Can we talk about cookie dough for a minute?

Is there anything more delightful, more unnecessary, than cookie dough as a dessert enhancer? As if that hot fudge sundae wasn’t enough on its own and needed three huge hunks of cookie dough glommed to its side. But you know what? That cookie dough sundae from a little shop in Door County is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten, and it still brightens my day when I think about it. It’s brought an outsized amount of joy to my life.

Furthermore, cookie dough is plain thrilling to eat because as a kid, it was a Grade A safety threat. It’s fun that now there are edible options out there that won’t make you wonder if your few moments of fun are going to land you in the hospital.

A character that I’m currently working on has a secret desire to open a seaside shop dedicated to nothing but cookie dough. She feels her dream to be unnecessary to the community. No one is begging her to open this store. After all, an ice cream shop and fudge shop are just down the boardwalk. Also, the concept itself is a little over the top: a whole shop that only sells cookie dough confections?

However, due to more recent events, she can’t help but shake the feeling that this is the path meant for her. Bringing comfort, fun, and a little hope to people one scoop of cookie dough at a time lights her up inside when so many other doors in her life have closed, leaving her reeling. But she is terrified to talk about her dream, both afraid of what her adult daughter will think and just as scared that she’ll never do anything about it.

There’s an art, isn’t there, to pursuing a dream? It takes discernment about whether you simply need to drum up the courage to do it or if you need to abandon it immediately because it’s an awful idea that will bankrupt your family.

I am fascinated by how people sort through the ideas they have and opportunities they’re presented with to find what’s right for them: which school to apply to, what career to go all out in, whether or not to set up those two friends who seem perfect for each other. I’m also forever interested in who they needed in their lives, family or strangers, to help make those decisions. Why is one path perfect for this person and a disaster for that person? Why is something so clear to the outsider and not to the person whose life’s trajectory depends on what she chooses? These are issues my characters will have to fumble their way through.

Just the other morning, my daughter helped reel me in from a bad Big Idea. I’d come across a news story about how Ireland is paying people to renovate property on the beautiful and remote Aran Islands. I wondered if this was our family’s Next Big Adventure.

I had worked out how we would pay for eight round trip tickets to Ireland every summer (rent out the property, of course) and even how our family would travel around the country (by bus, because there aren’t a lot of big cars there.) However, it was after my daughter pointed out that if we’re in the market for island property, perhaps Fiji would be the more desirable island, I realized that we were, in fact, not in the market for island property anywhere.

So if you’re doing your own discerning at the moment, I hope you’ll find some time for coffee with a friend or breakfast with your daughter…and a little cookie dough. It might help make the way forward clear.