I chose this beautiful stock image so I did not have to clean my stove in order to snap a picture of my actual teapot.
I am in my thirties, and I own a tea kettle. This is dramatic.
Almost to the north of thirty, and I have a tea kettle. This is dramatic in my life as I’ve never owned a tea kettle before. I’ve seen them lurking in other people’s houses, but I more so assumed they served a decor purpose than functionality. People are into that whole rustic decor thing, right? In our world of instant this and instant that, why would people use tea kettles?
First let me get nostalgic. My mother drank tea e-ver-e-day when I was growing up, without fail. I felt like a triumphant child when I was old enough to make it myself (heat a cup of water in the microwave, drop in a tea bag, splash of milk, BOOM, triumph). She is old enough to remember the time before microwaves, so she grew up with tea kettles, but went the way of microwaving. Currently she is rocking a Keurig.
I never, ever questioned the microwave method. Not that I haven’t been AWARE of tea kettles (see decor statement above), but microwaving was efficient and in two minutes you had hot water. Like three days ago I heated water in the microwave to make tea.
Last night I was re-reading some character development pieces (personal word porn, see my fanfiction post) and realized all the characters in one particular universe are always drinking tea. Important discussions are had over tea. Calming people’s shit is done with tea. All the tea made with kettles. I already drink tea but nothing is ever solved, there's never enough discussions, and I could use some shit-calming some days, so maybe the chars are onto something.
$15.00 later I own a tea kettle. The experience of kettling tea (I’m going with this terminology) is amazing. There’s a waiting time to get from tepid water to boiling, and there’s no hurry except hurry up and wait. I have no option but to slow my brain down and wait. The first time I fired it up I didn’t leave the kitchen because of an inaccurate fear of the kettle exploding or rocketing through my roof, so I idled. Put some silverware away. Wiped off the counter. Let the dogs out and in.
It makes me pause, to take a breath, to ground myself in those moments.
And it sits on my stove like decor. The kettle is red, and my kitchen is mainly blue, so there's that.
So what does this have to do with writing? Look at your work and try something your characters have tried. They're living all the lives you wish you could, and pieces of those lives are floating around your subconscious. Characters are born from our brains, all different flavors from different ingredients, and those ingredients may be more visible on paper than in your head.