Baking Bread

happens to be one of my favorite activities, especially shortly after I awake. Working the dough provides something to do with the hands, a slow introduction to activity in the early morning hours. It's meditative as well, requiring me to relax, to get inside the dough and feel when it's ready to rise.

There's a quote, I'm not sure who said it,  that goes: "Clean out a corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it." This is exactly what happens when I make bread. During the kneading process, thoughts of stories fill my head. Whenever I'm stuck, it helps me to work out plot problems, build backstory and character, even realize flaws I didn't know were there.

Then, when it rises, I sit down and write until it comes time to work the dough again. I write again when it enters the often, only stopping when it's time to come out. But even after it comes out of the oven, it isn't done helping me write. It provides me with a reward, a delicious treat at the end of a work period that soothes my mental muscles. It reminds me that I am truly blessed.

As I try to write more often, I also bake more often—it has become an essential part of my writing process.

Well, internets, what activities have become essential for you? What do you do that helps creative thoughts flow?

Go mbeannaí Dia duit,
M. S.