If writing was like cooking...

...then I'd be screwed.

Just kidding! But no, really. I can't cook. Can you?

Sometimes I joke about how I write because I can't do anything else. Craft stuff - nada. Cooking - haha. Art - LOL! Sewing/knitting/crocheting - in my dreams. Anything involving coordination? Well let's just say my husband teases me that one day I'll fail a drunk driving test while dead sober, because I can't walk a straight line in the first place.

So I can't cook great, though I do at least try (and I won't talk about the time I was newly married and made "beef stew" that was actually a crockpot full of water, veggies and boiled hamburger meat, or the Lemon Square Disaster of 2005, or the Sugar Cookie Meltdown of 2010)

But what if writing was like cooking?

Maybe it already is, in some ways.

A recipe is like a synopis, right? We hate that part but its necessary for creating a satisfying end product, and keeping us on track along the way so we don't go totally overboard on the seasonings and spices.

Then there's the ingredients, which is sort of like the rules we follow when writing. We need some suspense, but not too much. We need a lot of conflict, but only in good taste. We can't headhop in the same scene, or drop eggshells in the batter. We can't change tenses halfway through the story, nor can we change what we're cooking halfway through the recipe. (unless you're Rachel on Friends, and make half a Shepherd's pie and half a dessert Trifle...in the same bowl. HAHAHAHAHAHA. That show gives me such hope!)

There's rules in everything we do, and while the best chefs and the best authors know that sometimes rules CAN be bent or broken...there's generally good sense in following them.

After all, someone had to do it wrong first (probably me) to give the better, opposite advice ;)

If writing was like cooking, would you be with me in my pathetic, overflowing, meat-floating crockpot? Or would you Boss of the kitchen and dominate? :)