From Plate to Page : Food Writing and Photography Workshops

Hi, I'm Chef Dennis Littley, and today we're gonna run a special workshop and hangout on air event on Plate to Page and their workshops that they hold in Europe. And my guests today are the members of Plate to Page. Actually, one of them is going to be joining us a little later, but right now I'm gonna turn it over— two are going to be joining us later. I'm gonna turn it over to Jamie Schlaer, and she's gonna tell you all about her guests and what we're gonna talk about today.

Thank you very much, and I want to thank Chef Dennis Littley doing an incredible job organizing this, especially for all of us newbie hangouters. We want to talk mostly about, well, first about Plate to Page, and I am one of the creators, organizers, writing instructors. I blog at Life's a Feast. My writing, co-writing instructor is Jeanne of of the wonderful blog Cook Sister. All the blogs are wonderful. And our two food styling and photography instructors are Mita, who blogs at What's for Lunch, Honey, and she'll be joining us later to talk about the photography side, and Ilva Beretta of Le Culinary and Delights. I also invited two former Plate to Page students, participants, alumni, however they want to refer to themselves as, Robin, who attended the Tuscany workshop, and Simone, who attended our very first Plate to Page workshop in Weimar, Germany. And I wanted them to come to give you— because as I was just saying to them, as, you know, somebody part of the team behind the workshop, I can tell you about it and I can tell you that it's the best thing out there, that it's fabulous, but to actually have an honest opinion I thought it would be best to have former participants of the workshop to come and talk about their expectations and their experience there for anybody who's considering, who's looking for a workshop. I thought I would just first run through briefly presenting, presenting Plate to Page and why we started it and how we started it and kind of go into a brief overall overview of of what it is. The first thing is that— sorry, I say "um" a lot. Between 2009 and 2010, Mita, Jeanne, and I were working together on a food blogging conference. Together we were organizing, speaking at it, and between the end of 2009 and 2010, we saw an incredible amount— it was when this big burgeoning of food blogging conferences, mostly in the United in the United States was happening where there were conferences, people were creating conferences all over the place. And as we were organizing one and speaking at one, we realized at that point with all those food blogging conferences that were happening that at some point bloggers, because they were aimed at food bloggers, were going to want more and need more. As far as the learning experience goes, a traditional conference format is great to a certain point. We met participants at our own conferences that we were organizing who said, you know, I've been to 3 conferences already. It's great to socialize, it's great for networking, we learn a lot, but now I want to learn by doing. And we realized that You can listen, you can get a lot of information from a lot of speakers, but you definitely, definitely learn more and you learn much faster when you're doing something, when you really get down and dirty and you take your camera in your hand and you take your pencil in your hand and you do it. And so rather than follow— when we wanted to create our own event, rather than follow the traditional food blogging conference style, we wanted to create a workshop that really allowed for active participation by each attendee. So after we finished with our second conference that we spoke at together, obviously Jean and I on writing and Mita on food photography, we started to organize ourselves and we wanted to balance it out with, with a second photographer, and we invited Ilva on board because she had also been looking into doing workshops in Italy where she lives. And when we started to design the program for the weekend, we wanted it to be a full 3-day program. Play to Page goes Friday before lunch to Monday morning after breakfast. We wanted it to be obviously convivial and social. That's one reason why bloggers leave their house and go to these events. But we wanted to create the maximum learning experience, so we decided that we were going to make people really, really work. As one of our former Students said, "A workshop, it's all work, no shop." And that's very true. We wanted every single activity during that weekend to be the source of a writing or photography experience or exercise, with a lot of time as well devoted to analysis, critique, and discussion. We realized that by keeping— we decided that we wanted to keep the group very, very small. We have 12 people 12 participants per workshop, and by keeping the group very, very small like that, it's possible to not only present topics in a very practical and collective way, but it's possible for group participation at every single exercise, every single discussion. There's time during the weekend with only 12 participants for every single participant to offer input as well as present their work and have it discussed and critiqued. You can imagine a workshop where there's just too many people and too little time, and you're asking 25 people to take photos or 25 people to write a 250-word paragraph, but you only have time to look at 3 or 4 of them, and the rest of them aren't going to get the maximum amount out of it because they're not— their work isn't being critiqued. So we wanted the chance for that to happen. We also wanted to offer our participants a lot of the maximum amount of one-on-one contact with each instructor. Keeping it small, we knew that it would be very relaxed, it would be social, it would be very, very intimate. So people would— we noticed that people get comfortable with each other. Perfect strangers show up and by the first lunch on Friday, it's so intimate, people are already very, very opening up and very relaxed. Because if you're doing something very, very creative, what you write— most, as a writing instructor, we ask people to write things that are very, very personal, to dig down and and get these out. It's much easier to do it when you're feeling very comfortable in a group that you're with. Obviously, with this, what I call in French, en famille, this kind of family, family kind of conviviality, people are free to ask questions and share ideas and practical experience much more freely, obviously, than in a large auditorium in a traditional conference format.. And so From Plate to Page was born. Practically, Plate to Page is a— am I not going too fast? Anybody out there? Plate to Page is a 3-day intensive hands-on food photography and writing workshop. I think we're the only workshop that covers both food styling and photography and food writing. It's specifically designed for food bloggers, but also budding established professional writers and photographers who are looking to enhance and hone both photography and writing skills. Like I said, we have back-to-back, all weekend long, back-to-back exercises and two bigger major assignments. We work both the technical skills of writing and photography as well as the creative side. We, we start out with, we go through like, through the basic tools of the trade how to understand the basic tools of the trade, whether it's your camera, whether it's your vocabulary, whatever the tools of your trade are. Helping you to understand and to master those working tools and also bringing out on the creative side, bringing out, finding out, finding your voice, being comfortable with your voice and finding your inner storyteller, whether you're whether you are a writer, stylist, or photographer, there's a storyteller in there, through to the final step of post-processing, which the photographers call it post-processing and we call it edit, the writers call it editing. A lot of time, like I said, a lot of time is dedicated to critique, discussion, analysis. There's a lot of give and take all weekend long, through every discussion. And our goal, what our ultimate goal really is, is to— because we know that you're not going to perfect everything, become, you know, come in and go out being a perfect, the best photographer there is, the best writer there is. What we really want you to do is be able to give you the tools with which you can analyze