Always keeping the novel simmering on the writer stovetop

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In my writing community’s slack, we have a channel called “daily accountability” where character/novel prompts are posted. There was one posted the other day to write our novel like a recipe. It was inspired by the fabulous Catie O’Neill, author and friend, who loves cooking in real life and incorporates food in her stories.

In my Contemporary Young Adult novel work-in-progress, currently titled These Things Called Humans, the main character Leah and her family—parents, sister Reena, brother-in-law Elliot, and niece Penelope, have weekly Saturday Morning Brunches.

I dashed off this rough draft recipe quickly on a midnight prickle a couple nights ago:

In the first bowl

• Combine two heapings of teenage angst and perfectionism
• Layer in excitement for distance from high school peers and first job and new friends
• Add a tablespoon or two or three (#firstdraft haha) of books, coffee, and pizza
• zjuhuj* in the salty Pacific Ocean, smog, and Los Angeles skyline

In the second bowl

• Mix together the smell of sawdust, barn, pigs, livestock, corn dogs, dirt, summer heat, funnel cakes with family love and undecided college major

Combine the two and sprinkle with the theater, dungeons and dragons, dice and other board game accessories, and first/young love.

*Writer’s Note:

• zhujh – pronounced jsuuu-jsh? A favorite recipe writer of mine, Kendra, aka The Lazy Genius, wrote this into one of her recipes for like tomato soup or her Change Your Life Chicken recipe and it’s my favorite unofficial cooking term haha

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But in searching for a stock photo to go with the post, I was reminded about so many other cooking words. Dice and chop, bake, marinate, grill, sear, knead, let rise, etc.! And I am more of a baker than chef, soooo *shrug* And then this morning, the idea of brunch came to me! Because of the “famous Saturday Morning Brunches”, as Leah’s friend Liam, calls them when they finally get invited over.

So I’m taking another stab at it to see if I can make it a French Toast brunch thing.

Step 1: Slice bread of your choice and stack it in oven or toaster oven on warm to help dry it out if bread isn’t old.

Step 2: In a bowl, combine three heaping spoonfuls of teenage angst and perfectionism with excitement for distance from high school peers and first job and new friends.

Step 3: Whisk in a tablespoon or two or three (first draft mode haha!) of books, coffee, and pizza. Note: Depending on how many you’re cooking for, add in more tablespoons of this for your French toast mixture as needed.

Step 4: Set the bread slices in the mixture and cook to taste preferred crunchiness on a skillet.

Step 5: In another bowl, whisk together the smell of sawdust and barn, pigs, livestock, corndogs, dirt, summer heat, and funnel cakes. Pour into the skillet on the other burner and cook these eggs to your liking—scrambled, fried with runny yolk, an omelet.

Step 6: When you’re ready to eat, plate the French toast and the eggs together. Sprinkle French toast with butter and powdered sugar goodness of family love and undecided college major. Or it can also be a syrup—magic writing recipe at its finest!

Step 7: Add the colorful berries of first/young love and the theater and (slightly) greasy, crispy bacon of Dungeons and Dragons, dice, and other board game pieces. Goes well with coffee, milk, orange juice (any juice!) Serve and eat with family, friends, or while watching Saturday morning cartoons in your pajamas, and remember what it’s like to fall in love, find your people, and visit new places.

Goes well with coffee, milk, orange juice (any juice!) Serve and eat with family, friends, or while watching Saturday morning cartoons in your pajamas, and remember what it’s like to fall in love, find your people, and visit new places.

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Oh my gosh, that was so much fun! This novel and I have come a long way in the 48594 years we’ve been together¹, but especially since last year and I couldn’t have done any of that growing without my writers’ group. If you want creative prompts like this, writing education, feedback on pitches/first pages, synopses, friends and other writers to bounce ideas off of, friends all across the literal world (!!!), let me know and I can share all about Quill and Cup =D Sign up here!

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What would your story’s recipe be? I hope you’ll share!

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1. But really 8 1/2 years. ↩︎