One of the hardest parts about baking—bread, biscuits, cookies, whatever—is trying not to overmix the dough. Knowing when the ingredients have more or less come together and that you haven’t whisked, mixed or kneaded them into stiffness, because otherwise the dough won’t hold its shape properly and might crack in the oven. Then you’re stuck with a final result that doesn’t represent your best work.

Is this a metaphor for writing? Please, everything is a metaphor for writing.

I’ve been wrestling with this dybbuk novel for a while. I switched the protagonist and started over. I lightened the tone. I changed up the plot. And working on it has become a series of aggravations. What did I want from this story in the first place? Why isn’t it there now?

In the meantime, I started playing with this idea for a fantasy story, as though my brain needed a break from horror. (And because of all the “Legends of Vox Machina” I’ve been watching? Maybe.) I rarely write straight-up fantasy, not because I don’t love it but because I loved it too much to write it badly. But every so often a fantasy story sneaks through. So I started writing. And kept writing, and have kept at it for weeks. Figuring out what comes next has been fun and a pleasant diversion from *gestures to all of this, closes news app in disgust*.

It’s a bad habit to leave stories unfinished to chase after the shiny new idea. But sometimes you have to leave a story alone for a while until you know how to write it properly. In that situation, writing something else is better than not writing anything.

So I’ll see where this story takes me, and when I’m ready, I’ll go back to the other story. I don’t want to overmix it, and if the original idea is good enough, it’ll be worth the wait.