Thyme to Write
When I was a young bride, a wise, older friend gave me a basket of spices as a gift. Among the herbs were two jars of thyme. Because one always needs more time, you see, especially when one is first starting to learn something.
It proved to be true; when I was learning to cook, I needed time to read the recipe and then a little more time to look up words in the glossary of the cookbook. I needed time to move the ingredients into a bigger mixing bowl, because that little one was going to overflow. I needed time to wash my hands between forming each meatball because I was awkward and sticky and needed clean hands to turn the cookbook pages as I reread the recipe.
I’ve been cooking dinner for decades now. I don’t need to look at the recipe to make meatballs, and I don’t need to get both hands sticky, and I know how to season them exactly right for Italian meatball subs or to go with mashed potatoes and gravy. And dare I say, I can make them more quickly and less messily than any recipe I’d ever studied in my youth?
Anyone who practices a task daily will eventually be able to perform it more quickly. But anyone who throws their heart into a task in addition to daily practice will uncover the art of it, to some degree. I love to cook; I enjoy reading cookbooks. I try recipes from cuisines around the planet, from Ethiopian to Australian to Russian to Brazilian, with varied success. I’ve made cheese (amazing) and wine (execrable) and pate choux (absolutely inspired) and baby food (happy awesomeness frozen into tiny jars). Was all this learning and practicing necessary to become a good meatball maker? Certainly not, but my meatballs were better and quickly became quicker as I absorbed these experiences, observing what works and what really doesn’t in the kitchen.
My original intention for this post was to give you some creative ideas on how to use your time to write. Write a sentence while you brush your teeth! Dictate a chapter on your morning commute! Surreptitiously polish yesterday’s writing on your phone under the table while out on a dinner date!
As much as I love my little fantasy fiction of multi-tasking writing with daily life, that’s not how I became I proficient cook and I don’t think that’s how you’ll become a proficient writer. I know if I try to weed the garden while sautéing onions or check my email while rolling out pie crust, I’ll fail both projects.
So, I advise you to write like I learned to cook, just do it every day, like it’s your job. Sometimes it will be terrible, sometimes it will be sublime. Every day, you’ll learn something. Set aside a dedicated time, even if it seems short, to practice your craft. And sometimes, get excited about overflowing the bowl and the sticky mess and bury your writing corner in a heap of post-it notes and flow charts and spreadsheets of your character’s favorite bands. Get yourself meshed into a project that you don’t want to let go of until you see how it turns out.
And sometimes, stretch yourself beyond what needs to be done to write that book. Pen a haiku. Start a screenplay. Write an article about the history of hosiery. I know, you think all your precious writing time should be dedicated to your big book project. But it takes a lot of extra time to learn what you are doing. The weird things you are going to learn by stepping out of your wheelhouse are things you are going to bring back to the daily work. It won’t always be the thing you thought you were going to learn. You aren’t going to find out what you will take away from your side quest until you just go do it. Heart and practice and a little extra thyme. You’ve got this.
