Some thoughts on cooking and writing

 

Cooking and writing take up much of my day, and I enjoy both, am grateful to be able to fill my days as I do. But lately I’ve thought of some similarities between the two. If you follow my food blog, “Gourmet on a Hot Plate,” you know that I’m an old-fashioned cook, what is sometimes called a “scratch cook.” I cook on a hot plate and with a toaster oven because zoning regulations and space limitations don’t permit me to have a stovetop or an oven. But beyond those, the only gadgets in my kitchen are an electric can opener, an electric teakettle, and an electric corkscrew—all three invaluable. I do not have an instant pot, an air fryer (actually my toaster oven does, but I don’t use it), even a crockpot.

My neighbor, Mary, likes to tell me she can fix chicken soup in her instant pot in an hour or less, and it tastes as though it’s simmered all day. My reply is that I am home all day and can let a pot of soup simmer while I enjoy the aroma. And the learning curve of an instant pot intimidates me. My cooking is just never in that much of a hurry. I’m not unbearably righteous about this—I bless the Campbell^® Company because their soups make delicious casseroles and, if I baked cakes, I’d probably use a mix (but I don’t bake). Basically, I cook like my mom taught me some seventy years ago.

It occurs to me that I’m an old-fashioned storyteller too. Recently in a discussion of plotting, I read of a theory that suggested you write the first act or part of the mystery and then the fourth or last. Years ago, a friend advised that if I wanted to write mystery, I should write the end first. Both appalled me. I’m a linear storyteller—I begin at the beginning and write until I come to the end. At least once, I got two-thirds through a novel and wasn’t sure who the bad guy was. How could I have written the end?

Most readers know about plotters and pantsers. Plotters make detailed outlines, some as long as twenty pages or more, and then when they write, they fill in the spaces. It’s like having a detailed and accurate road map. Pantsers, however, write by the seat of their pants. I’m a pantser. When I start a new project, I have some idea—and some rough notes—about where it’s going. But I know even those rough notes will change as I go along and my characters surprise me. There’s a lot of intuitive writing in being a pantser. American novelist E. L. Doctorow famously said, “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights.”

Today, there are all kinds of computer programs to aid writers. One that many swear by is Scrivener which allows you to write scenes out of order and store them. If your imagination conjures up a great scene, you write it, store it, and figure out where it goes later. Or Grammarly which corrects and critiques your writing as you go. Or Plotter which helps you arrange scenes and plots and promises to get you to the end of your manuscript quickly—almost sounds as though you can let these programs write the book for you. And I guess that’s what makes me nervous about them. That, and, as with the instant pot, the intimidating learning curve.

The writer’s bookshelf is often full of how-to books that suggest best-seller status if you follow their theories. One I hear a lot about lately is Save the Cat Writes a Novel, which prescribes fifteen plot points needed in a mystery. Or you could read Jane Cleland’s Mastering Plot Twists, Plot Pefect by Paula Munier, Mastering Suspense, Structure, and Plot by Jane Cleland and Hallie Ephron. The list is endless, and there is no one perfect formula. Seems to me the new writer needs to learn the basics, but it’s too easy to get lost studying the genre and never get around to writing the book.

So, just for me, the old-fashioned way works. Best advice for writers: “Putt your butt in the chair and write.” I try to write a thousand words at a time and, ideally, do that every day. Some days it works, some days it doesn’t.

Cooking and writing, both difficult arts to master, and I don’t put myself forward as having mastered either one. But I bumble along in my old-fashioned, simplistic way, seeing only what the headlights show me. It’s a nice way to spend the day. And now? I need to look at some recipes!

Some thoughts on writing

Yesterday, I wrote 1,721 words on my work-in-progress, otherwise known as my WIP. Today I wrote 1,652. Proud of myself, except that it got me to thinking about measuring writing, if you can do such a thing. Most writers I know judge their daily progress by words written. They set a daily goal—for many it is a thousand words. And they judge themselves at the end of the day and then at the end of the week by how many words they have written. Lord knows I’m among the guiltiest.

Mostly here I’m talking about mysteries, because those are the authors I know who fall into this word trap—and I hasten to add that not all of them do. But bear in mind that the average mystery runs about 80,000 words, so if you wrote a thousand words a day, it would take you eighty days to write a novel, not counting weekends, holidays, and those days when the words just don’t flow.

The downside to all this is that there’s a temptation to set increasingly more difficult goals for yourself. Mine used to be a thousand words a day, but with this new novel the words seem to come easier and I’m averaging about 1500 a day. So now that becomes my goal, and if I only make a thousand, I feel somehow deficient. I’ve slacked off, not tried hard enough, given up. It becomes a contest with yourself.

Of course, the goal of writing should be quality, not quantity. But that somehow eludes many of us. My mysteries these days are indie published, which means I publish them. So I have no deadlines. I may say to myself that I want to get this novel out in time for summer beach reading, but there is no contract under which I’ll be punished if I miss the deadline. No one cares but me.

On the other hand, some among mystery writers—and I’m taking this from posts by Sisters in Crime—believe that what really matters is getting that first draft written. Just pile up the words. You’re going back to revise and edit anyway, and that’s the time to seek quality, not quantity. Some writers do five or ten drafts—or more—before they are satisfied with a manuscript.

I don’t. I tend to write it, go back and check for inconsistencies, awkward phrases, repetition, etc. But I rarely if ever revise to the point of changing major structures in the plot. So what I write is pretty much what stays there and becomes the final book.

When I moved from writing western historical fiction to mysteries, a move I haven’t really finalized yet and don’t intend to, I discovered a whole new world of everything from rough drafts to agents and publishers and, most of all, promotion or marketing or whatever you want to call finding clever ways to say, “Please buy my book.” But one big thing I learned was the difference between plotters and pantsers. Plotters map out the book in advance. Well before that first sentence, they have down on paper what is going to happen in each chapter, how it fits into the arc of the book, and so on. They know how each character looks and feels and how they will act. When  you write historical fiction, this is easier, because history gives you the road map.

When you’re a pantser, like me, that road map is not there. Literally, I write by the seat of my pants. I have a general idea, and often it’s the first sentence that gets me going. But then I’m off and rolling—at least that’s what I hope. The plot unravels as I write. Frequently I can’t tell you until well into the novel who is the murderer, sometimes not even who is the victim. My characters surprise me and take the book in wildly different turns.

Texas novelist the late Elmer Kelton used to say, “Listen to your characters, and they will tell you what’s going to happen.” I have known very few authors who disagree with this.

With the cozy mystery I’m currently writing, a culinary novel set in contemporary Chicago (my hometown), I am fortunate because the plot easily moves along, often without my interference. For instance, yesterday when I was napping and semi-asleep, I worked out the backstory that the protagonist needs to know to solve the mystery. So now I have notes that will carry me forward for several days. And I find maybe the mystery is going to be a small part of the story. The relationship between characters is the main story.

Writing, for me, is an exciting process of discovery. But I wish I could get over the fixation with word counts. Even as I say that, I’m checking to see how long this blog post is and finding its way longer than most. Sorry.