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Sunday, April 7, 2019

Cake Doesn’t Rise, Jello Doesn’t Jell, Story Doesn’t Work

Have you ever attempted to make Jello and it never does jell? It’s been a long time for me. The last time I made Jello (and it actually worked) was with my grandson some years ago because he wanted to try a dessert with gummi fish. It was OK, but reminded me why I don’t make or eat jello anymore. And when the stuff doesn’t come together there’s not much you can do, although I’ve heard you can try reheating, etc. But it’s probably best to throw it out.


Neil Gaiman says, (in the Intro to ‘Fragile Things’) “Writing’s a lot like cooking. Sometimes the cake won’t rise no matter what you do, and every now and again the cake tastes better than you ever could have dreamed it would.”


In this blog, I want to talk about the times when it doesn’t work. I’m thinking particularly of a fantasy that started out as a short story way back in the late 1980s or early 1990s. I entered it in the Saskatchewan Writers Guild Short Manuscript contest, and though it got no award, the judge mentioned it and said that she thought it would make a good novel. So I began writing more of the story.


I now have reams of that story because when I started I was using a manual typewriter, and later when I started to use a computer, I printed out because I was afraid of something happening to the computer. We didn’t have The Cloud then or even memory sticks. The characters went through name changes. I wrote about their ancestors and the children. I even attempted bringing the fantasy into the present and back out again.


To date, none of this conglomeration has felt like a story that hangs together. But I’ve not thrown it out.


Writing may be a lot like cooking, but if you don’t throw it out, it doesn’t, thankfully turn green or rot or start to smell (except perhaps metaphorically).


Anyway, I’ve kept it and keep thinking maybe some time I’ll use parts of it or I’ll have a revelation about it.


Virginia Woolf wrote once to one of her friends, "here am I sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and visions, and so on, and can't dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm.” According to her, once you did find your rhythm, the words and the story came.


I haven’t looked at those pages and pages for a long while. Maybe it’s time. . .