I'm getting better at writing about food

what are you gonna do about it

I’m getting better at writing about food.

I don’t mean “I have been getting better at writing about food and intend to keep going” – I mean it as a goal, an action point, a promise. A threat, even. I’m getting better at writing about food, or else!

I’ve always learnt mostly by osmosis, by obsessively exposing myself to new knowledge until it seeps into my brain. It’s been especially true of words: I taught myself how to read, how to speak English, and how to write and edit copy once it made its way into my job description. It’s also true of food, to an extent, although that bit really boils down to the fact that I’m never not thinking about it.

Getting that practice in isn’t a challenge – that comes once I start taking it seriously and explicitly look for ways to improve. Well, I’ve started taking this seriously.

Filling my shelves, open tabs and streaming services with food stories was the easy bit. Now it’s time to work on feeling confident in my ability to tell them too. It’s not enough for me to feel strongly about food if I can’t communicate those feelings well to the people who may care about it too.

So, I am getting better at writing about food, workshop by workshop, book by book, awkward networking attempt by awkward networking attempt, or so help me.

Last week, a group of fellow aspiring food writers and I got on a Zoom call with

Katie Mather

to hear all about self-editing and pitching. We all left with pages of notes, but one specific piece of advice has stuck with me since. I asked Katie how to get feedback without awkwardly ending each post with “feedback pleaaaaase”, and she answered: “What’s wrong with that?”

Nothing wrong with that. So, here I am, asking you for feedback, please.

What have you enjoyed or disliked from previous posts? What made you decide to subscribe to loudemile weekly, or what is making you this close to unsubscribing? What would like to see more or less of? What do you like or dislike about the way I write (it’s all the dashes and parentheses, isn’t it)?

Whatever your thoughts, my comments and DMs are and will remain open. However, I’ve also created this handy dandy survey, which will hang out at the bottom of posts for the foreseeable. If you’ve got a few minutes to spare and want to help me make your inbox slightly more bearable, I’d be eternally grateful to you for filling it out. Equally, if you have a craft book, workshop, creator, hot tip you swear by, I want to hear about it!

See you in the comments section :)