correctly, analyze objectively your own work. As, as you usually do other people's work and use that to be able to find and nurture your own unique style and voice and be able to find inspiration even on those days when you think you have no inspiration at all. There's nothing when you're in a creative rut. We want to help you get out of that and learn how to master that yourself too. Like I said, we've had, we have brand new bloggers We have people who want to start a blog but haven't yet, that want to come and understand the best way to do it. We have those who are blogging who are looking to move towards a professional career, and we have a lot of professionals. We've had professional writers, journalists, photographers. New bloggers, like I said, come to learn the basic skills. More advanced food blogger, the professional, comes to find inspiring, invigorating exchange of ideas and experiences. We also work very, very hard, and I think Simone and Robin will concur, that we teach participants to think out of the box. And one thing that— I mean, everybody talks about thinking out of the box, but what we realize people don't understand either when they show up is that people, everyone, whether you're a writer, photographer, you have self-imposed barriers and expectations, especially when you're up against if you're a blogger, when you're up against a lot of other people. And we find from the very beginning that when you ask someone to write something, they do it very casually and they do it— it's a lot of fun. But throughout the weekend, they realize that they have created barriers and expectations that keep them from really finding and finding their own unique style and being very comfortable with it. We talk about how to, like I said, analyze your own work, analyze other people's work, and tell what's good and what's bad. As a writer, we talk about, we give writing examples, is this good or bad and why, and understanding when you're reading something why you react to something in a certain way. Something can be very bad, we've given bad writing examples, people react positively to it. And we've given examples that we think is really great writing, and people react negatively to it. And we go through all of that. And that's really all a way to go back home and start to look at your own writing as objectively as possible. Like I said before, I think we're the only workshop that covers both writing and photography, and why, why did we decide to do that besides the four of us really wanting to work together, which is obvious. But it's really obvious for a blogger because bloggers put up a blog and they have a written post and they have photos of their food. And the best thing that you can do really is have great quality content. I mean, sometimes you go to a food blog and they have fabulous photos but the writing is excuse my French, but real crap. And sometimes people who are good writers feel, like me, feel very uncomfortable with a camera. The more you can master both and understand both and see the similarities in both, because that's what the point is with our workshop, is there are similarities in the craft of writing and the craft of photography that are similar. You can go back as a blogger and you can have a better grip on both of them. But also understanding that the story or the written part of your blog or whatever you're working on and the photograph actually work together. One illustrates the other, one complements and reinforces the other's message and/or the emotion or whatever it is you're trying to convey. It's like going to a blog and having somebody recount something very sad and tragic but having an all sunshiny, you know, big sunshiny brilliant photo, whereas— it just doesn't work together. If you want to reinforce what your story is, you kind of have to be able to create the photo that goes with that. Who are we, the team behind the workshop? Well, we are 4 bloggers who actually were brought together. I, uh, Mira and John and I really got to know each other through working on conferences together, and then Ilva came in And what we, what really drives us is that we really have a love of not only good food, but great writing, beautiful food styling and photography. We're really, really passionate about the content we produce. And we really, well, we're passionate about the content more than our blog as a business venture. The quality of the content we produce is primordial. We have the desire to work, improve, and always evolve in our careers, in our work, the quality of our work. And the four of us have also successfully, I'd like to say, forged our own freelance careers. We also know that being a good writer— this is very important because this is from feedback from what people say— being a good writer and a talented a storyteller, being able to create stunning food photography is not simple. It's not some mysterious talent that people are born with. We all know, the four of us, and we've been doing this, working at it for years, we know that it's hard work, that it's a continual learning experience, that it's something to constantly strive for and reach beyond. It's all— there's always room to get better. There's always things to learn. And we also know that learning from each other, guiding, sharing, critiquing each other, are really vital for becoming what we desire to become and going where we want to go. In order to provide our attendees with the best learning experience, the widest range of expertise, we, um, the workshop is divided between two photographers and two writers, each with a different background, different experience, and most importantly different style. Instead of offering one experience, one unique style, and one approach to styling, photography, or writing, we offer two. This means that the participants receive the benefit of two contrasting writing and photography styles and approaches, which serves to broaden their perspective, and it means a much more balanced and well, well-thought-out instruction and critique coming from two very often divergent points of view. We're not saying this is right, this is wrong, because sometimes we have different— it's not that we disagree, it's that we come from different, different places and think of the ultimate object differently. This also, as far as workshop, it also offers the highest instructor-to-participant ratio compared to almost any other similar workshop. What else can I say? How does P2P work? Who's it for? It's for everybody. We've been very surprised at the people we have signed up who've come to the workshop. I think our first workshop was mostly bloggers. From there we've had, like I said, professional writers, professional journalists, professional photographers, some people who are professional photographers or writers that don't even have blogs. Our last workshop in Somerset, we had a wedding photographer who was thinking of branching out into food. We had a kitchen garden designer, professional garden designer. We had someone who was in PR. So we have people from all different branches who basically just want to learn how to write better and how to style and photograph food. Like I said, it's 3 days back-to-back exercise, creative experience, flash exercise, which are the hardest part, I think, because they make you, they make you pump something out without thinking about it, without stopping back. Like I said, your expectations, what you think you're going to do, what you think you can't do, forget it. You have to do it. You have 10 minutes. That's it. We have two longer assignments which either have you writing and photographing as a team with someone else for a blog or for an outside publication, which helps you learn— understand how to adapt to a new platform, new platform needs, new readership expectations. And these also are great exercises to show how the writing and the photography works together. That's basically what I want to say, if it was understandable. I'm sorry. Okay, I don't know if Robyn and Simone have anything to add to that, but now I want to pass the, pass the microphone to, I guess we'll start with Robyn. Afterwards, after Robyn and Simone speaks, Mita, I hope, will show up and the two of us will talk a little bit more about generally about food writing and food photography. Unless you have any specific questions about Plate to Page, send them along. Okay, I guess I'll send it to Robin. You ready?

