Let's Talk: What I've Learned (Part 3)
I'd like to take today to conclude this series on the blog. Thanks for indulging me on all this. I've already given five things I've learned in a little over a decade in this business of writing about food. (You can find them here and here.) But there are two more. Or at least for now. And these last two are the hardest-fought of any of the lessons I've learned.
6. Tell the truth.
Frankly, it's easy not to in the food world. Because food takes time. And people don't have it.
I can't tell you how many cookbooks we've read that state things like "smoke the 4-pound brisket until tender, about 4 hours" or "braise the three-pounds of pork belly until tender, about 45 minutes."
Problem is, neither will be tender in the stated time.
Bruce and I believe it all comes down to a basic insecurity on the part of food writers. A brisket that large in a 200F (95C) smoker will take 9 to 10 hours, hands down. That much pork belly at a slow, proper braise will take 2 to 3 hours. At least.
And yes, those times are scary. In the modern world, definitely so. But that's the recipe. There's nothing worse than trying to fake people out.
Which is why I've tried to delete the words "easy" and "simple" from my vocabulary--unless I can prove they're legit. Sure, they've been used on this blog. Sometimes in places that make me cringe. But I'm trying to rid myself of culinary cliches--which is all part of telling the truth.
Listen, we food writers and professionals have to tell the truth. Because it's what we traffic in. Food is one of the truths of existence. No, you don't have to braise pork belly to live. (Well, not much.) But you do have to eat. We food writers deal with the some of the very stuff of life, the deep down bottom things, to twist a Gerard Manley Hopkins' phrase. So we need to fess up and say the truth. At all times. And that's hard work. The hardest there is as a writer.
How do you do that? It actually leads us to. . . .
7. Nurture your creativity.
Because you have to. Despite romantic notions of inspiration, creativity is practiced work. Concert pianists don't walk out on stage and riff on Beethoven. They practice. Endlessly.
Which goes for writers, too. They write, as I already said in a previous post in this series. Not occasionally but all the time.
But in order to so, every creative individual must nurture that inner creativity. How?
- Get enough sleep. Nobody's creative when drowsy.
- Don't get over-involved in things that take you away from the task at hand. There are a million reasons not to create. They'll build a thicket around you. Weed them out to focus.
- Remember that no idea is sacrosanct. Unless you're writing a new Bible, everything is edit-able and changeable and even (yep) discardable. The worst thing you can do for your creativity is hold something too tightly. Let it go. Work at it, you bet. But then feel free to discard it. I can't tell you how many book introductions I've tossed out over the year. Tossed out whole cloth and started over. I'll tell you how this whole grain book is going sometime. Started it three times now. Ugh. But I think I'm finally on to something. And that's because I didn't consider my initial ideas sacrosanct. I realized it's all a process, from the start to the finish.
- Set limits on how long you will work. I tend to get up fairly early and work until early afternoon--at which point I call it quits. People always ask how I can write up to three books a year. It's because--no lie--I don't work all day. I work very hard--and then I blow it all off until tomorrow. There's nothing more frustrating than sitting at my desk from 2:00 to 5:30 while my brain comes to a dead halt. I'd rather be playing Ravel waltzes on the piano. Or gardening. Or reading. Or watching a movie.
- Don't drink too much. Yep, true, despite Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and just about every writer in the twentieth century--all of whom eventually went blank, mostly because of too much alcohol. I'm not a Puritan by any stripe, but alcohol attacks the brain's memory centers and renders them dull--which is why it's the death of creativity. The very springs of your work are your memories.
- And remember that creativity is not a one-shot affair. Trust that the springs are there, that you'll be creative tomorrow and the next day. Fall back onto it and it will carry you. I promise.
And that goes if you're not a writer, too. Because we are all creative in our lives, whether at work or play. Do the things that nurture your creativity so that you can bring to the world your best self, the one who gives your children great fun after school or prepares good meals for your family or makes a magical dinner party everyone talks about or solves a particularly thorny problem at work or learns how to negotiate the shoals of a tricky part of a relationship, whether marital or otherwise. We can be more every day. Because we are creative at heart. And can be so tomorrow. And again the next day.
lessons learned, read food, real food
Reader Comments (2)
Brilliant advice! I especially agree with the part about sleeping enough.
I would also add, eat well and take care of yourself in general. You can't do your best work if you don't feel well.
Dear Mark,
Thank you. I really needed to read this. I am a healthcare writer by day and write out of my creativity the rest of the time. Excellent words to live by even if one doesn't write a jot but wants to continue to soak up all that life has to offer.
Laura