Crafting Our Own Writing Recipes

I can’t claim that I am much of a cook. My experience in the kitchen is mainly restricted to the creation of scrambled eggs and spaghetti. But I do have an obsession with watching a show called ‘The F Word’ with Gordon Ramsey (the crazy chef on ‘Hell’s Kitchen’) on BBC America. And from what I’ve seen, cooking looks as if it’s all about taking individual ingredients and combining them with each other, letting them mix and simmer to create a perfect meal. The same appears to be true in writing. So that in both cooking and writing, it takes an experienced chef/writer to be able to put these various ingredients together in order to make a luscious end product. A knowledgeable chef/writer instinctively understands when they need to hold off on a certain component of their recipe or when adding an additional step or element will make a meal turn from mediocre to mouth-watering.

As cooks or writers (or both), it is imperative to practice our craft. In the traditional method of writing we’re taught not to digress, not to set off on new paths that may take us away from subject X and onto subject Y if that means finding contradictions in our writing. We want to avoid conflicts because they are blatant reminders of our need to let go of the words and ideas we’ve placed on the page, the words which we’ve nurtured and become attached to in the process. But too often, Elbow points out, by not letting go, writers get stuck in the middle-they are too timid to follow their impulses, to write at the extreme ends of an emotional spectrum. This produces boring writing and weakens a writer’s skills as an editor. It takes practice to give up some of our control; it takes courage to step away from our work and analyze it with a stone cold eye. It can be painful, but it’s only by doing this that we can cut through the jungle of ‘bad’ writing and discover the ‘good’ morsels that are entangled with our less savory babblings.

This is where cooking really comes into play. By using the techniques Elbow sets out for us-like bouncing our ideas off of other people and our own ideas when others aren’t around, moving back and forth between words and ideas and different modes of writing, and using metaphors (like cooking for writing)-we become more open-minded, we see the inner workings of our minds through new perspectives, and we are able to produce our best writing. Here, experimentation is key. As writers in the growing process, we have to carry through with our thought processes and words and allow necessary interactions without stifling emerging ideas. We may make mistakes along the way, but, like with food, it takes a lot of tinkering to get a recipe just right.

In addition to tinkering, it also takes a great amount of energy and patience to get through any writing process. To help, Elbow presents different methods for getting out of a writing rut. His desperation writing/external cooking approach is a great starting point for anyone who feels they can’t bring together any coherent thoughts to the page. But realistically I think the organizing of words and ideas into piles of cards and trying to gain some unity from those cards may be too much work. From my own experience and from what I’ve heard other students say, most projects (writing or otherwise) get left until the last minute. People don’t have the time or desire to use note cards and then hope that something will miraculously emerge from their rambling. Therefore, I think one of Elbow’s last points in the chapter remains a crucial lesson: “If you have a way of writing that works well for you, keep it…” (72) For most of us, Elbow’s suggestion for allowing an interaction between words and meanings in writing (cooking) and making sure that the “words evolve through stages” (growing) is not completely foreign (73). But his emphasis on free-writing and initially forgetting about audience-awareness may be something we’ve never fully considered due to the methods of writing ingrained in our education. It can’t hurt to test out Elbow’s guidelines for writing, but in the end, each individual may find that only certain aspects of his method work for him/her. Like taking a new recipe from a celebrity chef’s cookbook, we can all choose to use what tips and advice are given but, ultimately, we must tweak that instruction to our own satisfaction.