"miro evolution" by devi laskar

I’ve been thinking about food lately. I am a fan, you could say. I like to cook, I like to experiment with strange ingredients; I like to fuse Indian cooking with other cultures and taste new things. I have a family that groans and grumbles when I try “new stuff” but in general eats what I make, and I’m grateful.

I’ve been stuck in my writing for a while now.  Not stuck in the sense that I’m suffering from writer’s block and nothing is being produced. More like stuck in a rut, of writing the same old thing over and again, and being unsatisfied with what I produce. Doesn’t taste good anymore.

I want so much to blame it on “real life,” and say that my external circumstances are making me follow a certain path. And there is some truth to that, but reality is far more complex and complicated than just the circumstances I happen to live in.

The other writers in the Book Writing World are just amazing: they set goals, they take ownership of their goals, they achieve their goals, they chip away at the blank page and they are writing books!

I’ve thought about the writing process I’ve created for myself, and I think I have left out a key ingredient lately – I’m not experimenting enough. I’m not being creative enough. Yes, I’m doing my 365 art a day challenge and I’m working on the blogs for the BWW, and those avenues are sources of creativity and fun, but I’m not just having fun when I write my book. It’s more like a chore and less like an opportunity to do something that is original and best represents what I’m trying to say.

I thought back to the writers who really inspired me to start writing every day – Amy Tan, and Anne Lamott and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Their use of language and vivid descriptions and humor are fantastic, and are essential ingredients to making good writing. Happily, I made my own “recipe” today – a recipe to start having more fun while I write, to try out new things. I thought I’d share what I found:

1. A video clip of Amy Tan on writing. It made me laugh aloud, and also remember The Joy Luck Club and wish I could run out for Chinese food. (if you can’t open it, try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QishhWj5S10&feature=fvwrel).

2. A quote by Anne Lamott on Facebook today that made me smile: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. Just change their height and hair color. No one ever once has recognized him or herself in my fiction. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.”

3. A recipe from Chitra Divakaruni on a dish my grandmother used to make: The recipe also reminded me of Ms. Divakaruni’s wonderful poems in Leaving Yuba City, and reminded me that I was a poet first before I was anything else, a journalist, a writer, a mom.

As a poet, I derive no greater pleasure than when I have written a good line. Just one. And all that takes is practice, and being able to “let go” of trying to be perfect, and just cooking up something that tastes good.

Devi Laskar is a founding member of the Book Writing World. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University, is a rabid Tar Heel basketball fan and is working on a novel.