I'm ready.

Okay, I'll turn the mic on.

Alrighty, I thought I'd start a little bit. I'm calling in from California, so it's morning my time. Good evening to all of my friends on the other side of the pond. A little bit about me. I'm, I'm an IT technical person and have been for more decades than I want to talk about. So the notion of technical writing, newsletter editing that I've done in my world, the leap to writing recipes was, was not such a challenge. I mean, it's the ingredients, it's the step-by-step instructions, and, and while technically adept at that, the storytelling wasn't coming forth. In 2010, Jeannie asked how did I discover Plate to Page, and in 2010 is when I started blogging at the behest of my children, for more than anything else, is that they wanted me to write down all the crazy things that I was coming up with in the kitchen, and more than that, they wanted me to be able to make it the same way the second time. They, they were in a conundrum that I often changed, changed it up every which way. That coincided with the one-year anniversary of my dad's passing, and he was the primary cook in our family. So when I started blogging, the convergence of writing these family recipes down and honoring the memory of my dad was really, really strong. And so what I wanted to do was find a mechanism to improve the story writing aspect. I figured I could do the recipes, and I grew up around photography, so my photography was passable, not beautiful, but passable. So I began looking around for opportunities to improve my writing and stretching that creative muscle, exercising that creative muscle. So certainly looking to the web and the books and the beautiful Blogging for Dummies and all of that. And I discovered the Plate to Page page, and I'm not even sure exactly how, but through that I also began stalking Jamie and Iva and John and Mita at their websites to find out who the heck these people were. Were they kindred spirits? Were they people that I felt in tune to what they were writing about, their styles? As well as the recipes. The stories were far more important to me, and the people were more— far more important to me. And I saw the Weimar event come up, and I thought, oh, trip to Europe from California sounds good. 3-day weekend and writing with kindred spirits sounds good. Well, in a heartbeat, of course, at 12 people, the workshop was closed. And I thought, well, that's okay, they promised something new and exciting coming up in the fall. So I kept watching and watching for the announcement for a fall workshop, and they listed the Tuscan workshop, and, and could have been the time difference or whatever, but I hit the send button saying, I'm interested, I'm interested, I'm interested, in February. And it was in July or so that I discovered I was number 52 on the waiting list. I wanted to let people know these these spots in these workshops are hard-sought. You have to get your voice in, your number in, your submission in right away and be prepared to say yes in a heartbeat. So they told me I was 52 on the waiting list and I figured, well, that ain't gonna happen. So I pretty much put it out of my mind and then late in August I get this sweet email saying, oh, If you're still interested, we have a spot for you. Reply in 7 hours.

Ah!

Wasn't quite that short, but I had to fund it, make my travel decisions, make my work decisions within 7 days and confirm. And I did in a heartbeat, particularly after a conversation with my son that looked at me incredulously and he said, why wouldn't you go? So that's how I got to Tuscany. It was really quite the adventure just that piece of the hurdle to get there. My experience there is really— was focused on my writing, and I think Jamie remembers that. I was kinda in the back, in the booth in the back, pretty much during the photography exercises. I had a brand new camera because I wanted to have as cool a camera as the other kids in the group, although I have to say it doesn't matter what camera you bring to the workshop. We had people with their point-and-shoot cameras, and we had people with glorious, you know, Canons and lenses and things to die for. So that wasn't my particular focus. My focus was really on, on the storytelling. And what I found was that the creative blossoming that the workshop brings to bear is well-crafted and disciplined. These ladies know how to start in pianissimo, to just, just bring you in, and toward the end of the week, weekend's end, it's this crescendo of blossoming, for me anyway, on finding my voice, the creativity, the critiques were gentle. It wasn't that they were soft, but the critiques were based on your intention and authenticity, and they would call you on, "Is that just what you're saying, or what is it that you actually mean to say?" And bringing that out as a writer, I think a lot of times people think that writing is just grammar and punctuation and telling the story, but anybody that writes and wants to write knows that it's it's a process, and you draft and redraft, and you read and you critique. And in our worlds that are so busy, the opportunity to have a weekend and have two writers help you and critique your work is the best possible retreat experience that a writer could ask for. So that was really quite, quite important, and ultimately finding what I began to learn as what my voice was, which was different than my technical writing voice and was different than my other storytelling voices, and finding the stories that I really wanted to highlight. The end result of that is I post lots less, lots less often, though there, Jamie, fix that grammar, because I'm more thoughtful about what, what it is the story that I want to tell. And so within the workshop, I want to accentuate the environment and the safety and the comfort, the permission to be creative. They certainly talk about the barriers, but you really have to walk into this intensive situation prepared to let go. And just be and learn and, and take that piece of it and then turn around and do the work thoughtfully. What else did I want to say? Oh, I wrote something: the exercises are carefully crafted to lead you on a journey to open up and allow your own voice and creative mind to flex its muscles. That was, that was my pre-written snapshot. It's about taking risks. Being critiqued is not something that comes easily, but in the safe company, it's part of the process. Then there's all the fun and laughter and the singing and the friendships that this format allows you to create. And they're friendships that last for a year. I mean, Jamie and Mita and Shawn and Ilva and, and my other cohort, uh, We stay in contact with each other, and that's one of the most beautiful Bright products, because you find that these kindred spirits are also your best critique, and they are your audience. I mean, we talk a lot about food blogging and SEOs and statistics and all those kinds of things, but as a writer, finding who you're writing for is as important as what you want your stories to be. So that was really quite helpful. So that was my experience. Was there anything negative? The only negativity I would say is whatever it is you bring to the table. There's, there's no negative vibe in the environment at all. It's whatever hang-ups that you have to leave at the door before you walk in. There, that's it.

