Kathleen Alcalá

Feeding the Dragon
January 2012

2012 is the year of the dragon, and an apt symbol for something I just experienced.

After a few days of holiday festivities, I turned back to “Notes from a Food Oasis.” When I opened the file, it hissed at me. I tried to read my work over the last two years, and it growled. I tried to recall the organization of the book and it reached out a claw and scratched me across the cheek. Ouch!

What was this all about? Works in progress don’t like to be neglected. They expect to be praised and petted, fed a little writer’s blood every day. As the sports writer Red Smith said, “Writing is easy – just sit down and open a vein.”

Nevertheless, I thought I was friends with my dragon. I thought we had an understanding: It would resist my efforts to a certain extent, then release a tiny bit of control to me – a paragraph, a chapter titled, a topic finding its proper place among the other topics.

In return, I would pet it and praise it some more, feed it a little more blood. I might even publicly admit to having a relationship with a book in progress, a book about food on Bainbridge Island.

But my dragon felt betrayed. I had neglected it for eight to ten days to wrap gifts, attend parties, and enjoy our son home from California. I had exchanged phone calls with my sisters, and even baked a cake and a pumpkin pie!

Writing cannot be neglected, or it quickly reverts to the wild. I know a writer who works every day of the year except Christmas and his birthday. Surely and steadily, he has written about thirty books.

You can’t let your writing languish, although at this stage, my book is substantial enough that it shouldn’t go feral that quickly. You would think. But I learned, ignore your writing project and it might just slash you across the cheek.

I hear growling. Back to work.

New Blog: The Clueless Eater

March 4, 2011
For the balance of this year, I will be publishing a blog called "Plowing by Moonlight: Notes from a Food Oasis." This is my exploration of the relationship between the people of Bainbridge Island and their food.

I hope that you will join me on this journey. The blog, which has three issues up so far, will only be published every three weeks or so. It condenses a bit from each of the chapters of a book in progress.

If you would like to subscribe to the blog, please visit my website at www.kathleenalcala.com, click on "blog," and subscribe.

Or, you are welcome to visit my site now and then to keep up.

Thank you for subscribing to the newsletter, which is a more natural form of communication for me. I hope to check in now and then.

Best, Kathleen