Yeah, it’s all creative, but…
I do my best writing in the car — crisp sentences, flowing paragraphs, laser-guided word choice. I compose masterpieces on the way to get gas and while I am bringing home the groceries. Then I come home where I have a laptop, a desktop, an iPhone, a ridiculous number of pads and notebooks, and pens in a variety of colors that could only come from an unsupervised Angela shopping trip (or a purchase by her indulgent husband). I have a plethora of writing tools.
And I don’t record anything.
The emails to friends, the astute cultural observations, the jokes and anecdotes. All gone from my mind to make room for something utterly inane.
Angela and I have written three books. It’s obviously not all going to waste. But I want to do something creative.
Yes, what we do is creative. But what we do is the scientific principles of cooking, the logical process of recipes, and the beautiful truth of restaurants, farms, and people. Glorious people.
I love writing like that. But I want to write the things that will make people say, “wow, Paul certainly has imagination.” Or more likely, “wow, is Paul off his meds?”
I thought about slapping together a blog for my fictional ramblings, then I decided I already had a blog of non-fiction ramblings, so why not just add a simple entry to a menu and keep all my rambling in one place. Hence the “creative writing” page on the “our work” menu.
But why did I finally come home and pick up a (boring blue) pen? Recently I did an exercise where I was shown a series of six or so photos and I had to write a flash fiction piece about each one. That was fun.
The clincher, however, goes more to my state of mind. I took a survey where I was shown Rorschach ink blots and asked to describe what I saw in detail. The first one I did as asked, but by the time I got to the acid-tripping young Londoner watching the fuchsia bobbies dancing in the tulips while chasing away the Blue Meanies, I knew I needed to commit my stories to paper. (Yes, commit the stories, not me.)
So I created this out-of-the-way little corner of our website so Angela and I will have a place to explore.
An update: If you’ve wandered down the rabbit hole to this page, well, first, congrats on that odd journey. Second, we have a blog for our non-, or at least less-, food related babbling. Yes, it’s as dead as this one, but we’re stirring. Check it out our Knipplies.