My Writing Process Blog Tour

About two weeks ago, Jess from Cooking Is My Sport asked me if I’d be interested in participating in My Writing Process Blog Tour. If you haven’t stopped by Jess’s blog before, you should. She has the most amazing food photos and recipes plus she’s working on recipes inspired by Game of Thrones. If you’re a fan of the show, you would love her recipes. =)

Anyways, I’ve never heard of My Writing Process Blog Tour before, but after Jess explained to me what it was, I immediately told her I was interested.

Basically, all you have to do is answer a few questions about what inspires you to write and what your writing process is like. Then you nominate three other bloggers to participate.

1. What am I working on?

Perfecting my recipes for green tea glazed mini donut muffins and fresh strawberry cookies. I’m having the hardest time getting these to be “perfect,” and there are only so many mini donuts and cookies I can eat. In the meantime, I’m working on quick and easy recipes that don’t involve strawberries.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My focus on my blog is on recipes that are quick and easy and mostly (not always) healthy. Everything I feature on my blog are dishes that I eat on a regular basis or want to eat (desserts). But my goal is to simplify the recipes as much as possible so that anyone, even people who don’t have time to cook or don’t have much experience, can follow and create. I really want to show people that cooking can be simple, healthy, and fun because it’s important for us to enjoy our food. Most of the time, we already have all the ingredients on hand. We can use that to create something delicious and pretty and healthy.

3. Why do I write what I do?

This blog was originally created to provide a distraction for me when life proved to be overly stressful. It grew into something so much more than I expected. Why do I write? I’ve always loved writing. I love being able to express myself through words that I can’t always voice. Food blogging gave me a way to incorporate my two loves: food and writing. I first started writing reviews for Yelp about a year ago, then when I finished with school, I decided I wanted to try cooking and baking. Eventually, I wanted to create my own recipes and share my ideas with everyone. I wanted to inspire people to start cooking their own food by sharing my stories and recipes.

4. How does your writing process work?

Depending on what I’m, or my family are, craving, that’s what I decide to make for my recipes. I usually take an original idea, try to simplify it, and add my own twist. I taste and adjust every one of my recipes until it’s as perfect as it can get before I post the recipe on my blog.

Sometimes it’s a little difficult because I only have the kitchen to myself from Wednesday to Friday so I have to know what I want to do beforehand and get as much work done as possible. That includes creating the recipe and pausing at every step to take photos.

When I write my post, I might, or might not, edit my photos. If the images are bright enough, I leave them as is. But if the photos aren’t as bright due to a gloomy day, I use Snapseed to do the editing. I use my own experiences to tell stories and if needed, I do research to learn more about the ingredients that I use.

As Jess mentioned, to a non-blogger, writing a post and publishing it on your blog seems easy and straightforward. But it requires so much more work, a lot more than I expected. However, I feel that it is completely worth it. If I hadn’t started blogging, I wouldn’t have met and connected with so many wonderful bloggers.

Now, for the next leg of the Writing Process Blog Tour, the three bloggers I chose to continue for next week are:

Joanna from Food Gurly – Joanna’s blog is filled with gluten-free recipes and reviews of gluten-free products. If you’re on a gluten-free diet, definitely stop by her blog for recipes, ideas, and recommendations. Plus, she constantly gives away the most amazing products.

Connie from Foodessen – Connie’s blog is filled with both American and German recipes. She also gives us a little peek into her German American life and tells us stories about life in Germany. I love reading her posts. There’s always something new I’d learn. =)

Janine from The Quiet Baker – Janine’s blog is filled with the most gorgeous photos of her recipes. She makes me want to try all of her recipes. I highly recommend stopping by her blog, especially to look at her desserts!

I also want to take this time to thank all my readers for all your “likes” and encouraging comments. Without you, my blog would not have made it to this point. You’ve made these several months a wonderful experience, especially when I wasn’t sure what I was doing at the beginning. Thank you so very much!