I don’t know about you, but I love to cook. I don’t get to do enough of it because I live by myself in a tiny apartment with an equally tiny kitchen, but when I get the chance—I take it. And I don’t let the size of my apartment or my kitchen stop me. I’ve cooked a sit down Thanksgiving dinner for 14, first having moved every piece of furniture except table and chairs onto the balcony or into a closet or the bathtub. I’ve had 20 people over to watch the Oscars and served them a buffet meal. I often have a friend or two or three over for a meal. I’m a very good cook.
But the thing I’ve always wanted to do? I want to cook the perfect soufflé. Let me rephrase that. I want to cook any soufflé at all.
A soufflé has always seemed to me to be the ultimate cooking experience. Everything has to be just right with a soufflé. You have to have the right cooking temperature. You have to tiptoe across the kitchen floor while it’s baking so it doesn’t fall. You have to take it out of the oven at exactly the right time—not one minute too soon or one minute too late.
The thing about the soufflé for me? I’ve bought the recipe book (The Six-minute Soufflé and Other Culinary Delights by Carol Cutler—it’s my favourite recipe book, and I’ve cooked almost everything in it—except, of course, any of the soufflès), I’ve scoped out the ingredients and the soufflé dish. I’ve even checked to make sure my oven’s temperature is what it says it is. But I’m scared to put those things together. I don’t make the soufflé because I’m scared I won’t get it right.
I think all of us have a writing project that makes us feel like my soufflé wish, the project that is the ultimate stretch, the thing we desperately want to write and aren’t sure if we can. If we write sweet romance, maybe we want to try a romantic suspense. If we write hot, steamy sex, we might want to write that sweet romance. If we write alpha heroes, we’re drawn to those slightly nerdy beta males. If we write vampires, maybe we want to write a contemporary light-hearted romance.
That writing project we want to try and aren’t sure about and my soufflé are really all about the fear of failure. I’m scared I can’t cook the soufflé, so I don’t even bother to try. I love romantic suspense, but I don’t believe I can write one. But what if I tried to write a romantic suspense? What if I took all the things I love from Suzanne Brockmann and Linda Howard and Nora Roberts and just tried it? What would it hurt if it didn’t work out? Who would it hurt?
Well, it certainly wouldn’t hurt my writing. Everything I write, and especially the things I write that are hard for me, teaches me something, makes me a better writer. And it wouldn’t hurt me. Because no matter what happened, I’d still have stretched my writing wings. I’d have taken a risk and I’d have beaten down that nasty old fear of failure.
What’s weird about this for me is that the quote I always have on my desk is all about the fear of failure. And many of the quotes I have around the house are about exactly the same thing—take the risk, jump off the cliff, do something that scares you. The quote I look at every single day is what Mark Messier said to the New York Rangers when they were in the playoffs and trying to make the Stanley Cup finals after over 60 years without it. He said, You can’t be afraid to slay the dragon, and I take that to mean that whatever your dragon is, however long you’ve been living with it (like the years I’ve lived with my stupid soufflé obsession), like St. George, eventually you’re just going to have to slay it. And once it’s done? You’re going to have to live with that new life you’ve created.
So that soufflé? I’m going to make one. I’m finally going to buy that soufflé pan and I’m going to make Carol Cutler’s six-minute salmon soufflé. As for the romantic suspense? That may take a little bit longer but I’m going to slay that dragon as well. I’m going to start by doing the one thing I never do when I’m writing—I’m going to think up a plot. A whole plot. From beginning to end.
Wish me luck.
Kate Austin is a multi-published author with Harlequin’s women’s fiction line, NEXT. Her eighth book, Seeing is Believing, was published in October 2007 and is a RT Reviewers Choice award nominee. Her next book, The Losers’ Club, will soon be out in trade paperback. And "Dreamer" will be online soon with Spice Briefs. Visit Kate on the web at www.kateaustin.ca.
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