Trust the Process

You probably know this about me already, but I watch a lot of cooking shows. One of my favorites is Worst Cooks in America. I deeply appreciate – in my soft teacher’s heart – watching folks go from knowing nothing to feeling competent.

 

 

One of the basic lessons Worst Cook contestants learn is how to follow a recipe. They learn to read the recipe completely before beginning. They learn that the list of ingredients contains instructions. They learn that the enumerated list is not randomized; things must be done, as they say in church, decently and in order. Amen.

 

Writing has a process as well. You see what I did there? That process about as flexible as a recipe. There is some wiggle room about amounts and substitutions, but you generally have to have a sequence. You cannot bake (read: submit) before mixing wet and dry ingredients (read: revise).

 

Recently, I tried making Anne Burrell’s sweet potato recipe. She calls it a pie, but that’s only because it is circular, not because it contains flour, sugar, and butter. So, I set out to make this pie after skimming the recipe. I missed a few steps, being distracted and relying on my previous experience and expertise. It turned out a perfectly adequate “pie.” It wasn’t great though. I certainly would have been asked to turn in my apron if I were a contestant on Worst Cooks.

 

Here's the thing, well, two things: First, I did not trust the process. Rather than read the recipe and make sure I understood it, I skimmed. Rather than double check, I winged it. This leads me to the second thing. My previous experience and expertise were not adequate to the task. I did not have a healthy distrust of my own instincts, nor a healthy respect for the recipe. I needed both.

 

Don’t be like me. Trust the process.

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Writing Process: A Parable

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Snowballs and Avalanches