I do want to say that it's funny because our first, our first workshop in Weimar a lot of the people, several of the people already knew each other before they arrived. So it was very, very particular. I mean, right away everybody was friends. When we got to the second one, which was Tuscany, it was kind of shocking for us walking into the room, seeing 12 participants, not one who we knew. And it was kind of a little daunting. And we have a period before we eat where we have everybody introduces themselves. And as one of the instructors standing back and letting everybody just take us all on their little personal trip, you can literally see the tension and the fear of being in front of other people and bearing your soul in front of other people drop away. And it is over those first sets It's that and then lunch and then the first set of exercise where you see all of that fall away. The third one we had in Somerset was even, I don't want to say worse, it was even more beyond that because like I said, not only were we, they were all strangers but they weren't all bloggers, they weren't all food people so they were doing, so they didn't even know what to what to expect. And we had even— it took a little longer for the mood to warm up. We even had one person who refused to do the first exercise because she sat through writing exercises because she said, I just can't, I can't write, that's all. I'm here for the photography, that's it. And we pushed her a little bit, we kind of comforted her, and she listened to everyone else read their little, you know, their first little exercise. And she went and she joined in the second one and she produced in, you know, a 5-minute exercise, 250 words that were gorgeous, that were beautiful. And she's like, you know, within that first hour of the workshop, she said, you people made me understand that maybe I can write. So that's it, it's safety. That's a good way of putting it. Thank you, Robin. Simone? Turn your mic on.

Is it on? It's on. Can you hear me? Yeah, okay. Well, I was actually part of the very first Play to Page group in 2011, so I can actually— most of the stuff that Robin said is the same for me, but let me start a little bit about myself. So I'm a food photographer in Holland, in the Netherlands. And I actually also give workshops. I've been doing that since probably 5 years. It's one of the first things I started with. So for me, going to Play to Page had also the interest of actually looking at how other people do the workshops, so that was interesting. I was already following both Jamie, Mita, and Jeanne, I think, before Play to Page, so I knew them well, not really knew them, but I had been reading about them for years, so I was quite excited to finally meet them in person. And I think, to be entirely honest, that was the main reason I signed up for Play to Pitch, because I saw that the opportunity came and it was in Germany, so for me that was a car ride away, so I immediately signed up not thinking about anything. I didn't even know what the program was going to be. And so I went to Weimar basically with an open mind. And I have to say it was the very first time I actually met other bloggers because I had never seen or talked to anyone before. And I have since then been to different conferences and different workshops, and I still think Play to Page is is unique in the way they handle the workshops and the way they handle the small group, which I think is the major difference. And well, my expectations were not very high, like I said, because I went there to meet the people. But one of the things I— sorry, Jamie— one of the things, because I had a blog and I still have a blog, and I had that for 3 years when I went to play to page. And being a photographer, I struggle with styling, and I love Mita's styling, and I love the styling that Ilfa does. I think that's just brilliant. So for me to be able to actually talk to them in person and ask them, okay, how do you do it, was a big plus. And then on the writing, I'm not a— I don't think I'm a very good writer, but I do like to write. According to Jamie, I do have my own style. But for me, that was a very interesting part of the workshop because, you know, it was something different, and I like the combination of the writing and the photography together because I think that's also one of the unique things. And I never expected it to be as much fun as it was, to be honest, because when we came in, I think I arrived early on the Thursday And by Thursday evening, everybody was already friends. So it was great fun. And the exercises, it was like Jamie said, it was hard work. It was a lot of work and no play, although the play, the no play was not so bad. But yeah, the work, the exercises we did are very intense. It's a lot of I think maybe that's one of the things I'd like— it should be longer. Maybe you guys should do a 5-day workshop instead of a 3-day because there's so much information and there's so much, basically so much to learn that it's almost like an overload. So you can only process it once you come back. But I do think also it's one of the pluses because you don't sit down and think about it for a long time, so you just go on. And that also has a— yeah, that's a plus in itself, if I make any sense by that.

What did I do?

What? Yeah, and I think for me, meeting everyone and being able to finally talk to other photographers and other people that have a blog, and that was the biggest plus for me, if that's making any sense. Yeah, and I mean, basically Robin said everything else already, so I'm gonna—

Can you hear me? Because something's happening.

Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you.

Okay. I think that's just it. What's very weird is that Sunday night when we're having our last dinner together every single workshop shop, it's we feel like we need an extra 2 days. Not just necessarily to get everything done, because of course when you limit yourself to 3 days, you have to really select what you're going to cover. But by Sunday night, you really feel like all of the participants are on a roll, and they're really, really meshed together creatively and synergy, the creative synergy and the work. And I don't think I've met one person that was really ready to go home. I think there were a lot of tears, I remember.

So yeah.

I would have been happy to stay in Italy for another few days at the villa, let me tell you.

David, is that David Leet? I think that's David Leet, wants to know if we need another teacher. We'll discuss it. Is Mita here? Mita's not here yet. Has anybody seen Mita?

Jamie, I haven't heard from her yet. I had sent a couple more invitations to her, so she may still be on her way. So if you want to get into talking about food writing a little, that might be good.

