The Beauty of Substitutions

Yesterday, a little spare time at the office found me (as it so often does) on pinterest. As I perused the unending selection of cute animal pictures, gorgeous architecture and DIY ideas, I came upon a recipe for something called Chocolate Cobbler. Thoroughly intrigued, I gave the recipe a read through and pinned it to make that very night.
However, my kitchen had other plans. When I opened my cupboards that evening I found them bare, and the countless ingredients I'd been positive were in there just a few short hours ago, were gone. It seemed my pantry had grown thoroughly neglected.
At first, I thought I was just out of brown sugar. Determined to make a go of it anyway, I searched the web for substitutions. Then I ran out of white sugar, followed shortly by the realization that I didn't have any cocoa. Suddenly my chocolate cobbler seemed pretty impossible.
Filled with despair, and with a half finished recipe sitting on the counter, I grabbed a spoonful of ice cream and slumped down on the floor to pout. But the ice cream just wasn't doing it. Dammit, I wanted that cobbler! It was time for more substitutions.
By the time I was done, it was a vanilla cobbler made with icing sugar. And you know what? It was yummy. My husband doesn't even want me to try the chocolate version. He likes this one. Which brought me to an epiphany about writing.
Perhaps you've heard the quote by Erin Morgenstern, "When in doubt, just add ninjas." I have it pinned above my writing desk. Well, last night I really understood how to put it into action. (Not that I added tiny ninjas to the cobbler. Although that would be interesting...) When things aren't working out and you're afraid your work is going nowhere, just make a few substitutions. Play with the recipe and add a twist or two to fit your needs. Because guidelines are helpful, but when you throw a few rules out the window, you wind up with something totally different. And maybe you'll like it a lot better than the original.

Introducing...

Poppet and Widget!

That's right, thanks to The Night Circus and the always wonderful Erin Morgenstern, the bunnies now have names.

Today, as I whiled away the hours in the twitter-verse, I saw a tweet by Erin Morgenstern regarding a beautiful drawing of Poppet and Widget from her book, The Night Circus, who are brother and sister. (Which if you haven't read, you REALLY should. It's amazing. Vivid, imaginative and utterly captivating). When I saw her tweet, it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I had the names for my bunnies!

Of course, I had to give credit where credit was due, so I immediately tweeted my thanks to Erin Morgenstern for her brilliant character names that would now also become my adorable bunnies' monikers. And she tweeted BACK! I'm always so excited when this happens. I think it's amazing that there are so many amazing authors out there willing to take the time to connect with their fans. I completely geeked out over our small twitter conversation and spent the rest of my day smiling like a fool. (I guess you could say I was "twitterpated". HAH!)

In any case, I know you're probably wondering who's who. Poppet is the little brown and white bunny, and Widget is the grey and white one. They're already as close and inseparable as their namesakes and I think it's going to be a really great fit.

So thank you Erin Morgenstern! Everyone go out and buy The Night Circus! It's a fabulous book and you can learn all about Poppet and Widget. In closing, here is another photo of the bunnies and the book that inspired their names.