Writing is Like a Chocolate Chip Cookie

I've been searching for the perfect chocoalte chip cookie recipe.  In my quest, I discovered truths about my writing.

Okay, how is a chocolate chip cookie like writing a novel?

Let me preface this: my husband's a cook at heart. He rarely uses recipes, going by the seat of his pants with whatever ingredients are at hand.  Which means the same thing is rarely replicated.

I'm a baker. There's a scientific precision to baking: you don't futz with something or leave something out without a clear consequence. You don't "wing" a loaf of bread and wind up with fifteen variations.

Okay, I don't. I'm sure there are bakers out there who experiment like crazy. I am also a plotter.  I imagine there are  correlations.

Anyway, because I don't futz with recipes because I don't know what components affect what, I've been searching thruogh established recipes, trying to find that perfect, elusive, crispy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside chocolate chip cookie.

The quest begins…

Doing internet research (yes, I was that obsessed… deadline, anyone?) I found a blog that documented a similar quest, referencing an article in the NYT about what makes the perfect cookie.

They had a lot of scientific-y sounding arguments that I have to say thrilled me.  I followed it to the letter.  Thirty-six hours of 'dry aging" in the fridge! Room temperature eggs and butter!  Perfect chocolate-to-cookie ratio!  Perfect size! Perfect oven temp!

And the results….?

They. Were. AWFUL.

Too fat, too cakey, too bland.  I've had better batches of day-old from the grocery store, pumped full of chemicals.  I followed the recipe like a chemist, and the damned things needed to be drowned in milk to be edible.

If it's not working, change the script

Despondent, I changed my recipe search, adjusting for the specific characteristics I was looking for: crispy chewy chocolate chip cookies.  And stumbled on a modest looking site that had, I swear to God, the Holy Grail of chocolate chips. Totally innocent, simple design.  Your run of the mill food blog, with a straightforward recipe that required no aging, no room temperature nonsense, no bells or whistles.

But my GOD, the cookies.

I actually danced in my living room, showing it to my husband like I'd discovered fire.  PERFECT.

You may wonder what this has to do with writing.

Well, okay, obvious points.

Figure out if you're a baker or a cook.  If you're one and you try to be the other — if you need a plot outline, and somebody tells you that the better way is to write an exploratory draft, don't listen.
Know what you like.  It wasn't that the "perfect cookie" recipe was wrong, per se. I'm sure for someone, it was the perfect cookie, or she wouldn't have blogged about it.  But it was absolutely wrong for me.
Keep looking when something doesn't work.  Doesn't matter if you' ve paid good money on a writing system or class or whatever. If it hits you wrong, don't use it.  Test it first, of course; give it the college try. But don't keep banging your head against the wall.
When you find something you love, celebrate it.  I am over the moon happy about these damned cookies.  Seriously.  The only thing better is when I've hit the perfect, glorious plot resolution… when the scene that wouldn't work suddenly does in a new, beautiful, amazing way.  When that happens, I tell somebody about it.

So I'm off to make some cookies.  Which, incidentally, you can find here, under "big fat chewy chocolate chip cookies."

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