Okay, um, it is a very, very, very complicated, very involved topic. I think a lot of people heard David and Diane and Ms. Holly talk about food writing the other day, and I will bring up other points. If you didn't watch that video, that's a good video to watch. But I will talk about other things. I talked about what, as a writing instructor and as somebody actually who, I guess you could call it mentoring, but people who come to me and tell me about how they write and how they blog and whatever. And I think that people as bloggers tend to see writing and photography differently, unless you really have a writer's heart like Robin was talking about. People go out and they really, really want to— they buy a lot of props, and they buy better and better cameras and post-processing software. And they really, really work hard on— I mean, they can make anything look fabulous. You have these fabulous photos. And they spend a lot of time on the photos and post-processing. Processing. But so many of them just sit down and just type something, type their little story and post it. And what we try and, you know, what a lot of people don't understand is that writing is the same as photography. They're both crafts, they're both skills to learn all along the way. And I was talking about tools of the trade. This is— oops, I have people behind me. The technical side is what I call writing, and the creative side is what I call storytelling. And people can be a great writer but a lousy storyteller, and you can be a great storyteller and a lousy writer. And you're Goal basically is to be both a great storyteller and a great writer because the better you are at both, the more you capture your audience. And this is what I like to say is that what I call— when I start with writing as the technical side of writing, I have what I call the trifecta of good writing. Grammar, punctuation, and spelling. I remember a story when our son was in high school and he would, you know, bring home his papers from school and we would kind of say, well, you know, but you don't have any capital letters and how come you don't put punctuation in? And he would say, well, you know, I'm writing for myself, I enjoy doing this and I'm, you know, I understand it. What do I need to do, you know, put in, make sure that I have all this grammar and punctuation correct for? And we said no, because as soon as whatever you write, one person reads that, you put your blog online, and even if you have only one reader, you're no longer writing for yourself. And making sure that your writing is grammatically correct And you check for spelling. I mean, we all go through typos and I've left out ingredients from recipes and whatever and Jeanne and I have a joke of like catching each other's typos when we read each other's blogs. But making the effort to learn grammar, correct grammar rules and put your punctuation in and spelling is basically a sign of respect for your reader, period. There's There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I mean, I go to blogs and I know when people are foreign and they're struggling to make sure that— I mean, they want to write in English because the biggest readership of blogs, the biggest readership is Anglophone. And that's perfectly fine. But if I sit and I just sit and type something and I don't care about whatever, I mean, it's showing disrespect for readers. Learn to self-edit is along those lines. Don't think that you have to sit down, pump out, you know, write 10 minutes, pump out something and post it. Step back, think about what you've written. Is it understandable to your readers? And again, go through and edit it, simple editing to make sure it makes sense, to make sure make sure it's legible and you've caught all of your spelling mistakes. The biggest thing that I'm interested in, my passion is vocabulary. And this is where Jeanne and I make a really great team because when you ask Jeanne how to become a good writer, Jeanne says, "Write, write, write, write, write." And I follow her up saying, How to become a good writer: read, read, read, read, read. Your best tool is a great, great, great wide, the biggest vocabulary you can have. And believe me, you don't want to sit down with a thesaurus and type your sentence and then go and replace all the words with bigger words from your thesaurus because that's way too obvious and it's, it's not easy reading. Reading, and I can look at a blog post and know whether the person speaks like this or not, or whether it's, you know, I wanna be writerly, I wanna sound like a writer. It shows. The best way to master vocabulary is to use it in your speaking, is to, how do I say this, I wrote this well. Basically, the key to masterful storytelling is a wide, rich, and varied vocabulary. Words carry a lot of weight and a lot of impact. Your purpose as a writer is to create mental images, inspire emotions with your words. And the thing is that there's a lot of good words to say something. There's a lot of good expressions. But there's really one great word that's, that captures exactly what's going on inside your head. Because what you want to do, especially as a food blog, you want the reader to taste what you're tasting and to hear what you're hearing and to smell what you're smelling and to, you know, feel the wind on their cheeks when you're talking about a story when you were outside on a windy day. The only way to do this in black and white on a computer screen is by having a really rich vocabulary. And like I said, the best way to do that is a lot of reading. Read a lot of different things, newspapers, books, from all different centuries. Read mysteries, read murder mysteries, read chick lit, read biographies, fiction, nonfiction. That's the best thing. And then be, what I'm not, concise and concise. In your things. Like I said, the best thing to do is change the way you speak because that's the way to change the way you write. There's also things that I think personally that you should avoid in writing. One of them is gratuitous vulgarity.

Really?

