Stir the pot; in this case the plot, and you’ll see how alike writing and cooking can be.
Whether you’re writing a novella, (fast food), a novel, (a five-course dinner), or a short story, (preparing a snack), the success of your preparation depends upon mastering the tools of the trade.
Need to perfect a paragraph? Slice and dice to shorten sentences and speed the action.
Introduce suspense? Use a rolling boil.
Brown and simmer to smooth and lengthen a passage and to bring your reader’s heart rate back in rhythm.
Determine your pacing by flash-freezing, nuking in a microwave, or constantly stirring with a long wooden spoon.
Remember that your protagonist has to suffer, so turn up the heat and roast them or slow cook them.
Dealing with your villain offers the most options. Fry them, stew them in their own juice, lay them out with a rolling-pin, grill them or mash them. Alternately, you can prolong their just desserts in an all-day crock pot.
Bake or fricassee, it’s your choice. Just make sure you serve up a delectable morsel each time that will keep your guests coming back for more.
So next time you sit down to write, think about what your readers like and ask, “Can I take your order?”
See you next time on August 22nd.
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When you love someone, you want to know everything about them. That someone, in this case, was my maternal grandmother. We shared a close bond, but there was a wrinkle on the face-map of her life that I could not trace. I wish I had asked her my questions while she was still with me.
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The Many Colors of Us: Remembering 9/11
by Veronica JorgeMost people are a combination of various cultures, though I think their ancestors tended to confine their marriages to one continent.
Mine didn’t.
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A story of second-chances, hope, friendship, gratitude, and yes, the redeeming power of love, A Slight Change of Plans, satisfies at many levels. As the title suggests, things may not always work out the way we plan or expect. Colby encourages us to believe that there is a good plan for our lives, and a Master Planner who knows how to put all of the pieces together in the right place if we would only trust Him and let Him.
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The world’s treasures, many of them at your fingertips, in the pages of a book.
Such was my experience during a recent museum visit when I discovered an inspiring and uplifting work of art, Girl Balancing Knowledge, by the sculptor Yinka Shonibare. A British-Nigerian artist, he explores themes of cultural identity in a globalized world. The bright colors of the African Ankara fabrics he uses in his pieces are appealing and strikingly eye catching.
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Below is an excerpt from one of our 2024 mentees, Veronica Jorge, from her project, Crushed Like Sugarcane, based on her Chinese ancestor, Zhou Zhijian, who left China to work in the sugarcane fields of Cuba where he was enslaved. In this portion, newly arrived and unwilling to accept the situation, he decides to escape:
Nothing Found
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I love it! Wonderful advice. Thanks for the meal.
Thank you, Jenny. I always look for links and connections in things. This was a fun one to write.