Rainbow Connection
I once saw a gorgeous recipe for a rainbow cake. It was six layers and yes, each layer was one colour in the rainbow. Obviously, the picture in the magazine made it look perfect, but still, I wanted to try my hand at it. I wanted to make that perfect rainbow-layered cake.
While I was mixing my ingredients, with flour all over the counter, food colouring staining my hands and eggshells fallen to the ground, I despaired. Who did I think I was to create this beautiful cake? I’m no expert baker; my effort looked nothing like the picture.
Until it did.
I had despaired in the middle of the process, when it wasn’t time to despair. Even the professional who’d baked that cake for the magazine would have had a mess at one point. I was getting ahead of myself, thinking my process had to look like the product. It didn’t.
Same with writing. Our process—brainstorming, outline, first draft, revisions, revisions and more revisions—aren’t by definition going to read like the final version. It’s impossible to include all the elements at the same time. Instead, like my cake, we need to work in layers. I had to make each colour of cake before I could assemble it; as writers, we have to work on each element of our craft before we combine them.
It’s easy to forget, when we’re enjoying our favourite book, that the writer didn’t start out with this “perfect” version. Like baking the cake, it took time, effort, mess and perseverance.
After that, it’s all sunshine and rainbows. 🙂