Okay, well I knew it wouldn't look that good. But I wanted to make a bright, colorful cake.
I made my shopping list and went to the store after work. Armed with cake mix, food coloring, and cans of frosting, I was feeling confident. Later that night, I dove into baking. Everything was going great until I turned the pans upside down to remove the baked cake rounds. One broke completely, and the other one came out like this:
I made my shopping list and went to the store after work. Armed with cake mix, food coloring, and cans of frosting, I was feeling confident. Later that night, I dove into baking. Everything was going great until I turned the pans upside down to remove the baked cake rounds. One broke completely, and the other one came out like this:
Still hopeful because I had another box of cake mix, I continued to prepare my cake. I even baked the second batch a little longer, thinking that would stop them from crumbling. Not so much. My rainbow cake was well on its way to becoming a rainbow disaster.
But I had promised my friend a cake for her birthday...there was no turning back! I stacked my crumbling layers on top of each other with generous layers of frosting in between to hold them together. It looked absolutely awful. And I had gone through 75% of the two tubs of icing I bought. I shaved the edges and ended up with a plate full of neon crumbs that didn't look much better than the cake itself:
At that point, I decided to put the cake in the fridge to firm up and then deal with it later. This morning, I woke up and realized that even if I could only produce one slice of cake, my friend would still have something sweet to eat for her birthday. I used the remaining scoops of frosting to cover up one edge of the cake, cut it, and put the single slice in a tupperware. I even made it to work on time.
Mission accomplished and, according to my friend, her slice of cake tasted great. Whew!
My semi-failure brought to mind how it feels to keep working on a story or a novel that just isn't coming together. You know it's turning into a hot mess, but you've invested so much time and effort into it that moving ahead seems easier than abandoning it.
I recently put away a novel that I had been working on for a few months. After researching parallel universes, ondines, hair bleaching, and the physics of time travel, then falling in love with my characters, my manuscript was a hot, hot mess. Stepping away from it was hard, but I know it was the right thing to do. It freed up my time to start working on my next project, which is going much better.
Over the weekend, I started thinking about my trunked chapters again. With a few tweaks, I think I can keep the core of the story and start over with some modifications. Like my cake, there's a salvageable piece even if the rest of it has to go in the garbage.
So if you're struggling with your manuscript, listen to the voice that's telling you to walk away. Remember that there's no shame in putting it away in the refrigerator for a little while to firm up. I think some new authors keep forging ahead for too long and end up with thousands of words that they know aren't their best work. Knowing when to stop can be a good thing.
But at the end of the day, any time spent writing isn't wasted. It will help you get better and learn so that your next novel (or cake) is beautiful and holds together.
