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Each day this week, go outside. Even if just for a minute or two. Put on a coat–or don’t!–and feel the cold air wrap around you, feel the chill prick your cheeks, and feel fully alive. After your moment, minute, or long walk outside, head in and write without wasting a moment. Repeat each day.
Have you ever had a great line that you had to pull from a piece because it just didn’t work? Did you save it? I usually do. I have a pile of great lines and paragraphs left over just waiting to be used. Try pulling those out and re-inventing them into something new.
Just yesterday I had some a little bit of chili, a lone English muffin and a hand full of shredded mozzarella. These leftover scraps came together to make a tasty lunch. In the same way, your cast off lines or dialogue snippets can come together to start a great new work. Give it a shot this week and see what you come up with.
As writers, we can never get too much encouragement and inspiration. Even the most seasoned writers still have a brain and imagination that need to be continually stimulated in order to produce good work. Such assistance need not take much time or money, however. That’s what I love about the 21 Moments Writing Challenge with Christina Katz. I recently signed up to participate, and am thoroughly enjoying the process so far.
Here what it involves, in a nutshell:
Over the course of one month, participants write 21 “moments,” which are brief but well-written scenes, vignettes, or whatever else they choose to write. Each day for three weeks, starting on the first of the month, Christina–an author and writing instructor–sends an e-mail with a sample text, and then the writer gets to work. The writer works on his or her own schedule, since there’s an entire month to complete the 21 moments. At the end, the writer will polish one of the moments and send it to Christina to review.
What’s so wonderful about this process is that the goal is to write for oneself, not for publication. Christina encourages writers to enjoy what they do and to just focus on writing the best they can. I’m using this challenge as a way to build up some content for my book, and I can already imagine taking part in the challenge again and again. It’s a little like NaNoWriMo, in that there’s a time-based challenge to it, but for this rather than NaNoWriMo, the focus is on quality over quantity.
If you’re interested in learning more or signing up for the “class,” head over to Christina Katz’s website.
Having home-brewers for husbands means that we’re never in danger of being in a new city and not knowing where to find good beer. Take San Francisco, for example. Until a few weeks ago, Daytona hadn’t been there in five years, and although Sarah still visits her family in the Bay Area from time to time, it’s been over a decade since she moved away. Yet on our recent weekend together, as our first afternoon in the city drew to a close, our husbands whisked us over to 21st Amendment Brewery in the city’s historic South Park neighborhood for a pre-dinner refresher.
Food and Beverages
We’ll be honest, we came here for the beer not the food, even though it is a brewpub and we could have eaten if we wanted. But having enjoyed a great lunch earlier at La Boulange and having dinner plans with Sarah’s family, we stuck to our mission and ordered beverages. That is, after all, what 21st Amendment Brewery was founded upon.
Daytona’s choice, the South Park Blonde, was refreshing and light yet flavorful, with a friendly wheat profile. The Red Dwarf IPA, which both of the men ordered, was described as “A red IPA with caramel and Munich malts combined with Simcoe and Amarillo hops, like peeling an orange in a redwood grove.” Sarah chose a cider from the Two Rivers Cider Company.
Location and Atmosphere
Near the financial district and San Francisco Giants baseball park, we can only imagine that 21st Amendment is a favorite stop before and after work and games. The atmosphere is light and almost lodge-like with lots of wood and warm colors. The chalk art on the walls and the menu is also really impressive!
Writeability and Purchased Presence
It takes little than a pint apiece to add a sense of camaraderie to a gathering, which makes 21st Amendment a great place to meet your writing group after a day at work. Sit back and enjoy the convivial atmosphere as share your successes and what you’re writing on at the moment. As long as no one’s waiting for your table, feel free to linger.
Price: $$
The price is just what you’d expect from a brewpub, with draft beers ranging from $5.50 to $6.50 for a pint of most beers.
Parking
We had no problem finding street parking, on what seemed like a pretty slow afternoon. It was New Year’s Eve, after all, and at an hour too earlier for dinners and parties to begin.
Writer’s Tip
There is a history behind 21st Amendment that makes it a ripe place for brainstorming with your writing partner, possibly about a story that could be set during Prohibition. Whether or not your story has anything to do with historical references, there’s nothing like gathering with friends over good beer. (http://21st-amendment.com/the-company/)
Find It
21st Amendment Brewery
563 2nd Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
Website
How to use Daily Writers’ Fix
Sight
Paint something today–in your mind. Describe the process in words in such a way that will make the reader envision the image start to form on the canvas.
