Photo by Ian Wallace
I’m proud to give you the first guest post by our daughter Faith Weaver. Faith is a dancer, writer, and an incredible young woman-of-God. Watch for the link for her coming blog for her first novel! (She is also the amazing photographer of many of the photos I use on this blog, including the one below of her writing desk!)
It sticks to the roof of your mouth. It adds just the right amount of savory to chocolate. It makes everything sticky. And it helps writer’s block. Yes, that’s right. Peanut butter is a magical property that can seep into your brain cells and unlock the deepest blocks when it comes to writing. So, when I think of peanut butter, I don’t taste peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and Reese’s on my smores. I don’t think of sticking my finger in a brand-new jar of Jif (family tradition that grosses my husband out). I think of writing.
When I was young, my mom taught me the love of writing, just as she did my sister. I would sit beside them as they wrote, listening to them tap the keyboards as they poured out their thoughts, and then suddenly, silence. The quiet consumed the room as they 
thought of what wonderful words they should type next. Then came the well-known sound of the backspace bar as sentences were written … re-written … deleted … changed … written the same way as the first time … and then deleted again. Finally, one of them would grab a jar of peanut butter which was never too far away, and they’d scoop out a spoonful to eat as they thought. Somehow, the magic never failed and soon they would be back to typing away.
Eventually, I became curious and asked what was so special about the jar of peanut butter, to which they replied that the peanut butter was “Writing Peanut Butter,” and it helped with writer’s block. It was like joining a secret club! My excitement over sharing something so special with my mom and sister, whom I idolized as a kid, made me feel like I was walking on clouds. And the biggest surprise: it worked! The peanut butter was actually magic! As I grew, I always had a jar of peanut butter beside the computer, and when I moved out, it was the first thing I bought for my home office. (NOTE: Generic brands aren’t magic, they’re just messy!)
Now, as the Montrose Christian Writers Conference draws closer, I am spending more and more time in front of my computer trying to write furiously. But with extra writing comes extra writer’s block, and I will be forever grateful that my mom and sister instilled me with the great peanut butter secret. Dipping a spoon into a jar of creamy goodness (crunchy peanut butter is an abomination) always starts my creative juices flowing again. I like to think the stickiness is pulling the block away, leaving a fresh path of thought in its wake. As I’ve said before and I’ll say again: “Writing Peanut Butter to the rescue!”
*** What does opening a new jar of peanut butter mean to you? Please, share your story! Click on the words beside the date of this post. Scroll down to the box with the heading, “Leave a reply.” Thank you for sharing!
*** The week after the writers’ conference always means anticipation! It’s also the end of my Christmas-in-July events. Check the post next week to see what I’ll be doing to anticipate the actual December 25th celebration of Christ’s birth!
legaciesletloose 
Hi, Faith! It’s so nice to meet you. 🙂 Great peanut butter-writing tip.
Blessings,
Julie
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Thanks, Julie! She’s at the writers’ conference with me again this year. Such a treat! Blessings!
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You’ll have to let my know if it works for you as well as it does for me! Thank you for reading!
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One of my fondest memories of my daddy was beating him to the “new” unopened Peanut Butter jar to get that first awesome, creamy and tantalizing spoonful of luscious Peanut Butter!!!! It didn’t matter that there was an opened jar already in the cabinet. This was a competition between my daddy and me!!!! I miss beating him to the jar! However, now it’s “Game On” competition between my husband Larry and me! He and I have continued the tradition. lol
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Traditions like this are so much fun! I’m interested in how they get started, though. How did your with your daddy begin, Angie? And yes, we have already done the same thing–opened a new jar just for that first delectable scoop, even when another jar still had one sandwich worth of peanut butter in the bottom to be scraped out. Thank you for sharing! Blessings!
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The first taste is always the best!
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Hi Faith, so nice to read your first blog here!
I never knew the peanut butter secret. I think I might need a whole case of it on MY desk, lol. Peanut butter, for me, is best in a pbj sandwich. Despite your renouncement of crunchy pb, it used to be my very favorite, however lately I’ve begun to come over to the other side and am learning to relish the creamy kind, and even often without the jelly to go with it! It seems the only time, though, my tummy cries out for it is around midnight, probably the worst time you could eat such a thing, just before bed! Even so, it just seems to hit the spot and even makes me sleep so well. Not that it’s an everynight practice, mind you, but once in a blue moon. Now, however, I may need to slip one in here or there while writing, just to test if your theory will work for me too — I’ll let you know!!
— Leafy
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Leafy, my favorite peanut butter use is FUDGE! LOL! And talking about hitting “the spot,” yeah: my hips, my waist, my arms …. Thanks for sharing!
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Haha, yeah sadly I know all about that!
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I look forward to the results of your experiment!!!
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Thank you, Faith, for guest-blogging this week! I figured I should tell my favorite peanut butter story, and it has to do with “writing peanut butter,” too. Remember the giant box which arrived a couple weeks before Christmas one year for Sarah, with the note, “Do not open until Christmas!” The person responsible for the start of the “writing peanut butter” had sent it. When she opened it on Christmas morning, it contained the most gigantic jar of peanut butter I’d ever seen, one which almost didn’t fit on the shelf in the cupboard! So much laughter and many fun memories filled the air with the peanuty smell when she opened the jar and passed it around for each of us to stick in our finger to enjoy it. And though it’s not especially a “good” part of the memory, it does come to mind whenever this story is told: several months down the road, when we’d eaten much of the jar but still not come close to emptying it, we had an infestation of ants, and sadly, they infiltrated everything, including crawling up inside the lid of that jar of peanut butter, necessitating the removal of it to the garbage can. Such a gigantic peanut butter memory! LOL!
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Faith, I so loved meeting you and getting to know you at the Montrose conference! Now I know we have something else in common. I’ve been a Jif Creamy fan my whole life. Taking after my daddy, I have it every morning for breakfast, with preserves, preferably on Wonder bread, with a big glass of milk. And I do love that first dip into a new jar! Never tried it for writer’s block, though. Will definitely have to give that a try.
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Faith fell in love with you just as I knew she would, Kathy! I never thought about how dipping into the peanut butter also relates to my dad and Faith’s grandpa. He LOVED peanut butter and would eat it with a spoon. The only reason we made peanut butter cookies at Christmas was for him, and the kids would make a giant one and smash it all over with forks for their grandpa! She’ll be delighted you replied to her piece. Thank you for sharing! Blessings!
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