Confused Cooking

I love to cook. I love the creativity involved in finding just the right ingredients then mixing them and having the end result turn out to be something wonderful. So when I began reading this section and he was using the cooking analogy I thought, ok, this makes sense. Writing and cooking; both take creativity and perseverance to do well. But the more I read, the more the analogy just started to get in the way. I would forget EXACTLY what he meant by cooking, so I’d have to go back to the beginning and re-read that section. It was cute for a while, but for me, it got old fast.

I did however like a lot of the ideas that Elbow was trying to convey. His suggestion that when we’re stuck we should talk to others in order to get other ideas. Different and even contrasting ideas. Ideas that we would have never thought of had we not gone outside of ourselves for help. Seeking help is such a hard thing for so many of us. We all seem to think we’re supposed to know how to do it on our own when in truth the most successful people are the ones who regularly ask for advice and help in many of the things they do.

I noticed some others wrote that they didn’t like his ideas on switching between different types of writing such as formal, informal, first-person, third-person, etc. I have to agree with my classmates on this idea. While it may be very helpful for others, and I don’t think I’ll have a problem suggesting it to my students once I begin teaching, for me it is just too confusing.

I also really liked his ideas on desperation writing. In fact, I had the opportunity to put some of his advice into action yesterday. A professor from one of my other classes e-mailed a new writing assignment over the week-end but due to technical problems I didn’t get the assignment until late Monday evening and it was due the next day! So I decided to give Elbow a whirl. Part of the assignment was to interpret some works of art so instead of just staring at a blank screen, I got out some paper and just jotted down as much as I could as I examined the artwork. I wasn’t trying to write the paper; I was just trying to write down my thoughts as they came. By the time I was done I had written 2 pages of ideas! It was honestly the easiest paper I’ve ever written. Thank you Peter Elbow!