BAKING BOOKS - WRITING THE YOM! NOM! WAY

Today, probably because I'm alternating between 500 calories and 2,000 calories a day (and you can guess which kind of day today was), I decided writing was a lot like baking a cake:

1.    Collect all the ingredients: characters conflicts, settings

2.    Make sure you know the right sized container - nothing worse than too many words over-flowing and making a mess or sitting like biscuits in the bottom of book shaped dish

3.    Ensure your oven is fired and ready at the right temperature – I see this as an internal thing - best done through  reading and learning the craft, and the art, of writing

4.    Sift and stir in all the ingredients and add them in the right order

5.    As with cake making nothing is going to happen until you mix it up. You need action: a little at first or it gets messy. You need to keep up the pace so you can combine the ingredients with enough emotion and air. 

6.    Divide the mixture evenly

7.    Once it’s all prepared apply an external source of heat and generate a suitable reaction.

8.    Work on it and let it prove.

9.    Do a little testing, a little checking. It should work, but only if the mixture was right in the first place. Don’t be afraid to set it aside and start again.

10. Once it’s past this stage, you have to let it cool before you move on to the next stage

11. That bookycake isn’t finished until you’ve trimmed it, frosted it with peaks and dusted it with spice.

Yum! Nom! And, yum again! Seems like it’s nearly ready for reading!

ARE YOU COOKING UP A CAKE FROM SCRATCH OR ARE YOU READY TO FROST AND DUST YOURS?