The other thing is things that are like cutesy, cutesy silly baby talk. Unless you really, really have a very specific readership and audience and you know that they like vulgarity or they know that, you know, everything has to be, you know, sexual, everything has to be baby talk, that's fine. But if not, then skip it. Things that have no value, no meaning, or are simply nonsensical. I have a couple of quotes here. Just a few ingredients and you might as well hire a band for the party in your mouth. It's the kind of salad that makes your tongue feel like it's made out of gold. These things have absolutely no meaning. They're nonsensical and they really don't describe food that well. Those are the kinds of things that I— it's like talking about, you know, your dog vomiting and dirty diapers and things. These are things that you can really skip when you're writing. Also vague. Use words and go back and try and think if they need an explanation. If you call something floral, we use an extract in which someone describes caviar as tasting briny and floral. To me, these are way too vague because if someone says to me something tastes floral, the first thing that pops into my head, and even to this what pops into my head is that really sickly floral scent in, in, um, auto restrooms, you know, that cleaning product. And briny, some people think briny is pickles and some people think briny is the ocean. So if things have a lot of different meanings and it's very vague, then I would skip it or I would build on that. And the most important with all of that really is to know who your audience is. As Robin said, know who your audience is. Know what they're there for, they're coming to read your stuff for. They'll, you know, are they, you know, are you a mommy blogger or are you a whatever, all the different categories, whatever your niche is. Know who your readers are. But there's also something that I also warn about is repetition or becoming a stereotype of yourself. This isn't really about writing, but it's more about blogging. You find a formula that works. There's a few bloggers out there that have formulas that work and they build up audiences, but it gets to the point where every blog post is exactly the same, whether it's the photos and the styling of the photos or the, or the or the writing, the story that they're telling. There was one blog I visited a few years ago that they were talking about food and it was very, it was very sexual and it was very titillating and I thought, oh, this is a new way to talk about food and it was fun, it was a fun post. And then I kept going back to this person's blog and every single blog post was written exactly the same way and I thought, you know, it's formulaic and it gets to be a little tiring and ridiculous. The same with lifestyle, you know, lifestyle, you're selling a lifestyle. People want to know more about you than just your, you know, the same thing every time, surprise. I'm trying to figure out where else to to go. Are there any questions about writing? Someone before asked about talking about food, and the best thing to talk about food, when you're writing about food, the thing you have to remember always is that food is an incredibly sensual experience. I think only food and sex are the two things that touch all five senses. And so So when you're presenting it on the computer screen, you have a visual because you have a photo, obviously. But you have to fill in all the rest because people want to eat food. Think about putting the plate of food in front of them. They smell it, they see it, they touch it, they hear it. They hear, you know, you hear garlic popping in oil in a pan, you hear something crunching, in your mouth. These are the things that you have to be able to communicate to your readers in order to really make them experience that food and to know how to make them want to cook it and to eat it. This is a great exercise to do, trying to talk about all 5 senses when you have One dish, describe all 5 senses of it without using the trite, without saying it's delicious, without saying it's yummy, without saying it's crunchy. One thing that Jeanne and I did at a workshop was describe an aubergine, an eggplant, and people said round, shiny, purple. Okay, start with round, shiny, and purple, and then change all those words to something a little bit more exciting. It could be curvaceous, it could be voluptuous, it could be, uh, garnet-hued, it could be fleshy. Um, bring a little bit more pizzazz and color to your writing. What are the qualities we can exercise as a food writer. Right, this person asked that yesterday. I'm not sure what she means by comparisons. The qualities we can use to exercise as food writer, that's just what I was saying now, was description, but there's also nostalgia because food is very nostalgic. It's emotional. Also, pick an emotion. You're writing a blog post, 500 words, 800 words.

Pick—

do you want it to be fun? Do you want it to be joyous? Do you want it to be celebratory? Do you want it to be romantic? Do you want it to be tragic? Do you want it to be mysterious? Guide your story through that and your food through that and find description You can have, for example, something that's panna cotta, and if you want to describe it in a romantic way, you can describe it as shimmering. If you want it to be fun, you can describe it as wiggling. You can find the same meaning but with different senses and different emotional impacts. Chef John wants to know how long or short a good post should be? That's a tough question. I'm a writer and when I go to, even if I'm going to a friend's blog because they have, I have friends who do almost purely recipe, recipe blogs in the sense that you go on, there's an introduction and there's a recipe. I feel like I'm missing out on something. I feel like I'm cheated almost when there's when there isn't a story about the food or a description of the food, there's just a picture and the recipe. But I also go to blogs that have very, very long blog posts. Here's the thing that's important. Write about— let me see if I remember all of this— write about one thing at a time. I remember there was a time where I would go to visit somebody a mom's blog and they would talk in 800 words or 3 paragraphs. They would talk about their kid going to school, the state of their garden, the weather, something else personal. They would jump to like 5 or 6 different topics in one blog post and that's dizzying. Pick one topic, one story, and if it's engaging and you can really capture your reader and it's— and there's something going on and it's stirred up an emotion, then you don't want to write a novel on your blog, but there isn't really, it can't really be too long if it's really well written and, um, and like I said, it's understandable. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. It's a real story. Charlotte Bierer on Twitter says, "Thanks." Oh, thank you. Um, oh yes, this is Charlotte Beer writes about beer. Oh, it's for anything, it's for any kind of writing. Yes, know what you're writing about, why you're writing about it, and who's reading you. Um, I was going to say—

Jamie, what do you do to get inspired when you're having a dry spell for writing? I know a lot of writers hit this all the time, I mean, and you're in one specific place. I mean, what do you do to drag yourself out of that? Because I mean, I think we all suffer from that from time to time.

