“Things Every Southern Woman Should Know How to Make”

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Alice clicked on the headline, mildly curious about what yet another stranger thought should be in her kitchen repertoire. Pictures of China plates mounded with crispy fried chicken, greens, cobbler, and a pile of biscuits a mile high flooded the screen, all set off with a pitcher of sweet tea beaded with condensation. The table was set; an apron draped off to the side next to a box labeled “Gramma’s Recipes” in fine calligraphy. She closed the browser and put away her tablet. She was born a Georgia peach, but she couldn’t make a cobbler to save her life. Did that mean she wasn’t southern? Or maybe just not “Southern.” For Alice, there was no recipe box full of family traditions. Her younger years were filled with rental homes in different states and her father’s voice coaxing her toward a text book rather than a cookbook. Metalworking and fabrication held more interest than learning to flambé or sauté. Did it make her less of a woman that her cooking skills consisted of fresh salads...
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Writing Ramble: My Adventures in Plotting


I am a hardcore pantser when I’m writing. I know a mood and a general direction I want to go in, and I write.

But that’s not working for this one particular WIP. My general roll-wherever-the-words-take-me method worked for about twelve pages. Then I got stuck. I knew where I wanted to go; I even had the basic plot written down. However, I couldn’t see the details within the picture. It was like trying to do a connect-the-dot puzzle with only two dots. (The thing’s supposed to be a bunny, y’all.)

So, I did the thing I never thought I’d do.

I made an outline. Yes, an orderly, structured, numerated document of information to guide me along my way. The thing I never wrote in school until I’d already finished my paper. And once I had it nice and neat, I saved it as a separate document, and I added details in subsections until the dots started looking somewhat bunny-shaped.

It’s terrifying and so unlike me. My critique partner thinks I’ve been replaced with a pod person.

But it’s working. It’s not perfect, I’ve shuffled a few pieces around, but the words are forming.

It’s definitely a bunny.

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