character. (A character that isn't introduced until chapter 12!) When all three of these characters finally come together in chapter 24, they begin to realize how much they have in common even as the rest of the world and their individual backgrounds are driving them apart. They are then faced with the choice of working together or continuing to be adversaries. Their ultimate relationship — and the climax of the story — ends up falling somewhere in between in, what I hope, was a satisfyingly rich sauce.

Mise en Place

 The Nexus of Writing and Cooking, Part 4

A couple weeks ago, I talked about the tools you need to cook or write. This week, I want to talk about prep time. If you watch any cooking videos on Netflix and YouTube (My two favorites are Binging with Babish on YouTube and  The Chef Show on Netflix) you will see chefs routinely have all the ingredients they need for a recipe right at hand, often in the exact amounts and separated into cute, little bowls or ramekins.

This is called “mise en place,” which is a fancy French term (like a lot of cooking terms) that means “everything in its place.” Obviously, this beautiful presentation of prepared ingredients is great for videos because it makes the cooking appear effortless and speeds up the process on camera (no need to measure and pour when you can simply pour). But, professional chefs do spend time on preparation prior to cooking. (Well, they have a staff of cooks to do that, but you get the point.) And you can even purchase “mise en place” containers for your kitchen.

Even if you don't have a professional set of specialty bowls to hold all your ingredients, You still need to have things like salt, pepper, and other spices easily at hand while preparing a meal because recipes often call for specific amounts at precise times during the cooking process. You also need to cut up any aromatics (onions, carrots, celery, etc.) ahead of time so you don't have to take time away from stirring a tricky sauce to find and dice the next set of ingredients. 

I actually do the whole mise en place set up when making pizza at home. I dice up onions, olives, mushrooms, and peppers, cook and crumble bacon and sausage ahead of time, chop spinach and, sometimes (if I don't have leftover sauce in the fridge), prepare some marinara. I do all of this well before I start making pizzas. So, while my family sees pizza as a quick meal, there is a whole lot of prep that goes into making that “fast food” fast.

I do all this prep specifically because it allows me to build the pizzas quickly, just like at my favorite pizza chain, Mod Pizza. And, really, any time I am making a sauce or soup or anything that requires more ingredients than just simple, dried herbs, I do all the prep first (and build in the prep time needed to my meal preparation time estimate). If I want to put a family meal on the table at 7 p.m., I generally start chopping onions around 5 p.m. (Note: I use a lot more onions now than I ever used to before I started watching cooking shows.)

From a cooking standpoint, this all makes sense, right? You need to have everything ready to go once you light the stove so you don't end up scorching the pan while you chop the next ingredient. That's not to say you cant improvise in the middle of making a dish and go search your spice drawer for something to add a little pizazz. I do this all the time (and I will talk about improvisation in a future blog). But, in general, I think we can all agree it is better to prepare your ingredients ahead of time.

Well, guess what? The same goes for your writing. Surprise! Okay, I'm sure no one is all that astounded by this revelation. If you want your writing to have any depth beyond the words on the page, any lasting legacy beyond the rising and falling action in the plot, you need to spend some time on research, and not simply to get your facts right.

In fact, the best writers spend a great deal of time on research before writing a single word. Robert J. Sawyer, a highly successful writer friend of mine, does more research before writing than any author I know. I asked him how much time he spent researching Robert Oppenheimer and the events surrounding the development of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos during World War 2 before he wrote The Oppenheimer Alternative. 

Rob told me he spent an entire year doing research before writing a lick of the novel. He lists 132 books in the bibliography at the back of the novel that he used as research. Rob says he read about half of those cover-to-cover and skimmed the rest or used them as references materials while writing.

Now, Rob is a successful author who can afford to spend a year on research, but that doesn't mean the rest of us should skimp on our preparations. The fiction I write is mostly set in other people's worlds. That doesn't mean all my work is done for me, though. I must read what has been written about the characters I am using so they feel right to readers. I need to research the worlds I am writing in so I don't make mistakes when describing places that have appeared elsewhere. Whenever possible, I try to do the bulk of this research before I start writing. 

So, what kind of preparations do you need make before writing? Let's take a quick look at some of the “ingredients” you need to prepare before you begin writing your next story.

Plot

Obviously, you need to know what your story is about before you write it, but there is more going on here than that, and may levels of preparation. I often write detailed outlines before I start on a novel. but other authors find chapter-by-chapter outlines too constraining. I actually wrote Strangled by Death, my upcoming Kolchak: The Night Stalker novel, with only a rudimentary outline, and this process can be very freeing. 

