Ardge; Hang tight. I too love both cooking and writing. I have three completed novels, two fantasy and one science fiction, with a couple more in progress. I haven't seriously tried to publish them as my writing skills need improvement. I've been told by at least two agents that I have no buisness giving up my dream of publishing because I have the natural story-telling gift. I'm told that my stories are wonderfully creative, fun to read, and that my plots move well. My weakness is in character development.
The plots, I'm told, are very good. The pacing is fast and exciting, but my characters come off as two-dimensional, and I can't seem to fix it.
As for the cooking, well, I have three cookbooks written that aren't your average cookbooks. You'd have to read one to understand how they are different from standard cookbooks. I haven't tried professionally publishing them yet as I continue to learn new things that make some of my older ideas obsolete, though the ideas are still correct. Besides, publishing requires money, something that my family uses up almost faster than I can earn it.
But you are younger than I, and with more opportunity before you. I chose a field of technology instead of passion. Though technology can be approached with passion, and my training could have made it so, it would have required risks, and I opted for safety. My family will always come first.
I still may realize my dreams with respect to the cullinary arts. I will have a working website that will offer the skills learned over such a long time, along with advice for preparing meats, fish and poultry, to working with custards, sauces, soups, and pastries, not to mention sides and veggies. There is so much to know, so much to teach. But when a knowledge of physics, chemistry, scientific methodology, and artistic passion combine with countless hours of trying new techniques, new foods, and ways to create unique recipes, an intrinsic, almost intuitive knowledge emerges that can fill in the pure knowledge and experience gaps.
I too have a love for the cullinary and written arts. But my overiding skill, my job, is and always will be taking care of my family, that is, being a father and husband. And to that end, I will continue to bring in a good wage by making my customers happy and solving their issues. I'm a telecom tech, with a B.S. in electrical engineering technology, a degree that was supposed to move me far beyond the mundane job I now accomplish.
So I come here, to offer the knowledge I have, and to get advise in those areas that I'm inexperienced in.
Ardge, you found your passion at an age where you can do something with it. Grab hold of that passion as if it were the mein of a winged horse, hurtling through the icy stratosphere (now is that cliche or what
). It will carry you to your goal, to your dream. Don't be content to settle for mundane, unless you have a very important reason to (see my line at the bottom of the page).
One cautionary word though; great passion carries with it the possibility of great sorrow. For passion requires that you move toward your dream with maximum energy. And when obstacles place themselves into your path, be they human, or circumstantial, that forward momentum is briefly halted, and is cause for great personal tumult. Artistic people are driven more by emotion than are logical people. And emotion too easily converts from one extreme to another. So, my advice is to blend the logical and artistic sides of yourself into one, as I have done. But, where the logical side dominates in me, let the artistic side dominate in you, but not dominate you.
And this from a man of few regrets, who will turn 50 tomorrow.
Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North