Who's Hungry?

I'm not much of a chef. Beyond tossing a hunk of marinated mat on the grill I do very little cooking and even less baking. But I do make a mean loaf of beer bread if I do say so myself. Since it is the only real recipe I know I'm doing a little spin-off of it to give you my instructions for becoming a writer.

For beer bread you need 3 cups of sifted flour.

To become a writer you need 3 cups of sifted imagination. You could just dump the imagination in but if you don't sift it to make it soft and fluffy you'll end up with a chuck of inedible or unreadable junk.

The bread requires 3 teaspoons of baking powder.

A writers needs 3 teaspoons of determination. Yeah we've all heard of the lucky SOB that sat down and wrote in novel in months and sold it at auction six months later. We've also heard of Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, but unless you're eight I wouldn't depend on any of them to come down you chimney or go hippity-hopping down your street
anytime soon.

Add a teaspoon of salt to the bread.

A teaspoon of foolish hope is required of all writers. The odds are stacked against you, but don't get caught up in that fact. There are thousands of books published every year and whose to say you're loaf or novel isn't going to be one of them. Dare to dream.

Pour in a bottle of beer and mix. Some of the special beers such as Blue Moon's Honey Ale and the Pumpkin Spice make for an added taste to the bread. But at the very least get a good dark beer as it will give the bread more flavor that any light beer or standard domestic. When you have a ball of dough of equal consistency pour into greased loaf pan.

Pour in you sweat blood and tears into your writing. Don't hold back. Bland will not get you anywhere. Write like you momma is dead and your preacher is illiterate. An agent once said to me, "If you're writing doesn't piss someone off, you're not writing strong enough to really reach anyone."

Add half a cup of melted butter to the top of the dough.

No one can write without being a reader, so pour in your love of reading, study other books and writers you love. See why their stories work, then incorporate those same ideas and techniques, but tweak and turn them until they are your own. Write something you'd want to read.

Set your oven to 375.

Get excited and hot and bothered about your work. If your characters and plot do not get you excited while you' re writing, researching, and building your story you can't expect agents or editors to get excited when you are finished.

Bake for an hour or until the top is a light brown.

Write and edit until it's ready to submit.

Let cool for at least twenty minutes.

Don't rush you baby out to be devoured. Let it simmer and then slice it yourself. See how it tastes. When it melts in your mouth, slap another pat of butter on and dish it out.

As an added bonus I'll throw my crumbs worth of tongue-in-cheek suggestion on how to craft a particular genre of bread.

Literary Bread - Add a dollop of pretentiousness, and a squirt of academia nut. This bread might win a ribbon or two at the fair but that poorly crafted commercial bread will make all the money.

Romance Bread - Toss in a pinch of wishful thinking, a sprinkle of pipe dream, invite a large man with rippling abs and long flowing locks to stir the ingredients while a reluctant and stubborn women tells him he's doing it all wrong and you will have some tasty bread that will fly off the shelves, but be the scorn of all other bread makers.

Fantasy/Sci-Fi Bread - For this bread you have to call flour - akbinykl, salt- jubellio, and the beer Lord Rakmia. Actually each baker must create as many hard to pronounce ingredients as possible. Also add in a few things no body actually believes in. You know things like, the nose hair of a Pegasus, the scale of a dragon, or the tongue of an honest politician. This bread will have an avid fan base and if you are lucky they will hold conventions for years to come in honor of your bread.

Women's Fiction Bread - There are many ways to bake this bread but makes sure it is stirred by a woman who has had some misfortune a wayward husband, a sister that betrayed her, some sort of grief. make sure the woman is fed up and ready to take on all challengers who question her bread stirring ability. If you can invoke emotion, laughter, tears, anger) from those that eat this bread you have done your job, but a word of caution. Men who bake this bread have a hell of a time convincing anyone to taste it.

Western Bread - This bread is actually the same story as romance bread but stirred entirely by a man who lost his pa, ranch, wife or family do to someone else's greed. Add some dust and tumbleweeds to the recipe also and substitute sex scenes with gunfight scenes.


By the way the recipe is real, the rest of it is just my take on this crazy pursuit and meant in fun. I appreciate authors of all genres so take my descriptions with a pinch of sugar. They'll be sweeter that way.

So how about all of you? Got anything good in the oven? Have any more bread descriptions you'd like to share?