Cupcakes and Creativity

Dressed as Julie in Julie and Julia with
Kathy Patrick of the Pulpwood Queens!

I'd like to talk about cupcakes for a while. Rather, cupcakes and writing and how the two go together.

See, there's this place in town where all they sell are cupcakes. I was there today. One cupcake cost me more than three dollars. A three dollar cupcake! Do I need to say more? I split it with a knife into three sections and shared it between my two kids and myself. I had a bit less than a dollar's worth. That was one hefty cupcake.

Seeing as that one was three dollars, it was pretty much out of the question to order 20 cupcakes for my daughter's class tomorrow. She's turning 8 years old over spring break next week, so we're celebrating early with cupcakes in her class. Last year as I was traveling with birthday cupcakes to her class, someone rear-ended my car and the cupcakes went flying, so I'm a little nervous about tomorrow, but that's neither here nor there.

So about these cupcakes...and about my daughter. She cares about people. She likes to please people, but she's not so much interested in pleasing the masses, per se. She's more interested in pleasing those whom she cares about. My daughter told me she wanted cupcakes with no eggs in them since a boy in class is allergic to eggs, which is why we were in this three-dollar-cupcake shop in the first place. Apparently, they make some without eggs. However, the cost is prohibitive.

So while the kids were in the dentist's office, I ran over to the grocery store and bought a cake mix, icing, and applesauce. On the Internet, I read that you could replace the eggs with applesauce and a little vinegar, and something else. The something else is what I couldn't remember because the Internet was down tonight. So I made the cupcakes with oil instead of butter and applesauce with a dash of vinegar instead of eggs. Sounds awful, doesn't it? I was worried. My mother, the baker in the family, said, "How are they going to rise without eggs?" I SO don't know. I write books. I paint pictures. But I don't bake much.

I poured the batter into the cupcake thingies and stuck two pans in the oven. Every few minutes, I checked to see if anything was happening. They rose, ever so slightly, barely a blip, but I saw them. I noticed. After twenty minutes, I pulled them out and saw that they were chocolaty and semi-firm. I let them cool. Later my daughter and I piped on whipped white icing out of a plastic bag, and my daughter insisted on not icing one of them so her other friend who doesn't like icing could have one. Great. An eggless cupcake with no icing. Delicious.

I made two dozen, so the four of us at home could each try one tonight and send in the 20 we needed for school tomorrow. I wrote a note to the teacher assuring her I did not put eggs in the cupcakes (as if she wouldn't notice), and then we tasted. I held my breath. And bit.

Scrumptious, melt-in your mouth, chocolaty goodness, rich, heavenly...yum. Almost like molten chocolate cake. I was very pleased and figure I'll be winning mom-of-the-week around my daughter's class tomorrow. What a surprise. Can't wait to tell my own mother.

So what do these cupcakes have to do with writing, you ask? This is a writing blog after all. Well, I'll tell you.

My daughter did not set out to please the entire second grade with these cupcakes, not even the majority. There were one or two people who had special needs, and she simply wanted to please them. This made her happy. This also made her (read me) take a risk. I have never baked a cupcake without eggs, never even heard of it. Even my mother, the baker, doubted it. But my daughter and I tried something new. Everyone knows a cupcake is made from mix, eggs, butter, and water (unless you're a by-scratch person), but we put it together with oil and applesauce and vinegar, and guess what? Maybe it's not a cupcake for the masses, but sometimes baking--or writing--for an audience of one is more important. And more memorable.

I try to write for an audience of one, for my father in heaven, and when I do, there are no set rules about what order to put things in, no set ingredient list, no mass of people clamoring for eggs and rising batter. Writing for an audience of one means sometimes you'll create an unexpected delicacy, an original idea, a decadent combination that a certain audience will find perfectly palatable.

I love taking risks with my writing. I love doing something I've never done before, something that may not even be doable. I like to write for an audience of one. It makes me happy. And if it flops, at least I got to spend time with my father in the kitchen and lick the batter off the wooden spoon.

