Soup's on...

...simmering away.

Actually, at this point it's more like water, bones, and thawing left-over Christmas turkey meat--everything needed to create the initial broth. Later today, once the house is filled with the wonderful aroma of steeped turkey, I'll set out to divide the good stuff, meat and now-flavoured water, ie. broth, from the undesirable stuff, ie. bones, skin, and fat, which while necessary to create a good rich broth, are no longer required and certainly unwanted in the finished product. Then I'll add some vegetables, seasonings, and rice, or pasta (haven't decided which one to go with yet) to simmer away until it's time to ladle this hearty soup, one of our favourite winter meals, into a bowl and serve it with fresh warm bread from the oven.

Now, what does my making turkey soup have to do with writing, you might ask? Well, the whole process of it seems uncannily similar to the process I seem to follow with writing my novels. When you first set out to get the story down, whether you start with character sketches, plotting tables, time-lines, etc., or just write by the seat-of-your-pants, you start with just stuff--good and bad. You boil that stuff down to get the desired flavour of the story you're after, and then you begin the task of weeding out what's no longer required, including the artery-clogging fat (usually at your critique partners requests as they always see it first), and then after some more time, once it's simmered for a while, you begin refining your work some more by adding in a new element or two to make the story sing and flow the best way possible.

Currently, I have one story in the broth making step, another in the fine-tuning, new elements needed step, and two others at various stages of the middle of the creation process (story's written, but major fine-tuning needs to be done with my new-found knowledge). So enough blog writing for today, back to the world of make-believe I go.

May you all have a marvelous day--one in which you recognize "the power of enough" and find contentment in that!

Eileen