I think I was around nine. That makes sense.

We were staying at my grandmother’s house while she was away, and my parents had guests over for dinner. My father came to the kitchen. “Can you put some butter in this dish and bring it in to the table?”

I said, “Sure.”

But we were in my grandmother’s house.

My grandmother was the queen of fancy butter.

She had a pair of grooved wooden paddles, which she kept in a jug of water and between which she would roll small chunks of butter to make beautiful soft spheres with an allover crisscross pattern. (I can still hear the tiny, fatty squilch the butter made on the wet wood.) When I was much smaller, I used to stand on a chair at the end of the kitchen counter and watch her pile them up — possibly in the very dish my father had handed to me.

It might have been a generational thing: my other grandmother had a small scalloped scoop, which she would drag over the surface of her butter block to make elegant curls, ridged like corduroy. They weren’t quite as fancy as the butterballs, in my opinion, but they had their own charm.

What I’m trying to say is, in my grandmother’s house, merely cutting a slab of butter and slapping it on a dish just didn’t feel right.

I had no scalloped scoop.

I didn’t know how to use the grooved wooden paddles.

I doubt I’d even washed my hands, to tell you the revolting truth.

Nothing daunted, I set out to construct a masterpiece in butter. I would leave behind the rounded forms of my foremothers, and build a miniature edifice, with square columns supporting a ceiling slab and a decorative frieze on top.

Nobody who saw this mighty work, or indeed scraped off lumps of it to spread on their bread, would ever forget it. Ballads would be sung describing its many-faceted glory. It would be magnificent.

A Butter Parthenon.

The columns, being made of butter, were slippery and hard to set on end, and the ceiling slab slid off the first time I put it in place. I turned it over so that my greyish fingerprints were less visible and pressed it down as firmly as I could.

My father put his head around the door. “Can we have that butter now?”

“In a minute!” I snapped. He retreated. OK, I was a bit flustered now, working against the clock.

One of the support columns was too thin, and had been too evidently mauled. I was going to need to replace it. Tricky manoeuvre. Sure enough, when I pulled it out, the whole thing collapsed for a second time.

Right. Breathe. Maybe I could start again on a clean dish with new butter? If I made the columns shorter it might be more stable.

In came my father for the third time. “They’re waiting, I’m sorry.”

And as I looked on, stricken, he cut a slab of butter, slapped it on the dish, and took it to the dining table.

I’m telling you this story in case it resonates.

Because here’s a true thing: this was not my last Butter Parthenon.

A Butter Parthenon, to be clear, is a creative project that becomes mired in its own complexity.

When my o’erweening ambition outstrips (a) my skills, (b) the time available, (c) the appropriate scope of the work, or (d) all of the above, I have a Butter Parthenon on my hands. (Mmm, greasy fingers.)

So, for example, there was the unbelievably amazing cardigan I started knitting when I was sixteen, the one that was going to redefine cardigans forever, but that foundered when I realised that the pieces I was knitting weren’t coming out a consistent size.

I didn’t really understand about gauge and swatching at the time, and when it all went awry I rolled up the pieces I’d made, stuck them in a bag, and walked away. (They’re currently in my attic. I’m 45.)

There was the novel I started writing — full disclosure: in long-hand, with a fountain pen, by candlelight (don’t worry, eyerolling right along with you) — that would totally have shaken western literature to its foundations if only I had written more than fifty pages. I had no idea what I was doing, how to do it, or what I was trying to say, and I was shackled by my perceived need to write something Important.

Eventually, having bashed my head against this novel for several years, I put it away and wrote something with a straightforward linear plot and comparatively little literary funny business. (That one got published. I’m working on another one now.)

I can think of several more examples — arguably including some of my current works in progress, which is uncomfortable. It’s a reflex of mine, to want to make the Most Bestest Thing Ever, every single time.

That drive is not a bad thing in itself. If I consistently reach for excellence, I’ll probably make better work than if I consistently settle for mediocrity. But there’s a balance to be struck. In reaching across the gap between where I am and where I want to be, I nonetheless need to work with the skills and resources I have to hand.

In other words, ambition is great, but if I bite off more than I can chew, I may choke.

Meanwhile, I wouldn’t normally advise emphasising the audience when making your work. But I believe the concept of fitness for purpose applies to art — particularly for a commissioned piece (like that benighted dish of butter!). There needs to be some consideration of how people are going to relate to the work when it’s done. Sometimes, cutting a slab of art and slapping it on a dish is the way to go.

Not always! It’s vital, as artists, that we set off on voyages that may lead nowhere, that we leap boundaries and smash paradigms and clamber through the looking-glass into undiscovered territories — even if there’s nothing of much interest to be found there, or we don’t yet have the skills to find it.

But as my 9-year-old self reminds us, there’s no need to shake the universe with every project. Sometimes, something simple that works is the best approach. See, she knew what was what, even if she didn’t always follow her own advice.

So if a project seems to be growing too convoluted for its boots, try to remember to ask, is this turning into a Butter Parthenon?

And if it is, what needs to change so that you can move forward?