blog two

In this chapter, Elbow’s most important idea seems to be that cooking is the product of conflicting material interacting with each other. Contrary to my beliefs before exploring the “cooking” chapter, conflicting arguments about a single subject is a positive phenomenon which inspires creativity—instead of a disaster which hinders it. In my personal experience, after I begin writing about X, and undergoing most of the writing process I may notice that Y is probably a better option to explore, I do my best to push Y out of the picture. If I change my opinion to Y, after all, my work to that point will turn to garbage.

According to Elbow, however, it is best to have a mental conversation between opposing arguments on one particular subject. This is “cooking.” Also, the interaction between thinking in terms of words and thinking in terms of ideas will “cook” writing. While reading this portion of the chapter, I thought about a classroom full of students who have just been prompted to think about a particular aspect in the plot of a book—let’s say Portrait of a Lady. Some students seem to volunteer prematurely because, when their professor calls on them, they spit out a few incoherent words and then, “nevermind…come back to me later.” These students haven’t necessarily failed to grasp the ideas prompted by their teacher; they simply haven’t translated their thoughts into words. This happens to me all the time, and I find the technique of writing in terms of both thoughts and structured sentences—with the goal of allowing them to interact—is very interesting, and I would love to try it.

The problem is that I don’t really have the time for this. My only conflict with all of Elbow’s techniques is that I simply have no time for them—especially when he describes the 3x5 card method toward the end of the chapter. He closes, though, by stating that he is simply offering an alternative to “desperation writing,” one which is more energy, time and stress-efficient. I’m still skeptical of Elbow, but I’m willing to give it a try.