Why I Write?

"From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books."

This is a quote by one of my favorite writers, George Orwell, from his famous essay "Why I Write." Like Orwell, I also knew from the age of 5 or 6 that I should be a writer. Unlike Orwell, I have never really tried to abandon the idea. My consciousness of my "true nature" has never wavered, although my faith in my common sense certainly has.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of being a writer for me is the fact that the work is never finished. I mean this in every sense; each sentence, paragraph, essay, chapter, book, is never finished, and the work in general is never finished. In other words, there are no concrete, finite tasks. Because of this, I sometimes become consumed by concrete, finite tasks; this is why, for example, I play online Scrabble, do crosswords, enjoy loading the dishwasher, used to relish math homework. You do it; it's done. There are answers, and there are rewards for questions answered correctly. No editing required.

One way I have, over the years, come to fend off my feelings of anxiety and inadequacy as a writer is to cook. Cooking is as concrete, as finite, as anything else, albeit more creative. But the way I cook when I am under the gun with a writing assignment is neither concrete nor finite, it is a way to prove to myself that I can start and finish something that will be worth the effort, and that there are an infinite number of ways to finish, and none is better than the other.

When I was in graduate school, and writing more than I had before or have since, I used to cook a lot, the same things over and over again. During one rough patch, I made fudge. Fudge is tricky, involves candy thermometers, boiling sugar, a cool setting place. Every time I took a perfectly set pan from the cool setting place du jour, I felt a sense of satisfaction that eluded me when I wrote and rewrote and threw away the draft and wrote it again and rewrote and on and on and on. Endless loop instead of done. I'll take done every time.

This is all by way of saying--and I am assuming it is by now clear to you that it takes me a mighty long time to get to the point somehow--that in the last month I have made a Barefoot Contessa recipe for onion dip six times. I have also made a green garlic souffle, a sour cherry pie with a lard crust and a labor intensive shrimp risotto. But it is the sixfold onion dip that makes me shake my head in dismay. Boy, do I have an awful lot of work.