Writing a book is a cruel and unusual, yet beautifully rewarding, journey. I suffered greatly while writing my new book, The French Ingredient, a memoir about opening a cooking school in France. My suffering was amplified because I had to write the damn thing in Paris.
In theory, who wouldn’t want to write a book in Paris? How romantic to write in one of the most inspirational cities in the world, where writers like Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway flocked to. I was seduced by the idea. The creative muses of Paris—the beautiful buildings and people—were to be my inspiration. I expected they’d dance for me like they have done for so many great writers.
Lo and behold, they refused to dance. They sat on the sidelines looking bored with my many failed attempts to sit and write. At some points, they even seemed disdainful.
I thought that perhaps I wasn’t in the proper setting. I needed to be somewhere more inspired, somewhere that would get the creative juices flowing. I searched and searched for that perfect spot. I imagined a dimly lit café where my writing breaks would be spent sipping a dirty martini, staining the glass’s rim with my ruby-red lipstick. I’d finally have the opportunity to wear my Parisian beret in a perfectly beatnik café, with smoke swirling around me. This would be where I would type out pages of gorgeous writing. The problem is that the café never appeared, and my dirty martini never arrived.
I imagined a dimly lit café where my writing breaks would be spent sipping a dirty martini, staining the glass’s rim with my ruby-red lipstick.
Taking matters into my own hands, I decided that if the muses wouldn’t dance, I’d turn to the Gods. I prayed to the Gods of Penmanship to speak to me. But they, too, were silent.
Early into the process, the mirage crumbled and I realized writing is, well, hard. It’s laborious. It’s isolating. I desperately wanted to be disciplined and organized with a flawless writing schedule. But, for the longest time, writing made me feel inadequate, unaccomplished, and frustrated. I began to dread it. Those hours dedicated to writing became like a childhood time-out. It was painful.
Eventually, I started to see the beauty and self-discovery in the fear and pain of writing. It was slowly taming me—not the other way around. It taught me to be humble, to go steady. Some things cannot be forced. It encouraged me to trust my instincts and to accept the type of writer I am.
Most of all, writing taught me that every one of us is a writer, in our own unique way. As long as we approach writing with self-acceptance and honesty, not with preconceived notions of what we should be.
Whoever tells you that writing a book is a wonderful experience is terribly sick in the head. But I will also tell you that once you start, even at the painful points when you attempt to turn away, writing calls you back to learn more, mostly about yourself. As ridiculous as it may sound, I may embark on this wonderfully horrible journey again. I just need to find that perfect café and my dirty martini.
Jane Bertch is the founder of La Cuisine Paris, a culinary school in France