However, at the very least, most authors will lay out a plot structure before just diving in. You want to know where the action will rise and fall so you can build the tension effectively from beginning to end. The three-act structure isn't just a cliche in writing, it's a useful tool for telling compelling stories.

Characters

Again, this is a fairly obvious ingredient. But this is an area where lack of preparation can really doom a story. If your characters lack dimension and depth because you failed to put in the time to flesh them out, they won't pop off the page. Not only won't they be memorable, but readers will fail to connect with them at all. They will become little more than stick figures you move around to push the plot forward, and it will show.

So, before you write, get to know your characters. Delve into their personal histories, find out how they think, what they like and hate, how they speak, and how they react when under pressure.And, if you create a minor character while writing who is there to do more than just move the plot along, take the story off the burner for a moment and take some time to prepare a backstory or character study of that figure before you move on.

Setting

Preparing the right setting for your story is just as important as creating strong characters. If you're writing a story set in the real world, setting the story in a big city versus a small town makes a statement. Setting it in Chicago versus Seattle makes a statement. Setting it in Europe or Asia or South America makes it a very different story than setting it in America. 

Then, once you choose the setting, you MUST put in the work to make sure you get that setting right. If you're creating a fantasy or science fiction world, you need to know how the realities of that world work. Is there magic? How does it function? Is there technology? How does it affect the world and the people in it? Many fantasy novelists spend years creating their worlds before they even start writing. And don't think you're off the hook by setting the story in the real world. If you get the names of streets wrong or don't understand the geography of the setting, you will ruin the story for anyone who knows that locale.

History

Much of this category could be covered under character and location. You need to know and understand the history of these elements just as deeply as you know their present. For example, if you set a story that turns on racial injustice in Birmingham, Alabama you absolutely need to know how the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist church in 1963 impacted the civil rights movement.

Even in fictional settings, however, history is an important element of a story. As I mentioned in location above, you will need to spend time creating the history of the fictional setting for your story, and know how it impacts the current situation where you have placed your characters. If you don't spend time researching or creating this history, the world of your story may feel hollow or fake and could fall apart on close inspection.

One last piece of advice about history, that I believe I first learned from Tracy Hickman at a panel on world building. He said that your world must work. It must function for the people living in it. It also should be basically at peace prior to the beginning of your story (at least on the surface). Your story begins the moment something changes that disrupts the status quo.

Repercussions

If you are writing a story where the disruption that kicks off the plot affects a lot more people than just the main characters, you will also want to spend time researching the impact that this disruption will have on your setting, your characters, and even your plot. 

Let me provide an example. In one of my favorite Robert J. Sawyer novels, The Terminal Experiment, the main character accidentally invents a device that can detect the soul when it leaves the body. The story itself, is about the personal journey of Dr. Peter Hobson after the existence of this device (and proof of the human soul) goes public. But, throughout the book, Rob provides glimpses of the repercussions of this hugely impactful event on the world around the main character.

On a more personal level, spending time before you start writing considering how the events of the story will impact the main character — how those repercussions and ramifications will weigh on the character and, potentially, change the character — will make your character's story more impactful for the reader.

The Nexus of Writing and Cooking

I've been a home cook (not a professional chef by any stretch of the imagination) for at least 20 years. I became the principal cook for our family of five back when I first took up the mantle of "freelance writer" back in 2001 after layoffs cost me my dream job at Wizards of the Coast and my wonderful wife landed her dream job at Fisher-Price. We packed up our house and moved across the country — for a second time (stories for another time) — and I became a stay-at-home dad.

In the beginning, my cooking was pretty rudimentary. We had a lot of cereal and Pop Tarts for breakfast, PB&J and baloney sandwiches for lunch (or tuna fish if I was feeling industrious). And, because I grew up in the Midwest, we had a lot of meat and tater dinners. Pork chops cooked to an inch of their life in a skillet and boxed mash potatoes were commonly seen on the table. I also relied more heavily than I would like to remember on Hamburger Helper.

But, here's the thing: Eventually, I got better and better at cooking. I figured out I could cook my own pasta and add spices or a can of soup to make my own versions of all those boxed meals. I experimented and I practiced every day. (It turns out kids and spouses are pretty adamant about wanting to eat after school and work on a daily basis.)

