Notes from Crew Quarters: Writing Recipes

This week, we asked our editors: What recipe best describes your current writing project?

John LaPine, Associate Nonfiction Editor

Stir fry.

Sara Ryan, Associate Poetry Editor

Cheese and crackers. Mostly because I'm still trying to figure my shit out and I don't have time to make myself a proper meal (or poem or whatever). But it's sustenance/nutrition anyway.

Sarah David, Associate Fiction Editor

A recipe my husband invented called the "whatever" when you just throw a bunch of random tasty ingredients into a pan and hope they tastes good together...mainly because I have a lot of ideas at the moment and I'm not sure yet if they're going to mesh well in the end.

Ashely Adams, Associate Nonfiction Editor

Step 1: Grab some freshly diced monster kids and a smoked unnecessary research (everyone likes reading about Venusian orbital variation right?) Step 2: Throw into quesadilla shell. Add cheese Step 3: Throw into the microwave for about 3 minutes Step 4: Pull out storydilla. Scream at it for the next three hours Repeat for next ten years

Jacque Boucher, Spoken Word Poetry

Right now, my thesis is "So You Committed to Throwing a Dinner Party 6 Months Ago. Now What?"

1. Read the entire Write Bloody library and draft an elaborate plan for a five-course meal. Tell EVERYONE. Invite all your friends. Really ham it up. 2. Let marinate for 3-4 months while you read more and watch a lot of horror movies and cartoons for "research." 3. Wake up from a stress dream where you serve your friends hackneyed haiku and Saltine crackers. Briefly consider hiring a caterer or moving someplace where no one's ever heard of this dinner party. 4. Choose instead to double down on the showmanship. Become intolerable.

????????????

Profit.

Patricia Killelea, Poetry Editor

Assemble ingredients: Emotional/Experiential/Linguistic.

Toss everything into a bowl that's too small and stir. Gather what's displaced and save it for another recipe.

Now set the mixture to music, then play that mixture backwards. Let rest for one season, preferably in silence.

Return when only the bones remain. Listen for the song in the marrow.

Take the utmost care in plating, and leave the dish somewhere hungry.

Learn to ignore the sound of people chewing whatever it is you've made, and set your hand once more to the great work.