* * *
I had the option today of writing about either my top ten writing snacks or my top ten places to go for inspiration.... Um, are those actually two separate topics? If you were hoping today’s blog would be about how to find inspiration on long walks along the beach and visits to a sculpture gardens ... yeah, not so much. I’m a professional writer. On deadline. If I’m desperate for inspiration, it’s probably two in the morning. Fear of missing my deadline is the only thing keeping me awake. I need inspiration now. Not in eight hours when the museum opens. I don’t go for a walk. I go to the pantry.
It’s a scientific fact that chewing increases serotonin levels in your blood and therefore increases your ability to concentrate. The smell of mint also increases concentration. Ergo, eating Thin Mints at two in the morning is a totally legitimate tactic.
Now, just so you don’t think I’m totally unhealthy, I fully recognize that getting the blood pumping also helps. So walking downstairs to get the box of Thin Mints and then back upstairs to my office is part of my strategy. (And, yeah, sure, sometimes I take yoga breaks too. ‘Cause downward dog helps, too. But snacking is more fun to talk about.)
Before we dive into my list, a few caveats. Being on deadline is like running a marathon. It’s intense. You’ll have doubts. You’ll want to quit. Your body will ache in ways it doesn’t seem possible. I’m not even joking. Sixteen hours a day at the computer is no laughing matter. You have to give your body the fuel it needs. So you can’t start a book eating Thin Mints. That’s the kind of thing you hit in the home stretch.
So this is a list to get you from the beginning of the book all the way through the last desperate hours. Start slow. Pace yourself and don’t eat an entire months worth of calories at once.
1. Roasted soy nuts – high in protein and lots of crunch. I pretend they’re better for me than peanuts. Maybe they even are.
2. Roasted almonds – somewhere I read that seven almonds were the perfect snack, so that’s how many I let myself have. If I get up to my office, eat them all and am still hungry ... well, the walk back downstairs to the pantry ain’t gonna kill me.
3. Organic baby carrots – if they were good enough for Bugs Bunny, they’re good enough for me.
4. Frozen grapes – for years, I read about people snacking on these and thought folks were just crazy. But they’re actually pretty yummy. I like mine sliced thin so I don’t have a giant choking hazard in my mouth. (We writers are experts at imagining ways we can die in the night and not be found until the rest of our family wakes up in the morning.)
5. Dried vegetable chips – my grocery store sells them in tubs near the bulk food section. They’re crunchy and salty. I pretend they’re better for me than normal chips, but they’re probably not.
6. Cinnamon Altoids – They’re crunchy, they’re minty, and you can’t eat them too fast with making your head explode. That’s a win, right?
7. Ghirardelli Chocolate Squares – Early on in a book, I allow myself one of these a day. I can nibble one for about an hour if I pace myself.
8. Ghirardelli 60% chocolate chips – by the time I’m a month out on deadline, I’ve progressed from one tiny chocolate a day to fistfuls of chocolate chips. Thank God Ghirardelli makes chocolate chips. Being on deadline is no excuse to eat bad chocolate. Of course, in the last couple of weeks of deadline, all bets are off. The bag of chips just sits beside my keyboard up in the office.
9. Chocolate covered soy nuts – crunchy and chocolate, what more do I have to say? Last year for their birthdays, I gave Tracy and Shellee each a pound of these. I have been forbidden to ever do so again.
10. Thin Mints – hey, you knew it was coming, right? But I gotta warn you. Thin Mints are a snack food to pull out only in dire snacking emergencies. The sugar crash can cause a severe napping emergency. Use with extreme caution, or for celebratory purposes only.
The International Kissing Club by Ivy Adams is the story of four best friends: Piper, Cassidy, Mei, and Izzy--the misfits of Paris, Texas. Their whole lives, they’ve dreamed of escaping small-town life and seeing the world. So when Piper is the victim of an embarrassing prank that goes viral online, she gets the idea that the girls should escape via the school’s international exchange program, in search of fun, love and internet redemption.
Emily McKay, Shellee Roberts and Tracy Deebs write under the pseudonym Ivy Adams. They shop, gossip and watch movies in Austin, Texas.
