There are as many reasons to be a food writer as there are food writers. If you can find your why, your real reason to be a food writer before you start writing, your journey will be much easier.
Table of Contents
I-Can-Do-That-Itis
Most of us start with a major case of the “I-can-do-that-itis.” You see a restaurant review in a newspaper or magazine and think, “I can do that.” Restaurant reviewers are just going out to eat and then sharing their opinion about what they ate, right? What’s so hard about that?
Or you pick up a bestselling cookbook. Inside you find that instead of the secrets to the universe, it’s full of simple, straightforward recipes. Again, you think, “I can do that.”
Food writing can seem easy and when it’s done well, it actually seems effortless. It’s true that you don’t need to graduate from culinary school in order to be a good food writer. But there is a certain amount of talent and skill involved.
A Simple Truth
Here’s a simple truth: Food writing isn’t brain surgery, but it isn’t super easy either. There’s lots of competition, lots of non-food subjects you have to master. You’ll be doing marketing, photography, videography, graphic design, editing, and more. You’ll find yourself doing all sorts of things that are unrelated to food or writing. You” be doing bookkeeping, cataloging photos, managing multiple social media accounts, designing sales funnels and ugh, the list goes on.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that while it isn’t super easy, it is doable. With some conviction, focus and a little bit of luck, you can be a successful, respected, well-paid food writer.
First, we have to find out why you want to be a food writer. The real reason. The deep-down-inside-you reason that’s going to keep you going when it gets tough or boring or when you get tired.
Some Common Answers
Some of the most common answers we hear when we ask people why they want to be a food writer include “I like food,” and “I think I would be good at it.” That’s way too superficial to be useful for this exercise. Liking food and being good at writing about it are givens. We want to find your why, your individual reason, one that’s unique to you and not a generic one that’s true for most people.
When we dig a little deeper, we start to hear things like, “I want to be my own boss,” and “I think I have something important to say.” Okay, but those are still pretty much true for everyone across the board. Keep going.
After six or seven superficial, pretty much true for everyone reasons we start to hear some deeper truths.
“I want to make a better life for my family,” and “I want to be financially secure.” Both of those are still true for almost everyone but here we’re finally getting to something that will motivate you. What are you willing to trade for a better life for your family? What are you willing to give in exchange for being financially secure? Are you willing to stay up late nights after your kids go to sleep to work three hours writing blog posts? Are you willing to stumble through all the steps necessary to write a cookbook and publish it yourself?
Yes? Good.
How to Find Your Why
Here’s the next thing you need to figure out: What exactly does a better life mean to you? How exactly will your life be different if you’re financially secure?
Think about the concrete changes you’ll make in your day-to-day existence. Maybe building a better life and being financially secure means you’ll have a house in a nice neighborhood where your kids can safely play in the backyard. Maybe it means you’ll pay your bills on time and in full. Or it means you’ll take regular vacations, help put your little sister through college, pay off your parent’s house, donate to your favorite charity … you get the idea.
When you’ve found your why, it’s easy to move through the tough challenges you’ll face as a beginning food writer. Are you willing to slough through hours of tedious photo editing in order to be able to pay your bills on time and in full? Can you spend hours researching 197 different shapes of pasta if it means you get to go on a fabulous vacation next month?
Once you have your payoff in sight, the hard work you’ll have to do seems worth it.
Your Assignment: Find Your Why
So, here’s your assignment: Find your why. Make a list of ten reasons why you want to be a food writer. We’ll even spot you a few – for the free food, to be rich and famous (or some variation thereof), because you like food and enjoy eating/cooking. Besides those, why do you want to be a food writer?
Pick one or two reasons that you think are the most important and ask yourself, “What exactly does that mean?”
An Example: How I Found My Why
I’ll walk you through my own process. My first answer was, “I want to be my own boss.” That’s a good reason. I kept going. What would that mean?
“If I’m my own boss, I won’t have to walk around on eggshells waiting to get yelled at all the time.”
Okay, now what exactly does that mean? “If I don’t have to walk around on eggshells waiting to get yelled at all the time, I can stop trading my dignity in for a paycheck.” I kept going.
What exactly would that mean? “If I can stop trading my dignity in for a paycheck, I can regain my self-worth. And remember that I’m a competent, capable person with real skills and talents.”
I kept going. “If I can remember that I’m a competent, capable person with real skills and talents, I can have my success depend solely on me and my efforts instead of some corporate boss’s fickle whims.”
So am I willing to work hard if it means my success depends solely on me and my efforts?”
For me, that was an easy yes. That was my why.
Your Turn: Find Your Why
Now it’s your turn. Go through the exercise. Make a list of your reasons to be a food writer and keep asking yourself, what would that mean? What would that look like? What am I willing to give up in order to make that come true? When you get to “I’m willing to do this for that,” that, whatever that is, is your why.
Good luck.
Check out the next post, Narrow Your Food Writing Niche.
