Bread dough theory of writing

I’ve often thought that some stories are made like bread dough, one made with a starter. First you stir in the ingredients to make the starter and feed it for awhile and let it bubble and ferment. Then eventually it’s ready and you take some of that and stir in the rest of your bread ingredients and mix and mold it into dough, and then knead it for awhile. You fold it and knead it and build in structure for rising, then you let it sit and grow and rise on its own. Then you come back and go back to kneading and massaging that structure and rebuilding. Finally you set it aside and let it be one more time before you take it and bake it.

Not all of my stories work that way, but for the story I’m working on now, it requires a lot of yeasty bubbling and rising and kneading and waiting to let it come together in my head. It’s slow and that’s frustrating, but at the same time, my head needs the time to pull the story together. Meanwhile this other story that bumped into me some weeks ago has started to get a little antsy and itchy. It will have to wait.

On a completely random note, Hot Yoga sounds like torture. When we move, I hope I can learn Yoga or maybe Tai Chi or what’s that one that starts with Q?

Packing continues apace. I’m a little bit terrified that we won’t get everything we need to do done by Saturday, but I’m rabidly working at it.

2 Comments

  • Tine

    You will find that you will toss stuff both on the packing end and on the unpacking end. Rule of thumb – if you haven’t used it in a year, toss it. Or choose you own time line, but, it is a good one. I found it much easier to do all of the packing process without the husband being around. He never wants to toss anything.

    • Di Francis

      That whole year thing is always iffy for me. I’m tossing like crazy, but you’re right. I’ll be tossing at the end too. Part of that has to do with what we’ll actually use in the new house. But at least a lot is going away here. Sigh.

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