I hate to harp on this, but I’m not doing a very good job at blogging. And now, I can’t even blame work, since there really isn’t that much to do - comparatively anyway. The fact of the matter is, I just haven’t been inspired to write. Before, I was living hand-to-mouth, spending my paychecks on living expenses almost as soon as I got paid. Ever since Christmas money and tax refunds have rolled in, I’ve been able to get a little ahead and have some petty cash left over for needless expenses like graphics and sound cards from my PC. It’s got me going through this gaming kick and now I’ve gotten myself a little obsessed. Unfortunately, getting back into PC gaming has more drawbacks than time constraints. I’m also being reminded of all the bugginess and hardware incompatibilities I used to have to deal with. What I especially love is how everything is incompatible with Windows Vista! If you have a Sound Blaster Audigy card on you XP rig, you will be charmed and delighted to find that your 5.1 will break on Vista. You’ll have to set your output to 2.1 or you’ll be missing some channels. It’s really weird. You could, of course, upgrade to an X-fi card - like I did - to restore your surround sound.

What really gets to me is that I upgraded to Vista to play one game in particular: Bioshock. I come to find out that Bioshock (BS) crashes to BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) every five minutes on Vista. Sadly, you need Vista to run any game in DirectX 10, which has all the new bells and whistles that we game enthusiasts crave. When I contacted 2K Games about a possible solution, their tech guy advised that I run the game in DirectX 9, totally defeating the purpose of making the game for DirectX 10 and me upgrading. So let’s see, I’ve spent:

• $200 for Vista Ultimate to run DirectX 10
• $250 for 8800 GT video card to play in DirectX 10
• $150 for X-fi sound card to restore my 5.1 in Vista
• $40 for Bioshock

And now I can’t even play the freaking game, because the crashing is so aggravating - even in DirectX 9. I think this is God’s way of telling me I need to focus my time on something more productive.

With that said, a cousin of mine and I have been talking about producing a short film. I can’t discuss the concept yet, but it’s on the funny side. We met with a possible director and I thought the meet went pretty well, but we’re still open to bringing other people on board. Once my cousin gets back from Japan, we’ll have a sitdown with my other director buddy and see how everything jells.

In other news, I recently found out that my friend, The Mormon, works with someone at his restaurant with industry ties. I’ll keep the guy’s identity on the QT for now, but the important part of this story is that he’s willing to read my screenplay and see what he can do with it. This just goes to show that you never know who knows who, so network with everyone. When you’re starting out, there’s less room to be picky with your friends when your writing career is concerned.

More soon.

Richard Godt, MD writes:

I read your review of Spaggi’s restaurant and cannot believe someone wrote such a nasty review of such a wonderful restaurant. You are either blind or vindictive. Starting out with “located in an unsavory strip mall” surely puts the reader on notice that your review will be negative. Firstly, who cares where a fine restaurant is located so long as it it a safe environment for you and your family? Secondly, the area in certainly NOT unsavory although I shall agree it is within a strip mall. Your criticize the decor as gaudy and museum like. Could not disagree more. The decor is lovely, inviting, and well done. Yes, come of the paintings have more ornate frames than I would use in my home, but they are lovely to gaze at while you are dining. I have never, ever noted any unusual dust. In fact, the restaurant is always impecable. The hostess (on occasion, Henry’s wife) always greets the guests at the door. The wait staff is always professional, knowlegable, and warm. My wife and I are treated as very welcome guests. In fact, I am considered a friend. My wife and I dine there almost weekly, my children and grandchildren have all been there several or more times.

Chef Henry is extremely personable, usually coming out from the kitchen to greet every table. He listens to his guests and gives them respect. He will make any dish you desire so long as he has the ingredients. He listens to your raves about his dishes and to any complaints you might have. He is never insulted or hurt if you did not like a particular dish, just wants to know how he could do better next time. His menu is varied so that each diner may have what he or she feels like eating. His wine list is quite extensive. His deserts are always good, although I often pass (to save on calories).

For you to suggest that people would be better served by eating at the Del Taco across the way shows the quality of your opinions. I would not eat at any Del Taco if it were free.