Smell
Why won’t your character get rid of the drooping flowers on her mantle?
Sound
 
Take whatever scene or project you’ve been working on lately and spend a little time thinking about what it sounds like. Close your eyes and sit back and place yourself in the scene. What faint hums of traffic or buzzing of bees do you hear that you hadn’t noticed before? What’s the music being played at the cafe your character is walking into? You may or not choose to incorporate these details, but stretch yourself to think a little further into this part of your scene than you had before.
Touch
Rain. Dog fur. Enough said. Start writing.
Taste
Never underestimate the role of taste in your writing. Even if you’re not a food writer or you’re writing something that seems totally unrelated–take science fiction for example–practice the art of writing about food every once in a while, because you never know when describing an alien’s first taste of a croissant will help make your otherworldly character seem just a bit more relatable. Today, take the flavors shown here–anchovy, garlic, and capers–and make a pretend recipe. What is your character making with these ingredients? How does he go about doing it? What does he–or perhaps his guests–think about the flavors?
It’s the start of a new month. All of January we’ve been discussing how to keep up the momentum of resolutions made in the new year. How did your January go? What are your plans for February? I’m planning on giving my goals for writing fiction a second look. Cheers to you if you’ve stayed strong in your goals through January, and godspeed for an equally productive February!
The month of January is a crucial time for writers; the new year sets the stage for new goals and new habits, and the first few weeks can set the tone for momentum moving on through the rest of the year.
Since one of the common struggles amongst writers is coming up with ideas, we launched the Idea Generator at the beginning of the year, and have been dedicating our Daily Writer’s Fix time this month to helping you build a pool of writing ideas to last you well into 2013.
We have also been excited to share with you some of our favorite San Francisco writing and brainstorming spots with a special Destination Inspiration series based in that city. From Blue Bottle Coffee to La Boulange and Samovar, we had a great time discovering new creative spots to help you drum up inspiration and creativity if you visit San Francisco.
We talked about some of our own writing goals and created a worksheet to help you develop a strategy for setting and keeping your 2013 goals. We shared thoughts on the writing life with writing as an excuse to explore and the experience of working with divided attention.
We shared a favorite tea that was the result of a delightful accident, and an overnight coffee cake that’s easy to whip together even when you’re on deadline.
And, of course, we talked about the writing ritual and shared a recipe for a delightful cookie that would be just right for pairing with your writing tea when you sit down to work.
It’s been a good month for us here at Nooks & Cranberries, and I hope it’s been good for you too. We’d love to hear what you’ve been working on this month!
What are you eating for lunch today? Or dinner? I’m serious–tell me. I don’t want to hear that you’re skipping the meal because you’re on deadline and don’t have time. We all have time, even if just a few minutes while waiting for the computer to restart or while giving ourselves a 15- or 30-minute brain break.
I still remember the old days of working on the newscast at the TV station I used to work for. Whether I was writing or producing the show, there was seldom a moment from the early part of my shift until the later hours when I felt like I could even leave my desk for a moment. When I needed to fortify myself with a little food before heading up to the booth to produce the show, I’d literally run or jog from my desk to the lunchroom to get my food. And guess what? I’d run back to my desk where I would eat it, hurriedly, not even stealing a moment in which to notice the flavors right there waiting for my tastebuds to notice. That’s a sad story for a food-lover like me.
These days as a freelance writer I still work on deadlines, but I’m dealing with stories due on a given day versus needing to have a show ready to produce by a certain minute and a story ready by a specific second in order for it to be ready for an anchor to read. That doesn’t make the pressure of deadlines any less real, however, and taking the time to stop and get something to eat can sometimes feel like a chore.
Thankfully I have a lot of excuses throughout the day to cook, from having a son who depends on me for his meal preparation to being a food writer who often has to cook as part of the gig. There’s usually something in the fridge to make a quick meal out of when the child is napping and the husband is away at work. But in those times when leftovers are scarce and tight deadlines are looming, it’s good to have a repertoire of quick meals at the ready.
