On Chocolate

Writing lessons from my favorite treat

(A sign above my kitchen sink)

Students in my writing classes sometimes feel overwhelmed by their own stories. So much has happened to them; where do they possibly begin? How do they know which parts to tell? How do they figure out the structure of an essay or even a book?

Before art becomes a polished, shaped product, it has to start messy. We read the published book, see the finished sculpture, and hear the produced album. We don’t see the cross-outs, the ideas that hit the cutting room floor, the first and second and third drafts, the days of writer’s block and the nights of angst. We don’t see the pieces that eventually become the whole.

Just as the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, a work of art starts with a single piece or idea. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins says, “If you want to write about a topic that’s rather large, choose an image as a point of entry, rather than taking on the topic in a frontal way.” He illustrates this idea beautifully in his poem “The Lanyard”: