Beginner’s Jam
A couple of weeks ago I taught my first preserving class of the season. Later in the summer there will be a marmalade class and chutney and pressure canning, but I always start with Jam for Beginners. Each year Beginners Jam demonstrates that with the smallest amount of instruction, absolutely anyone can make jam. The only skills you need are the ability to time a boil and measure in cups. It’s not how I learned* to make jam but it is absolutely the best place to start. And I like teaching the class because it reminds me the importance of coming back to the beginning.
Lately I’ve been feeling that same beginner energy in my writing life. I’ve been writing for years and have had some essays and short fiction stories published. (But no books. Not yet.) According to my Sage Hill mentor, Lorri Nelson Glenn, the memoir I’m working on is ready to start submitting to a publisher. And to do that I need a book proposal. I have a completed manuscript, so I hoped I could skip this step. But apparently not.
“Beginner's mind is what we must come back to every time we sit down and write. There is no security, no assurance that because we wrote something good two months ago, we will do it again. Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we ever did it before. Each time is a new journey with no maps.” - Natalie Goldberg excerpted from Writing Down the Bones
So I start researching. A proposal is roughly thirty pages long, and has a specific format that publishers expect. I need an overview, an annotated table of contents, a list of comparable titles with an analysis of why my book is both similar and different, I ned to understand my audience, and discuss my platform…It’s daunting. I reach out to other writer friends who are further along in their publishing journeys. I find resources online, I order the how-to book a classmate recommends. And suddenly I’m a beginner again, shutting down my computer each evening with my brain bursting with new information, and I’m wondering if I can figure this out.
As we get older it gets harder to be a beginner. My daughter is nineteen and figuring herself out. She’s willing to experiment and try new things, and when I look at her I realize how fixed I’ve become in what is familiar and comfortable. Being a beginner is hard. But it’s also satisfying, to be learning a new skill, to feel my ideas and thoughts stretch out of what’s familiar. And when I stretch myself, my world expands in amazing new ways. So whether the end goal is a row of Blackberry Honey jam tucked onto a pantry shelf for the winter, or a finished proposal waiting to be sent out, beginners mind is something to be nurtured.
Honey Blackberry Jam
5 cups blackberries
1 cup Apple Juice
1 box Bernadin No Sugar Needed Pectin
¾ cup honey
Stem and crush blackberries.
Measure out 4 cups berries, add apple juice and the box of Pectin crystals.
Stir well. Bring to a hard boil over high heat.
Boil for 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in honey.
Pour into warm jars. Wipe jars and screw on lids.
Process in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes.
* See Lessons From My Grandmother - The Fieldstone Review - Issue 14
Photo by Barbara Chowaniec on Unsplash
