Tag Archives: inspiration

You Ever Feel Stuck?

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You ever feel stuck?

Sometimes you just do. It’s a good time to eat chocolate ice cream, or go for a walk, or take a bath.

Getting unstuck is usually a combination of mental and physical, which is interesting because feeling stuck is usually entirely a mental thing.

But we’re mammals, so getting unstuck sometimes requires a little physicality. Shaking it off might be literal. Don’t overthink it, just get moving. Enjoy something. Not so much “rest” in the sense of removal from activity, but thoughtful rest in an activity you enjoy.

That was my advice to myself this week when I grew frustrated with my inability to attract a fiction agent. My nonfiction career is going great guns with our seventh edited anthology, thanks, but nobody thinks I have an imagination? I took myself on a long, shady walk in the woods to give myself a pep talk.

Two years now, I’ve been working on a coming-of-age novel set in West Virginia. Two years, the characters have shaped and stammered and grabbed the keyboard from my hands and run amok across it. Now it’s time to edit the opening to make it more of a grabber than an explainer. Something that has never been my forte. But in the personal rejections coming from agents (in a ratio of 1 personal for 3 standard), they pretty much say the same thing: the opening isn’t making me care what happens to the characters.

This is a puzzle to be solved, a craft to be practiced, and I have to remind myself I write because I like writing, because there are things to be said, and because it keeps me from strangling people with my bare hands. So, there’s that. Do what you love because you love it, and remember that’s why you started this journey.

That said, the journey doesn’t have to end down a dead-end alley with the words “your characters are not compelling” written on it. I intend to see that mine does not.

But oh, the energy, oh the strategy, oh the strange masochistic joy of this journey.

If you’re out there writing,too, be encouraged. I’ve published seven books across four lovely publishers, and this is what I have to say about our industry right now: this too shall pass. One way or another, we will unstick. Because, writing.

Get up and try again, kids. That’s my plan.

Food, Food – – –

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Jack will still post as Wendy takes a break – –

I’m not sure when I got interested in cooking – maybe around when Wendy and I got married.

 

Growing up in a Northern European country meant food was just fuel to keep you going. So it wasn’t until I first traveled to Southern Europe with my band that I really discovered what a meal could be, the varieties of food to be savored and dinner as a social gathering.

 

I had already, though, discovered curries as Indian restaurants multiplied throughout Scotland.

 

All of that got me interested in discovering discovering new dishes and re-discovering old ones.

 

Some of the old ones –

 

  • Fish n’ Chips – The secret is to fry in lard and to fry the chips three times at ever increasing temperatures.
  • Steak pie – boil the steak for a long time and put Bisto in the gravy.
  • Steak bridie – same as the steak pie.
  • Sausage rolls – the secret is to make your own sausage filling and use real breadcrumbs.
  • Shepherd’s pie – try to get fresh peas.

 

Some of the new ones –

 

  • I discovered how Indian restaurants make a big batch of basic curry sauce and I do that all the time now.
  • Finding by trial and error the different roasting times for vegetables.
  • Baking fish in foil.
  • Experimenting with overnight marinades, particularly for chicken tikka.
  • Using an outdoors charcoal grill.

 

Wendy is the baker, and her specialties are cookies, breads and desserts.

 

Just some of the things we get up to during lock-down!