One of my quick meals involves canned chickpeas and other pantry staples, with a handful of fresh herbs tossed in at the end–I’ll have to share that recipe with you soon. Another is canned salmon mixed with some mayonnaise, capers, and herbs, and eaten as a salad on a bed of salad greens or on top of baguette slices. Come to think of it, I’ll have to share that recipe with you too. Do you notice a trend? These recipes involve nutritious items found in a well-stocked pantry.
The recipe I’m sharing with you today comes together quickly and makes several lunch or dinner portions, leaving you with leftovers to reheat the next day. Even if you can’t always personally justify spending a lot of time preparing a meal for yourself when you’re on deadline, I’d like to encourage you to give yourself 30 minutes sometime this week to put something delicious together. I’m speaking to myself as much as you here when I tell you that it is possible. And I’d like to share with you a simple pasta that you can put together in little more time than you need for your brain break.
Weeknight Pasta with Kale, Zucchini, and Tomato Sauce
A Nooks & Cranberries original
1/2 pound rigatoni
extra-virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, pressed
1 zucchini, quartered lengthwise and cut into ¼-inch slices
1 small bunch kale, ribs removed and discarded and leaves cut into thin slices
1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes
Dried chili flakes
Bring a pot of water to a boil while you do the dishes, start a load of laundry, and work on prepping the ingredients. When the water has come to a boil, add a little olive oil and generously salt the water. Add pasta and cook according to the package directions.
Meanwhile, heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large pan until it shimmers, then add garlic and sauté until fragrant and tender (but not so long that it starts to turn golden), about 1 minute. Add zucchini and stir for a minute or two. Add diced tomatoes, juices included, and stir to combine, giving it a minute for the tomatoes to start heating up. Stir in the kale and cover, and cook until the kale is softened and tomatoes are hot.
Drain the pasta, discarding the water, and add to the pan. Stir until combined and serve with a generous sprinkling of dried chili flakes. Eat while sitting at a proper place setting–not at your computer–and then put the leftovers in the fridge and leave all the dishes and cooking equipment in the sink to soak until your next brain break.
After coffee at Blue Bottle and lunch at La Boulange during our afternoon in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley a few weeks ago, we didn’t think things could get any better–until we walked into Samovar Tea Lounge.
With its Zen Valley location just half a mile from the other Hayes Valley places we had just visited, we set out on foot to walk off our pastries and lunch and experience a little bit of the neighborhood. What we discovered when we arrived was a tea shop–actually a tea restaurant–that was just up our alley.
Food and Beverages
The only thing we regret about our visit to Samovar is that we arrived with full stomachs. Our time in San Francisco was limited, so we packed in as much fun as we could. But that meant not leaving enough room to sit and have a meal at Samovar. If we had, Daytona might have ordered the Russian Service with tagarraon-marined beets, smoked salmon and horseradish, devilled egg with caviar, and other foods served with Samovar’s smokey Tolstoy’s Sip black tea ($24). Then again, perhaps she would have chosen the Japanese Service or Moorish Service–they all sounded delightful. Sarah might have chosen the English service with a 3-tiered platter of goodies and the Breakfast Blend black tea ($24).
Though we couldn’t stay to eat, we did make a point to get to know the teas, spending some time with the servers to pinpoint the perfect ones for us to bring home as memories of our trip.
Location and Atmosphere
Located at the corner of Page and Laguna in a micro-neighobhood they call “Zen Valley,” and near the San Francisco Zen Center.
Across the street from some lovely classic San Francisco homes, including one that sold in 2006 for $2.3 million.
Writeability and Purchased Presence
Discreet is best if you’re coming here with writing in mind. Leave the laptop behind, and use your time for contemplation while sipping your tea or to celebrate successes with your writing partner.
Price: $$$
The various services, with food and tea, range from $19-24.
Parking
You’ll need to find street parking, which, on the day we were there, seemed like it would have been easy enough. However, even if you have to walk a little, enjoy the classic San Francisco architecture you’re sure to see on your way.
Writer’s Tip
Word on the street is that some of the Bay Area’s greatest minds have gathered at Samovar to brainstorm or share a cup of tea with comrades. Consider sitting a while with friends, soaking in the zen and do a little brainstorming of your own. Bring pieces to critique, or simply enjoy a meal together after a long day of writing.
Find It
Samovar Tea Lounge – Zen Valley location
297 Page Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
Website
