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Front Flap: Loyalty, loss and ties that bind. These are the ingredients of The Recipe Club, a 'novel cookbook' that combines an authentic story of friendship with more than 80 delicious recipes.
Lilly and Val are lifelong friends, united as much by their differences as by their similarities. Lilly, dramatic and confident, lives in the shadow of her beautiful, wayward mother and craves the attention of her distant, disapproving father. Val, shy and idealistic -- and surprisingly ambitious -- struggles with her desire to break free from her demanding housebound mother and a father whose dreams never seem to come true.
In childhood, "lilypad" and ValPal" form an exclusive two person club, writing intimate letters in which they share hopes, fears, deepest secrets--and recipes, from Lilly's "Lovelorn Lasagna" to Valeries "Forgiveness Tapenade." Readers can cook along as the friends travel through time facing the challenges of independence, the joys and heartbreaks of first love, and the emotional complexities of family relationships, identity, mortality, and goals deferred.
The Recipe Club sustains Lilly and Val's bond throughout the decades, regardless of what different paths they take or what misunderstandings threaten to break them apart...until the fateful day when an act of kindness becomes an unforgiveable betrayal.
Now, years later, while trying to recapture the trust they've lost, Lilly and Val reunite once more---only to uncover a shocking secret. Will it destroy their friendship, or bring them even closer?"
Lynda Barry's pep talk is all about writing by hand. It hit home for me because that is what I am doing - writing the story by hand, then typing it up.
I like this particular quote:
"Writing by hand is like walking instead of riding in a car. It's slower, to be sure, but you'll smell the smoke if you're near a house that is about to burst into flame. You'll hear the shouting from a fight about to break out in a back yard. You'll be able to help the dog who comes running by with his leash attached and dragging behind him, and be able to help the person who has lost him calling his name. This will make writing more like living and less like watching television."
Lynda's Pep entire talk courtesy of Chris Baty of NaNoWriMo, plus a link to see it the original handwritten form.
(Lynda wrote her pep talk with a pen. You can see a PDF of it in all its handwritten glory here.)
Dear Writer,
Reconsider your hand. Reconsider writing by hand. There is a kind of story that comes from hand. Writing which is different from a tapping-on-a-keyboard-kind-of-story. For one thing, there is no delete button, making the experience more life like right away. You can't delete the things you feel unsure about and because of this, the things you feel unsure about have a much better chance of being able to exist long enough to reveal themselves. And the physical activity of writing by hand involves many parts of the brain which are used in story making such as time, place, action, characters, relationships, and moving forward across an entire connected gesture. And that's just what goes on when we write a single letter by hand.
Although word count goals may be harder to reach, your body will not feel as tired as it does after a day spent tapping buttons and staring at a lit screen, especially if you write a bit longer than you usually do.
Another thing to reconsider is reading over what you have written. If you can stand to wait 24 hours before you decide the fate of what you have written - either good or bad - you're more likely to see that invisible thing that is invisible for the first few days in any new writing. We just can't know what all is in a sentence until there are several sentences to follow it. Pages of writing need more pages in order to be known, chapters need more chapters. The 24 hour period will give you time to create more of the things the writing needs. 48 hours is even better, and a week is ideal.
Can you keep your story going for a week without reading anything over? You'll find you can. You'll find that being able to rely on this ability will help you let one word follow the next without fussing as much as you do when you believe it's the thinking and planning part of your mind that is writing the story. There is another part of the mind which has an ability for stories, for holding all the parts and presenting them bit by bit, but it's not the same as the planning part of the mind.
Nor is it the thing called 'unconscious - it is without a doubt quite conscious when we are engaged in the physical activity which allows it to be active. This something is what deep playing contains when we are children and fully engaged by rolling a toy car and all who are inside of it toward the table edge. The word imagination isn't quite right for it either because it also leaves out the need for moving an object-a toy, a pen or pencil tip-across an area in the physical world.
It's a very old, human thing, using physical activity along with thing 'thing' that is neither all the way inside of us nor all the way outside of us. Stories happen in that place between the two. The Image world isn't anywhere else. A computer can give you a neat looking page, higher word count and delete and copy and past abilities, but they are poor producers of the thing the hand brings about much more easily: Right here, right now, the pane of paper that the paper windows and walls require to give is the inside view, the vista.
You can't know what a book is about until the very end. This is true of a book we're reading or writing. Writing by hand is like walking instead of riding in a car. It's slower, to be sure, but you'll smell the smoke if you're near a house that is about to burst into flame. You'll hear the shouting from a fight about to break out in a back yard. You'll be able to help the dog who comes running by with his leash attached and dragging behind him, and be able to help the person who has lost him calling his name. This will make writing more like living and less like watching television.
When writing by hand, when the story dries up temporarily - as it always does, try keeping your pen in motion anyway by writing the alphabet a b c d e f g in the middle of the sentence a b c d e f g h i j k until the sentence rolls forward again on its own. Just keep your pen steadily rolling along through time, for a good time.
Best! Love!Lynda Barry
To learn more about Lynda Barry's work, visit her website!
I'm writing away, kinds of in fits and false starts but plugging away. I'm at 7744 words right now. I figure if I write at least 2000 words a day (Stephen King does it every day), then I'll make it. I have to write it out first, because otherwise I sit staring at the screen blankly, then wander off to the internet. I just need to make sure to type up what I write the same day. That's what put me behind. I wrote for three or four days, then sat down to type it up. Takes a while to type up, especially when more ideas hit you while typing. I actually cheated a bit, printed out what I had and ran back through. Expanded every scene adding more detail. At least it helped with the word count. Forward only from here on out.
Since we started homeschooling, we have fallen into the pattern of taking a break from lessons during the two weeks of my Birthday and Thanksgiving. Each year, I swear we are only going to take a couple days, but it never works out. Something always comes up. So, this time I planning it. We are taking off from November 15th through the 29th.
James is also unofficially writing a story for nanowrimo. He is writing a fan fiction story about mario and luigi from the super mario brothers. He has been writing at least one or two chapters a day. He writes first thing in the morning after breakfast. Then he's been disappearing into his room at odd times during the day to write. He then comes out and reads me what he has written. He has numbered all his pages in his notebook which goes to 100. He plans to make the story that long. He's quite proud of himself. Once he's done, he wants to type it up and post the story in a blog.
My story is going well. I've introduced most of the players. I've left out a lot of backstory, frankly because I didn't think too much about it. The back story is presenting itself as things progress. I'm enjoying playing feisty Isabella off of the bitchy Ashley. I've thrown in a Irish grounds keeper and there will be other character introduced as the mystery moves forward. I keep thinking of scenes from different points of view so it's interesting.
I was writing scenes in my head while cooking dinner tonight and came up with such wonderful sentences, I had to stop and right down a few before I forgot them. Which worked well when I sat down to write because the notes turned into a mini outline.
So the goal for tomorrow is to reach 10,000 words. Now if I can just talk myself into getting up at 6:30 so have more time to write before I go to work. Wish me luck.
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