Making Banana Bread, or, Waiting Until The Store Is Open

Making Banana Bread, or, Waiting Until The Store Is Open

I've got book two of Angie Sage's Septimus Heap series 'Flyte' and i'm devouring it. I loved the first one (Magyk), and found the third (Physik) at the Memphis (Michigan) library and thought "Hey, if there's a first and a third, there's bound to be a second!" and so I searched and lo, it was delivered to my local Capac Library yesterday afternoon. I've since found there is a fourth (Queste) and a fifth (Syren) and a sixth (Darke) and i'm very much looking forward to them all.

Because i'm reading so many books lately, I have yet to start writing book two. I know I really should be getting on top of that, but i'm just not in the right place yet. I can't force myself to write. I mean, I can, but it's all crap if I do. And I don't like to write crap.

So, yeah, right, the way I figure this is that say I want to make banana bread (which, incidently I am doing right now) and I find that I don't have any bananas because a certain family member has eaten them in the space of time when I decided to make the banana bread and when I actually started to make it. I can taste the banana bread, just thinking about it. soft crumbles of moist cake and maybe a handful of nuts, a thin layer of butter after a crisp dip in the toaster... ahhhh...

But remember now, there are no bananas. None. And be cause it's past 8p, one can't just saunter up to the store and buy more because the store is closed and they frown on breaking and entering. Especially if all you're going to do is steal bananas.

So what are you to do?! No bananas means no banana bread! Oh, but hey, there's a can of pumpkin in the pantry! You can make pumpkin bread! Nevermind that the can of pumpkin is for pumpkin pie on thanksgiving. Nevermind that you wanted banana bread. You'll just have to deal. It'll just have to be different. It just won't be what you want.

Forcing myself to write is like wanting to make banana bread but someone ate the bananas. I don't have all my ingredients. It just isn't right. And if I go ahead and make pumpkin bread, it wasn't what I really wanted and will probably go bad and to waste and have to be thrown away. Do you get my point?

And to make matters even worse (really, what can be worse than no banana bread when you really want it?), if I do give up the can of pumpkin that is being saved for the pie, I lose out on both banana bread and a pumpkin pie. Or, this means that I am unhappily writing crud and giving up time that could have been spent reading a good book. lose-lose situation.

So for me, I like waiting until the store is open. I like having all my ingredients. The way I gather my writing ingredients is to read a book. Then maybe read another. And maybe another. Until just that right time when my fates or muse or little genius (see Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk here) decides that it's time that I get this book finally written. And when they decide that the time is right, watch out! i'll write 15k in two days and it'll be soft and sweetly crunchy and full of little walnuts... and just perfect. I mean, the bread will. The writing might take a few revisions.

So what do you guys do? Do you wait for all the ingredients, or do you make something else in the meantime?

Oh, and I highly recommend The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. It's amazing. And if you like that one, i'd recommend The Secret History of the Pink Carnation. Be warned, however, Pink Carnation is a bit of a bodice ripper in two places. Both novels have two parts to them, one that takes place in history, the other is modern day (1991 for Deliverance Dane).