Twice-Baked Fiction

Let’s backtrack a little. I had a challenging Thanksgiving—baking. Most of the morning was spent trying to pull together/scrape together some chocolate chip pumpkin muffins. As I was pulling and scraping, it dawned on me that my cooking skills resemble my writing skills. I tend to jump right in with the grain of an idea when, really, I need to outline. In bake-talk (or in the kitchen) that means I need to organize my ingredients before I start. And I need to read the recipe several times. In writing talk, that could mean I should read the publisher’s guidelines before I start, read a copy of the magazine—or I should have a theme solidly in my head. I should know where I’m headed.

Thanksgiving morning I did read the recipe. I did line up all my ingredients. Everything I needed was within reach. Ever notice how you can read something over and over again but one phrase just doesn’t quite sink in? That’s akin to proofing our manuscripts. No matter how often we read a chapter, there are always a few typos, or something screwy we didn’t catch.

Nine times out of ten, in baking, I tend to dump everything together—then and only then does that phrase mix dry and wet ingredients separately jump out at me. Oh well. What can it hurt?
Everything was moving right along. Ingredients were mixed, dropped in muffin papers and placed in the oven. And then husband entered, and opened the microwave to reheat his coffee.

“What’s this melted butter in here?”

“Oh, crap!” Yeah, you heard/read me. That’s exactly what I said. Then I yanked open the oven door and pulled out the 24 muffins. Odd, how fast they cooked.

Now I’m the mom who taught her daughter there’s always, always a way to fix things. There are solutions. There is NOTHING that can’t be undone, rearranged, fixed, mended.

I scraped those muffin papers clean.
Added the butter. Remixed.

The muffins were no longer orange. Because the chocolate chips had melted, mixing them made them chocolate muffins—no more recognizable chocolate chips. I spooned them into clean cupcake papers and shoved them back into the oven.

“Yum,” said hubby, ever the optimist. “Twice-baked muffins.” Yeah, they were actually good.

So, do you have any twice-baked fiction? How often have we been a little light on setting, or added entirely too many adverbs? Left out the butter? How often have we had to scrape our stories out of their present state, added another layer of emotion?

I feel more comfortable at a computer than I do in the kitchen, but creating a dessert or an entire Thanksgiving Dinner isn’t at all unlike creating a novel or a short story or a poem. Each need certain ingredients for success.

Remember, there’s always a fix. Twice baked. The trash is not an option.

Hurdles Keep Coming

Thanksgiving has come and gone and now we have Christmas breathing down our necks. Before we know it we’ll be slap dab in the middle of 2011. Sometimes I wish time would stand still and just let me catch my breath.

Before we left town to visit family, I received an email from my former agent telling me the “executed reversion came through” on The Groom Wore Blue Suede Shoes, and that she will mail it to me. I guess it’s a letter telling me Harlequin released the rights back to me. That’s one hurdle crossed. I’ve been online getting advice and suggestions from other writers about what to do and how to do it. Keep the title? Keep the pen name? Redo both? Should I self pub in book form or go Kindle with an ebook? But I’ve found another hurdle that will require a huge leap. I can’t find my copy of the book on any computer. I have the galleys—all kinds of hard copies. Remember, we’re going back to 1996. I think that computer has long been discarded. I cringe at the very thought of retyping this book so I’m investigating Dragon NaturallySpeaking, speech recognition software. Anyone work with it? I know several authors who do. It’s supposed to be new and improved these days.

Would you start typing today or would you opt for reading your book into the program?
Thoughts? Suggestions?
I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving. Let me hear from you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So much to do--so little time. I hope to be back on track (and organized) after Thanksgiving. Seems I've been on a treadmill ever since the BWG conference. I'll probably literally be on the treadmill after this holiday.

In the meantime, I pray you all enjoy your time with family and friends...that God surrounds you with His hedge of protection as you travel and blesses you with special Thanksgiving memories.

Later!
Jess