Mis En Place

Available on Amazon.com

Boy, is my face red. A while back, I was tagged in a blog post by Jason Cantrell about my writing process. So I wrote this blog post in response.

I didn’t read the fine print and therefore didn’t realize it was a literary chain letter. I was supposed to tag three more bloggists about their writing processes. Didn’t.

Yesterday I was tagged again, this time by Anne-Rae Vasquez. But this time I understand the rules, so I’m calling a do-over! Let’s call that last post a warm up :lol:

What I didn’t acknowledge as the most important part of my writing process last time is the focus today. Upon reflection, I did realize that I do the most important writing without actually writing.

Before I sat down to write The Last Prospector, I just sat down. For days, I sat around thinking about the story I wanted to tell. Didn’t write anything down for almost a week, in truth.

I thought about the story non-stop. Sitting for long periods staring off into space, I thought about Prospector and Solstice. I thought about the purpose of each tier and the destiny of each character while I pulled weeds and washed dishes, bought groceries and made small talk with the neighbors.

Prospector and the story consumed and obsessed me in a very familiar way. The same way the creation of flavors did. It’s the exact same process of creation for me, it all starts in my brain. I would taste and sample Solstice the same way I tasted flavors in my imagination, combining and recombining them until a new recipe was born.

I rarely do trial and error in the kitchen since all the variables are tried in my head before I even slip on an apron. It’s exactly the same when I write, the same obsession for detail, the same thorough examination of all the details. It all happens away from my fingers, away from my tools.

In cooking, we call that kind of preparation mis en place. It’s a mellifluous French term meaning things in place. The soul of great cooking is in the preparation, the attention to all the details before you set to work. Mis en place can be as simple as setting out all the tools you’ll need for the recipe and it can be as complex as foraging your ingredients from the Earth before going to the kitchen.

It almost never happens that I sit down to write without knowing exactly what words I’ll be typing, without all my things in place. The very last thing I want is a blank page with a blinking cursor giving me the stink-eye while I sit dithering about where to go from here. If I don’t have a beginning and ending for the chapter at hand already worked out, then I don’t type at all.

I’ve written about this before, about the importance of knowing how your story ends before you start writing. I stick by that. Knowing where you ultimately want the story to end, a cooking analogy would be knowing what the finished plate will look like, will keep you on your course. Trying all the variables out in your head helps you maintain the course, steers you truly towards the end.

Until writing this blog post, I didn’t truly understand my reliance on mis en place. It was a concept drilled into me by chef instructors at culinary school and became a guiding principle of my life. It’s so ingrained that I rarely even think about it.

Thanks to Anne-Rae Vasquez for making me think about it!

OKAY! This time I won’t overlook my obligations and am tagging three wonderful writers.

Holly Jahangiri of It’s All A Matter Of Perspective

Marian Allen of Marian Allen, Author Lady

Maryann Miller of It’s Not All Gravy

…Tag, you are it.