Worth A Smack in The Face

February 6, 2009

Okay, it's none of my business, really, but I'm going to say what I was thinking. Yesterday my blog friend Stephen Parrish wrote a fantastic essay about working as a kitchen manager in a restaurant. I commented that he should write a nonfiction book about his experiences ala Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential."

Erica Orloff chimed in that she agreed. So did someone else.

Stephen's probably thinking we're all full of, er, excrement, or kicking himself wondering why he never thought of it.

You know, that old write-what-you-know.

Granted, I think Stephen might need to build a platform for it by writing some articles about his experiences--but that can be an interesting and lucrative end of writing--Bon Appetit, The New Yorker, the list goes on, because he provides background and insight into something we're all interested in--eating and how restaurants run. But still... "Kitchen Confidential" sold a boodle of copies and launched a big alternate career--hell, I've actually read one of Bourdain's novels--"Gone Bamboo" before.

The reason I was thinking about this was because I'd been working for 7 years or so in genetics before someone suggested I actually write an article about it, which essentially was the first step toward what is now a successful freelance writing career. One baby step, but I kept ignoring it. It was right in front of my face, but I never bothered to look at it. In fact, I was carefully NOT looking at it. We do that a lot. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I have a friend who wanted (or wants) to be a novelist. He showed me his manuscript and he was a pretty good writer and he was writing about stuff that I knew interested him--maybe the novels were a sort of fantasy vacation for him (I know some of my earlier novels were). It didn't quite work, but the basics were there. We were having lunch one day and he told me about being a Navy brat from like three generations of Navymen, that he spent time in the Navy, visited Hong Kong while in the service, and I wondered why he didn't write a novel based on that. (Hell, I was thinking last night a murder mystery on an air craft carrier would seem pretty exotic).

We write and don't write for a lot of different reasons. I avoided writing about medicine and genetics for a long time because I was trying to escape from it. But I was ignoring a fact that I had insider knowledge and experience that other writers don't. And I bring a different perspective--a unique perspective--to my writing when I write about it.

So my question is: are you ignoring your unique perspective?

Cheers,

Mark Terry