There are some things you simply can’t rush.
When I shared my thoughts on sourdough, I wrote about how cooking and writing are both creative acts meant to be shared. Making homemade peach jam reminded me of another lesson.
Good prose, much like good preserves, takes time to become what it’s meant to be.
A pot of peaches doesn’t begin as jam. It begins as fruit, sugar, and a little uncertainty. Then comes the waiting. The stirring. The careful attention. Little by little, what once seemed loose and scattered begins to deepen in color, richness, and character until it becomes something entirely different from where it started.
Writing has always felt much the same.
A first draft rarely resembles the story that eventually reaches a reader’s hands. It must be revisited, refined, and reduced to its essence. Every unnecessary word is skimmed away. Every sentence is given the chance to become a little stronger, a little clearer, and a little more honest.
Growing up in Appalachia, patience was never treated as idleness. Waiting with purpose was understood as part of the work itself. Gardens were tended. Wood was seasoned. Bread was left to rise. Fruit was preserved for the seasons ahead. The mountains have a way of teaching that worthwhile things reveal themselves in their own time.
Standing over a pot of peach jam, I couldn’t help but think about the pages waiting on my desk.
Both ask us to slow down. Both ask us to pay attention. And both remind us that the finest work often comes not from adding more, but from carefully discovering what deserves to remain.
Sometimes the sweetest things are those that have been given the time to become themselves.
Robert Lee Dugan III
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