Writers' Block

A Contribution From Our AWA Writers' Group Members

A Nugget of Inspiration

by Amanda Jaffe

I’m taking a class on creative nonfiction, and I’m struggling with the homework — writing a “hermit crab essay.” Like a hermit crab, which borrows anything it might find to serve as a protective shell for its fragile body, the author of a hermit crab essay borrows a found form or piece of writing as the shell for a personal essay. Engaging with the borrowed form, I’m told, will free me to produce something surprising and selfrevelatory. My search for a shell is becoming desperate. Either the body doesn’t fit the shell, or the shell doesn’t fit the body, but which is cause and which is effect doesn’t matter. I’m finding nothing to work with because an essay form that encourages self-revelation is the last thing I need right now.

Then, I find a nugget of inspiration.

From the Irish News, 13 October 2020: “Supermarket giant Iceland has celebrated its 50th anniversary by sending a chicken nugget into space.”

It may not be the typical shell for a hermit crab essay, but I feel an immediate affinity for the nugget. I recently celebrated my anniversary. My husband and I got engaged on a trip, picked our wedding date based on our favorite time of year to travel, and have traveled for our anniversary ever since. This anniversary, the best we could manage was a walk. It was a lovely walk, but in a world where the only safe place to travel might well be out of this world, the chicken nugget participated in a more exciting anniversary celebration than I did. We weren’t even comfortable going out to dinner.

A chicken nugget is my muse.

“The breaded snack took just under two hours to reach 110,000ft (33,528m) above the Earth.”

The dramatic ascent of the nugget dangling from a high-tech balloon was captured on film, complete with stirring musical accompaniment. I watched the video. I’ve since learned that the nugget traveled above what’s known as the Armstrong Line. Not quite outer space, but unquestionably beyond the bounds of a hospitable environment for humans.

The nugget did just fine. I, on the other hand, was a puddle of mush. I actually teared up as I watched that brave little nugget climb through the stratosphere and beyond. Am I overreacting? The distance between reacting and overreacting is largely a matter of scale. It’s difficult these days to distinguish what’s banal from what’s absurd as the distance between the two shrinks, throwing my emotions out of balance and justifying almost any reaction. There’s immense potential for self-revelation here. But I’m not biting.

“A staple of the frozen food aisles, more than 10 million chicken nuggets, chunks and strips were sold last week alone.”

Ten million nuggets, chunks and strips. It’s hard to stand out in a crowd, but this little nugget-that-could succeeded. I, on the other hand, spend much of my time writing in obscurity, alternating between yelling into the void and inviting rejection. The nugget had its story picked up by the Irish News, CNN, and the Times of India, among others. I will never, ever get better press than that nugget.

I wonder what would happen if I tied my writing to a balloon and filmed it rising above the Armstrong Line, floating above the aching beauty of the curved, blue Earth against the void of space, plummeting back through the stratosphere with a story to tell. Would a publisher be interested enough to take a look?

God, I hope they didn’t just pop that nugget into the microwave after it landed.

Actually, I hope they did.

The AWA Writers’ Group meets the second and fourth Thursday of each month. For more information, send an email to writers@awasingapore.org