Very definitely. There's a lot of different ways to do it. Either put something in front of you that— I mean, if you can't think of anything that's— nothing's going on in your life and you don't know I don't know what to write about. Then turn to the immediate. Is it someone's birthday? Is a holiday coming up? Is someone cooking you a bœuf bourguignon? Is, um, are you in the mood for an apple pie because it's autumn? And write that down on a piece of paper. And then start making a list. I'm somebody who starts with a blank page and I make lists. For example, it's autumn, I'm making pumpkin pies. I've told my pumpkin pie stories before, so I'll put pumpkin pie down and whatever comes to mind, whether it's adjectives or verbs or whatever first comes into your mind, it could be bits of a song. Sometimes I'll start a blog post because I've thought of an appropriate song, something about snow or something about rain or whatever, and I'll write that down on a piece of paper. Put something down that— I mean, pumpkin pie, it could be— if I'm really sitting and thinking about it, I remember the pie my mom made. I don't know if it was pumpkin or not. It's all about about the story too. You don't have to tell things exactly as they were, but I mean, I remember my mom, who was not a baker, making a pie. It had a very creamy liquid filling, and as she picked it up off the counter and turned towards the oven, the whole thing flipped over onto the floor. Just kind of start to think about different things that— whatever pops into your head, and put it down on a piece of paper. You don't have to start with the food. It can come from somewhere else. If you read my blog, my posts don't always talk about the food, although I try and make the point of tying in whatever story I've come up with into the food. Um, that's basically— when I'm really, really blank too, I go out for a walk, I take a shower, I do something, I do whatever different. I know Jeanne sits and thinks about things on the subway on her way to work. Don't, never, I personally can't force myself. But I try and put myself in a different situation and kind of move away from those expectations. If I have to write about pumpkin pie, then people are expecting me to write about pumpkin pie words. It might not be what is going through my head. And I just start to kind of follow a stream of consciousness. Sometimes I'll just start writing and I'll write a blog post over 2 days or 3 days, and by the time I'm finished, what I started with, what I— which was the only thing I could think of, or maybe what I thought was my main idea of my story, ends up being about a sideline or the end or completely taken out because I've just gone from there and that's led to something else which has led to something else which has led to something else as I'm writing things down. I have some question. Michael Pruitt asked, what's your most successfully described meal? Oh gosh, I don't know. Oh, almost 5 years of blog posts, that's, that's very, very, very hard. Um, there's an old panna cotta post that I enjoy rereading. Um, I don't know, that's a very, very hard question because I can, there's different My themes of each blog post, my subject of each blog post are so far all over the place that, I mean, I wrote one that I still think is a fun blog post about the heat. I was making Indian food during a heat wave in the summer and I didn't write about, about the Indian food per se. I wrote about the heat of— because we were going through a heat wave, and I ended up kind of trying to tie it into the food that I was presenting on my blog that day, which was an Indian dish. It's hard to say.

That's a good question, though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, but it's It depends on most successfully described meal. I don't know. Can anyone else weigh in? Does anyone else have— I know Robin has one. When you were in Italy, you wrote the blog post about a hotel concierge suggesting you going to a restaurant.

Oh, the cucucucina, yeah, this little hole in the wall place. It was quite fun, and yeah, I enjoyed retelling that story.

Jamie, you said, you know, you've been blogging for 5 years, and you know, a lot of us are starting out, some of us longer, you know, shorter than that, or some longer, but for all the ones that are starting out, I know we all struggle with another is that we all started blogging for different reasons, we all started writing for different reasons, and as we've been along this process, things change.

Yes.

And we change. How do you deal with it? How do you stay true, or how do you find your direction?

I think for me, I've thought about this a lot because when I see all these new bloggers who are coming in onto the scene and shooting to the top of the pile, turning their blog into a business. How can I get ratings on Google and how can I get more traffic than everybody else and how can I make money from it? I think that I'm very, very happy because I started blogging at a time where people didn't really think about that. I mean, we had a couple of the old school, the first group of bloggers that were starting to get to be really famous and probably making money back then. But we all really started blogging for the love of what we were writing about, which was food. And then I very, very quickly evolved where I realized I wasn't writing, I wasn't there for the blogging for the food anymore. I was— I loved— I fell in love with the writing and all I wanted to do was write. And the food was basically just my topic. And so over time, for me it's always been the writing and basically all I've done all along is just try and work harder and harder and harder to evolve my, my, my skill as a writer, my talent, my craft. And so I've basically stayed in this little, this little bubble of my own, and probably I stay there because I follow very, very closely blogs where the writing is just wonderful. And every time I feel like I'm, you know, is this what I should be doing, I go to half a dozen blogs that have just gorgeous, gorgeous writing, and I know that that's what I want to do, and so I stay there. That's how I do it.

Thank you. So it is very important, really, to stay true to and love what you're doing and really enjoy enjoy the fact that you're writing, because if you don't, it's so easy to see in your writing that it was forced or that it really is just because you needed to have your third blog post for that week so your ads hit the points where they're supposed to hit. I think if you start doing that, you're really going to lose your way, and you may be on the top of the pile right now, but I think it's a sure way to go back down to the bottom of the pile pretty quickly.

Right. Plus, like I said, I think it's I know that there are bloggers who all of a sudden decided that they wanted to be writers and try too hard. Try too hard because they, like I said, they think they know what it's supposed to sound, it's supposed to read like rather than writing naturally. And one day they will actually just write a blog post because they want to get a blog post down and it sounds so much more natural. And it's so much more engaging than when they say, I wanna be a writer and I'm going to write like a writer, which is a trap. And so, I mean, it can go in either direction.

Do you have any advice for new bloggers that are just starting out?

I think that the most important thing when you're starting a blog or wherever you are in your blog is know why you're doing it. I mean, are you doing it just because you want a job and you're making a lot of money from it and that's your priority? That's fine. I think that the world of food blogging is so saturated now. I mean, it's so— there's so many people out there with a food blog To me it looks like that there are, um, there's still a small number of people out there, happy they are, who are just doing it for fun. But the rest of us, there are people who are really concentrated on their blog, they are their blog and they identify with their blog and everything comes from their blog. So they make money from their blog, they want to get, you know, their cookbook is their blog or their blog is their cookbook. And then there are people whose blog is just one of their, or maybe just their personal creative outlet and they're trying to forge a career separately as a professional writer or professional stylist or photographer. And we all have different visions of the place, of what you really, really have to know is What purpose does your blog serve? What does it— is it your be-all and end-all? Is it a way that— for me, mine is my creative outlet. It's also a calling card. If people want to know how I write, they can go and see that. It's pretty raw. It's just my emotions on a piece of paper. But you really have to know what you want from it, why you're doing it, and then eventually who your readership is. Because you are, like I said, writing for a readership. And people who come to my blog come to my blog for a particular reason and expect certain things. If they go to someone else's blog, they'll go for a different reason. And you have to know that, that readership, so you know what to offer them.

