I used to love to watch my late
husband cook. For years, he’d dreamed of
being a chef, but had gone into computer science, both out of a love of
technology and its possibilities, and a desire for a career that would best
support our young family. But even deep in the years of software and computer
keyboards, WANs and LANs, programming language and code, he found the most joy
in the kitchen. When he finally became a
professional chef and we opened our own restaurant, his joy was even more
evident. Watching him in the kitchen as he prepped up to create a new dish was
truly watching an artist at work.
I think about this now because I
have lately been involved in many conversations about the nature of art and the
artist, craft and the craftsman, and the process of creation itself, especially
as it relates to writing. It is not
likely that anyone will ever define “art” or “the artist” to the satisfaction
of all, but it occurs to me that every person engaged in creative acts has much
to learn from others who have mastered theirs.
I see him now, with bowls of
prepped ingredients spread out, and a large salmon on the cutting board. When developing a new dish, he never looked
at a recipe, and he also never faltered.
He would begin with whatever was the basic flavor he wanted to add, and move
from there. If he began with that cut of
salmon, he’d begin with that flavor in mind, and reach for whatever additive
most seemed, in his mind at that moment, to enhance it in the most basic way he
wanted, and then build his “recipe” from there. He explored and discovered each
new dish as he went, and, if it was not what he’d hoped for, he’d start
again.
Recently, my writing group went
away with an assignment in character development. I thought about it, and sat down with
thoughts of two of my most recent characters:
Sammy, the lead character in the novel I just finished (The Hapless Life
of Samuel Joseph) and Carson, the main character in a novel I’d put away two
years ago when it went off in the wrong direction. I knew what made Sammy laugh – he’d laughed
often in the course of his story.
Carson, a much darker character, was another matter. I thought more.
What ended up occurring to me was
that I couldn’t fit the development of these characters into any one mold, any
one ‘activity.’ When I began the Samuel Joseph story, I began with him, with
the character. I’d had a notion for some
time of what the story should accomplish, and, as I thought about that, the
character of Sammy emerged. At the
beginning of the Carson story, I had an image and a name, and no more. The purpose of the story did not occur to me
till recently, as I began to get back to my character and get to know him in the context of that image I began
with.
In both cases, much like my late
husband as he began to develop a new dish, it was a matter of discovery, and I
could no more use the same methods on both than he could have in developing a seafood
dish versus a vegetarian dish. The path
of discovery is driven by the material you begin with, and the chef/the writer
attending to that with clarity.