At the same time, my writing was getting better, because as a freelancer, I also was practicing every day — and like my cooking, the results of my experiments and practice were put on display because there was no time to "play for myself" as it were; all of my words needed to go from my desk to an editor's desk.

Luckily, at home, I had a pretty easy audience. Kids aren't looking for Beef Wellington. They're fine with burgers and brats. But even back then I started to find my own style of cooking and favorites began to appear more and more often. I distinctly remember the day that I realized that not only were home-made mashed potatoes far superior to the box version, they weren't that had to make. Boil, mash, mix in milk, butter, and salt, and then keep adding milk until it gets really creamy.

Then came Karen's potatoes. This was a recipe my mom sent me from a friend of a friend who loved decadent comfort foods. Karen added sour cream and cream cheese to her potatoes on top of a LOT of butter. Oh. My. God! It was so good. From then on, I would look for new recipes whenever I got tired of making the same thing over and over. I wanted to really experiment and up my game in the kitchen.

Then we moved back across the country again when I landed a job in the video game industry in Seattle. I had less time to experiment and we needed quick foods after a long day at work, so tried and true became everyday, which meant lots of burgers and brats and pork chops and pasta again. 

But something had changed in the five years we spent in Buffalo: the Internet had really exploded and YouTube had arrived. If I wanted to try something new all I had to do was enter a search query and up came dozens of recipes. I would look for simple ones that had ingredients we had on hand and whip something up. My success rate was rising and I was getting a bit of reputation among the family at home as well as friends and co-workers at potlucks.

My wife and I missed German Potato salad, which we used to get from a can in the Midwest, so I found a recipe. My wife fell in love with Butter Chicken at an Indian restaurant near her office, so I found a recipe so I could make it for her. We went to see Avengers and afterward wanted to try Schwarma. After finding a fantastic restaurant in Downtown Seattle, I thought, "I can make that," and found a recipe I still use (we had Schwarma just the other night in fact).

Around this time, I also began experimenting with the recipes to make them more my own. I found a wonderful Moroccan spice blend that I substituted into my schwarma recipe. I love barbecue, so I found a rub recipe and made some modifications instead of relying a store-bought blend. (The image above, showing me applying my dry rub to a couple racks of ribs was taken as part of an application to become a traveling BBQ reviewer.) Just like with my writing, as I became more comfortable with how the different elements of the recipe worked together, I could make intelligent substitutions.

Then came YouTube cooking shows. I had watched a lot of Chopped, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and Alton Brown's shows on cable for a while and definitely learned a lot more from those than I ever had from following recipes. For one thing, I learned I hadn't been holding my chef knife correctly. I also learned how to season and cook steaks to perfection (as well as pork chops and fish — mo more dried-out meat in my house). 

But my education as a cook has increased ten-fold in the last few years since I became addicted to Binging With Babish. If you haven't seen this YouTube series, go check it out now and then come back in a few hours (or days) to finish reading this blog. Andrew Rea's show takes foods shown on television and movies (like Schwarma, but also like Sponge Bob's onion sundae) and shows how to make them — and how to make them better.

What I love about the Babish YouTube Series (he also produces Basics with Babish) is that he is self-taught (like me, only a LOT better) and talks to his audience as equals. His directions are clear and he explains why he is doing things and not just how to do them. I have learned more about cooking from watching Babish than from any other source.

So, today, when I am deciding what to make for supper, instead of thawing some ground meat and grabbing a box of Hamburger Helper, I go look in the freezer for inspiration. I check out the meats we have and the veggies and anything in there I can turn into a side dish and, in my mind, I create a meal plan for the night where every dish if building on the others to create something special.

Again, this is how I write as well. I get my characters together and their various plot lines and their histories that might come into play and I weave them together in — what I hope — is a pleasing story that not only hangs together but transports the reader to another world. As with my cooking, I am self-taught as a writer. But, like my cooking, I take inspiration from others — from professional chefs and cooking gurus who know more than I do and have things they can teach me.

And that's why I am writing this blog today. It is an introduction to a new series of blogs I plan to write about how the craft of cooking and the craft of writing are not only similar in that in the right hands, they are an art form, but that they both require a lot of practice and patience. They both require practitioners to learn the basics so they can then experiment intelligently with the elements to create something that is far better than the sum of its parts. 

I don't claim to know it all about either subject, but as a talented, self-taught, semi-pro at both, I think I have some insights into what is needed to succeed and, maybe, how to avoid dried-out, flavorless dishes.

Until next time, keep learning and never stop experimenting.

– Will

willmcdermott.com