Okay, good advice as always. I think you're frozen right there, Jamie. I don't know, we're going to have to wait for you to refresh a little.

Oh, excuse me.

There you go.

I can see you now. You're good. Okay. Mita just wrote something in. She's having trouble hooking up. I did send her another invitation. She is answering questions if she has any there.

I'm trying to see if there's any— if you see me looking off in some direction, if I glance to the side, it's because there's people making comments. I just want to make sure I'm not missing any. Robin actually asked, should I read your question, Robin? What happens when you have too many things to write about? Methods for story collecting to come back later to. Oh my Lord, Robin. I have so many documents started. I sometimes work work on several documents at the same time, back and forth and back and forth. If you kind of go over— sometimes I'll be writing a blog post and I'll write a paragraph and then a second paragraph and then a third, and I realize without thinking about it that I actually have two different stories in there or two different topics, and so I divide them and I'll go back to it later. It's like, it's like when you cook too too many meals in a row, too fast for your blog post. I know John says she has so many photographs of so many dishes in a backlog waiting for a blog post to come from it. It's the same with stories. I have bits and pieces like photographs of old meals. I mean, I have stories that I want to tell and topics I want to talk about, and I'll just divide them into different documents and store them. Any other questions?

I don't see any in the sidebar or in the comments.

Oh, there is someone. @AmyTMaster on Twitter said that not only does your Does poor grammar show disrespect for your reader? It also diminishes your credibility. True. True, true. I'm trying to think of what else is a no-no to me. I know I know that there are some people, I won't mention names, David Leitch, but I know that some people say less adjectives, more verbs, and have things happening rather than describing them. But I'm one who uses a lot of adjectives and a lot of adverbs in my writing. But I, when I do it, I try very hard to make sure each one is very, very, very necessary to, like I said, to what my vision is of what I want. I'm trying to create something, um, very, very emotional and very specific. And when I put a string of a string of adjectives, it's usually done on purpose. It's not because I can't pick one, it's to reinforce it. So whatever you are using, whatever tools, grammar tools you're using, make sure that it's a really conscious decision and that you know why you're writing it rather than just saying, oh, this is, you know, this, this, this, and this, and this. I mean, you have to be very, very conscious of every single word you write down on a piece of paper. David Leed asks, "Do you find stockpiling your ideas lessens your connection to them over time?" I'm, I'm trying to think if there must be things that I've come back to and thrown out because they were no longer important. But maybe other things that I've actually saved for months and months and months. But in general, no, because I'll find something. I usually find something to do with it even if it's not for my blog. It could be for something else. But, and sometimes I just like seeing lists of words and ideas and because it always can inspire something else. I mean, I think that if you're trying to think creative— creatively and find inspiration, then it's like having a little pile of flashcards almost. Just putting things down and having them as your own personal little flashcards. It's like Pinterest. Why do people start Pinterest? You go to Pinterest because it's going to give you ideas and inspire something. And something that inspires Simone, that inspires Mita, that inspires Robin might not inspire me in the same way. Though in theory, if you're really letting your, your imagination go, You'll find inspiration from almost anything if you really play with it and let it kind of run its course. So I mean, I always go back and end up using my ideas even if it's not for what it originally was meant for. Good. Weighted adjective— okay, David Leite says weighted adjective and adverb Adverbs are great. It's when they get flouncy is when it becomes a problem. Is that personal? Sometimes I wonder if I get too flouncy, and I try very, very hard not to, but, you know, it's true. Too much is too much of anything. Too much is too much of anything.

Well, Jamie, unless there's any other questions, you know, we've gone a little past your hour, and I know there's been a lot of great information here you've shared, and people are gonna— should be excited about your workshops, Play to Page. I know I certainly am, and I can't wait till I have off that time of year so I can go. But if you have anything else you'd like to say about your workshops before we—

No, we have our next workshop coming up in just outside Dublin in May. And I'm talking to people on my tourist board in Nantes here about helping me organize the next one outside of Nantes in France. But we're not sure whether we're— we started doing 2 a year and last year we did only 1, and so we're wondering if we if the next one, if we do have the next one in France, if it's going to be in the autumn or going to be in the spring. But either way, you can go to Play to Page and, or send us an email if you want to be on an email list for announcements for upcoming workshops. And if there's enough of you who say, yes, we're ready to come in October, then we'll organize one for October or for May. Robin or Simone, do you have anything else you want to add?

Sign up fast! Have your passport and your money ready.

I was going to say, don't hesitate, just do it. You won't be sorry.

We try and offer the best we can in the most, in the shortest amount of time. And I think we do need a week-long workshop, but—

I am all for that.

I have to talk to my colleagues. We do have a plate2page.com website, and we have also, we have a lot of guest posts, people like Diane Jacob, Denise Vivaldo, Robin Zachary, professionals, because what we want to do is have them give their little— their littley, sorry, their own insight into how they got started as professional writers, photographers, stylists, prop stylists, and recipe developers, how they got started and where they see just their own advice for anyone who's wanting to become a professional. So we have a lot of guest posts with fascinating information and stories and just all information about our past— past workshops. You can see information about past workshops, what we did, who was there, what was going on, our program, and information about future workshops. That's it.

Very good. Okay. Well, I think that's going to about wrap it up for today then. I'm so sorry that Mita couldn't get in here to join us, but maybe we'll have to do another one another time with her and talk to her online. A lot of great information. I know I'm excited about this. Like I said, I would love to be able to go to it, and I'm planning on it when I do retire very soon, another year. I can't live my life waiting for Thank you very much.

Thank you, Jenny, for suggesting it and for what you're doing now. And Robin and Simone, thank you very much.

All right, so, uh, bye from us today, and thanks so much for stopping by. You can watch us on YouTube.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.