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Nicole Seitz is the author and cover illustrator of The Inheritance of Beauty, Saving Cicadas, A Hundred Years of Happiness, Trouble the Water, and The Spirit of Sweetgrass. The Inheritance of Beauty is a Books-a-Million Faithpoint Book Club Selection for May 2011. Nicole teaches art at a local private school in the Charleston, SC area, where she lives with her husband and two children. She is currently editing her sixth novel. http://www.nicoleseitz.com/

The Anti-Resolutions

Cathy Pickens'New Year’s Anti-Resolutions: What you’ll stop doing this year

     ‘Tis the season for resolutions, to take stock of seasons past. Most of us dust off the old list: lose weight, make it to more of the kids’ ball games. Or we just don’t bother, resolving to plug along. New Year’s Resolutions have become passé, predictable, reliable only in reminding us of failures past.
     This year, why not try some anti-resolutions—what you’ll stop doing this year:
     1. Stop ignoring what’s around you. Take a good look at the people in your life—your spouse, children, parents, siblings, co-workers, friends. Take a good look at your circumstances. Pay attention to the people and things that make your life run smoothly, more pleasantly. Take a deep breath when you walk out into the crisp air. Develop a child-like curiosity about even the most mundane. Write it down. Don’t use writing only to communicate with others. How about talking to yourself once in a while, see what you’re thinking? Your “journal” can be scribbles on a legal pad or in the back of your DayTimer. Creativity and “flow” expert Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi suggests noting one thing each day that surprises you, as a way to awaken your awareness and broaden your focus. Talk to yourself on paper about how to solve a problem or what makes you smile today or ways to open the presentation you have to make next month. Ask yourself “what if …?” and “why?” You’ll be surprised how it helps you focus.
     2. Stop taking the easy path. Try something that scares you—or at least stretches you. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, an object at rest tends to stay there. Conversely, as Matthew Arnold observed, “Genius is mainly an affair of energy.” Accept a speaking engagement, hike up a mountain, take a ballroom dance or cooking or kayaking class for fun, or work on another college degree —or finish your first degree. Any of these requires initiative and risk-taking for the beginner but get easier—once you’ve done them. Get moving, preferably along an uncharted path.
     3. Stop being one-sided. Learn the delicate art of balance. Aristotle urged us to seek the Golden Mean, emphasizing the importance of balance. Identify where you are out of balance. Develop an area in which you feel weakest. Read something you wouldn’t ordinarily read. If your bedside books are all history or technical manuals, try some well-written fiction or a book you loved—or wished you’d read—when you were a kid. Try listening to a book on tape (the library will loan you one for free!). Visit a museum. Turn off the TV.
     4. Stop sitting in the same seat. Perception if often more powerful than reality. Practice sitting in someone else’s seat, seeing from her perspective, testing your own. Maybe you should, literally, sit in someone else’s seat in a meeting, to break the routine. Or you could look at an issue from someone else’s point of view: from your customer’s or co-worker’s or boss’s or spouse’s seat.
     5. Stop being inconsistent. What do you value? What’s important to you? Would someone know your values by what you say, by how you spend your time, by the decisions you make? In trying new things, make sure you’ve grounded yourself, that you know who you are. Take time to nurture your spiritual life. Philosopher William James said, “The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.” What can you overlook to allow more time for what’s important? That wisdom cannot be gained in the push and pull of your busy life. Be still. Turn off the car radio. Get off the treadmill and take a walk…outside. Be alone with your thoughts. Recognize who you are and what you value.     

     6. Stop being so serious. When was the last time you felt inspired or motivated by a humorless drudge? Does the fate of the free world actually rest on what you’re doing? Okay, maybe it does. But you can still lighten up.
     Oh, yeah, and stop promising to get in shape and just get moving. Getting enough exercise is more important than your pant size. According to the latest brain research, not just your body but your brain benefits from a walk. Hit the gym or the sidewalk. You’ll need the energy for all the things you’re going to stop doing this year.
     One thing to DO, if you haven't already? Check out Hush My Mouth, the Southern Fried Mystery now available in paperback from St. Martin's. Happy New Year!