And the year is off to a good start.
Here is the link to Sourdough at JMWW.
This story of mine was published this morning.
The story behind Sourdough is about a writer using 'writer
ingredients'.
First off, I was actually pursuing the making of sourdough bread. I had done this once before, almost 40 years
ago, when I got instructions from a magazine article. Now I was on the Internet and picked up quite
a bit of quirky stuff concerning sourdough.
1st ingredient - write about what I am interested in, or to put it
simply use life.
Then as I listened to a friend's preparations for her son's marriage, a what
if crossed my mind. That is the 2nd
ingredient - What if the bride jilts him at the altar?
Further into the work of story building I pulled out two books of quotes
and chose two quotes. That is the third
writer ingredient- hit two things
together and see where the sparks fly.
The things don't have to quotes; they can be ideas, events, observations or other
inspirations. But for this story I used
two quotes and these two quotes let me know my main character just a
little. One quote survived intact - the
bit about the elephant- but the second is woven into my character thoughts.
The fourth writer ingredient is to develop a character. As you might realize, I had some components
already in mind so I pictured a real life person that I know slightly as being
the type of person who would quote things.
Somehow having the visual of a real face helped to create the imagined
voice of the character who told the story.
Obviously the real source of ingredients is - the imagination. Writing does not have a clear cut recipe but
every story has ingredients and if you think that imagination is the most
important, you'd be mistaken. Work is.
By the way, my nostalgic attempt at sourdough bread making was okay but
it's nothing I intend to repeat soon.
And the real life wedding went off without a hitch.
I hope you enjoy the story.
