My Writing Process Blog Tour

Happy Monday, and Happy Cinco de Mayo! Are you wishing this margarita-filled holiday fell on a weekend? I definitely am!

Today I am excited to be writing my part of the “My Writing Process” blog tour. I was nominated for the tour by my friend Bianca, who most of you may know from the beautiful blog Confessions of a Chocoholic. Bianca is one of my favorite bloggers due to her decadent, mouthwatering dessert recipes and even more to her heartwarming, beautiful stories that weave in food and her family and growing up in the Philippines. I have commented on Bianca’s blog many times that her food and family posts would make for a great book, and I truly hope to be able to read that book one day. I’m also lucky to call Bianca a friend; her smile and energy are infectious, and I definitely wish I saw her more often!

As part of the blog tour, I get to answer the following questions before passing the torch to other bloggers. I hope you enjoy my responses, and I would love for you to answer one of the questions in the comments!

1) What am I working on?

Right now I am working on a lot of wine and travel writing and hoping to move the blog more into a lifestyle blog space. I’ve moved from writing recipe blog posts to focusing on things like “Wine of the Week” posts, and as we very slowly renovate our new old home, hope to share posts on gardening and my meager attempts at interior design. I haven’t been as interested in cooking as I used to be, and it’s nice not to feel pressured to cook something to blog about. Don’t worry, I’m still eating plenty, but mostly simpler, “boring” meals that aren’t super blog-worthy.

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

There are so many incredible blogs out there in the food, wine, travel, and lifestyle space. It’s hard to compare them at all most of them time! What I love about bloggers is that we so often let our personalities shine through, and who we are and where we are in our lives really shows up in our writing. I focus on writing about wine a bit more than other food bloggers, and the occasional running post pops up (though not lately). Because I don’t have advertisers anymore, I really feel free to write whatever and whenever I want. There have been times in my life where I envied bloggers who got to blog for a living, but I have become truly grateful and excited that this blog is all mine. I do care about whoever is reading, but I believe that writing for myself and having happy writing is what will draw in the people I want to be reading. Welcome!

3) Why do I write what I do?

It’s probably pretty clear that I love wine and food and travel, and I work in Marketing/PR/Social Media for a living. A lot of my passions, interests, and experience intersect on a daily basis, and the blog is a natural outcrop of that. This blog is almost five years old, and my writing has definitely changed as my place in life has changed. There was a time when I was working for myself when I had a lot more time to blog every day and my blog was a way of attracting business. Then I focused much more on what would draw attention from the outside world in order to create work opportunities.

4) How does your writing process work?

My writing process really heavily depends on what’s happening in my life, events I attend, time to cook, wines I have tasted, etc. I keep a running document of topics I want to write about, and I try to strategize a little bit. For example, I try to spread out travel posts about certain trips, knowing that it might be a little tedious to read post-after-post about my travels. Plus, it’s fun for me to have some content saved up; when I’m not traveling somewhere fun or don’t have events to attend, I love having something tucked away to write about.

I’m passing the My Writing Process on to Erica and Jen.

Erica is another blogger friend who I wish I saw more often. We share a love of dining out and Sonoma and Napa wine country, and she always seems to have recommendations on places I haven’t been.  I love her travel posts in general, as well as her adventurous spirit, and I especially love photos of her cute dogs. Erica appreciates a good cocktail as well as all of the great restaurants has to offer.

Jen’s blog is new to me, but it’s called Vino Travels. . . what’s not to love?! Jen focuses on Italian wine, something I don’t have too much experience with. Her love of Italian wines extends beyond just wine and into a sense of place and culture. Jen even got married in Italy!

I look forward to reading more about others’ writing process in this blog tour. Thanks for reading!