You did a disservice to Spaggi’s and you should make an effort to go there again and perhaps re-write your review.

Dr. Godt, allow me first to say thank you for taking the time to read my review. Furthermore, let me thank you for writing me with your thoughts. It is my - and probably most writers’ - greatest pleasure to know that something I wrote affected you. I hope you read more of my reviews and recommend my site to others, even if it’s simply to point out to others how wrong I am.

I appreciate you sharing your personal experience with me. It differs from mine and I should hope that you wouldn’t begrudge me my personal opinions based on my experience. Obviously, you regard Spaggi’s very personally. I’d accuse you of actually being the owner Chef Henry if it weren’t for the family members you CC’d on your email to me. Because of my impartial position, I feel I can give a more unbiased review of the restaurant.

Additionally, I have worked for several years in the serving industry from hot-footing it in turn and burn family chains to silver polishing at upper crusty joints. I have eaten at lowly all-night Mexican food stands at 2 a.m. and swapped stories with world-class chefs in Beverly Hills. In short, I have a fair dining sense that I am constantly honing by eating at as many places as I can. Even Del Taco.

If my comment about the unsavory strip mall is where readers are first tipped off that my review is negative, then either I’ve done a poor job as a writer or my readers aren’t very observant. My hope was that my first paragraph about Spaggi’s being a fine-dining facade would tip them off. Additionally, location is very important, both for the restaurant and for the reader/diner. A restaurant with a view of the ocean is decidedly different than a restaurant with a view of a Wal-Mart, for instance.

Reviewing a restaurant is not an exact science, however, I think it can be generally agreed that if a restaurant presents itself as a fine-dining establishment that it must be judged by a higher standard. It is not enough to simply be greeted warmly at the door - which I was not, by the way - as you can get that at any place you frequent. Instead, attention to detail, food, service, customer consideration and all the little things must be considered. For that reason, I stand by my review 100%. I would hate for someone who’s never experienced fine-dining to go to Spaggi’s, pay fine-dining prices and think they’ve received a fair shake. While I’d like to imagine that my experience is the exception and not the rule, I don’t have the luxury of dining there week after week to get an “average” of the experience. Moreover, regular customers will be less forgiving and won’t be back for a “second chance” nor should they be expected to. The hope is that my negative review will spur Spaggi’s to correct the points I criticized. That way customers who eat there can write me letters telling me how wrong I am. Better that than me writing a favorable review based on my hope of what the restaurant offers and have a customer dine there and receive the same sub-par experience I did. I’ll get the same letters telling me how wrong I am, but in this scenario I’ve wasted their money.

As for my Del Taco comment, I don’t know how to explain it without sounding condescending so I’ll just say that if you haven’t eaten there you don’t know what you’re missing. Their chili-cheddar fries are some of the best.

Thanks for reading. Please come by again.

René

Now that the job-front is looking more secure - actually, it’s kind of dicey right now, but we’ll get to that another time - I’ve been making strides back into the freelance world. I got picked up by Inland Empire Weekly (www.ieweekly.com) and I’m one of the two restaurant reviewers they have on staff. As a writer, one of the basic bits of advice published writers will give you on getting published is: Write what you know. Since I’ve worked in restaurants for several years, both in front and back of the house, it seemed only natural that I start writing reviews. Strangely, it wasn’t the perfect fit I figured it would be when I started out.

Recently, I’ve been getting hits for searches on “how to write restaurant reviews” or “restaurant cover gig advice,” so I figured I’d help my fellow junior restaurant reviewers hit the ground running. Keep in mind, however, that these are not hard-and-fast rules. It will really depend on the publication you’re writing for. Your local regional lifestyle magazine will probably have different standards than Food & Wine.

1. Lose the Narrative: The purpose of the review is to give the reader a sense of what an average visit - their average visit - will be like. They don’t care about how you’re dressed, your routine or really anything about you. Having come from a creative non-fiction background, I was all too eager to write myself into my restaurant reviews when I first started out. Fortunately, my editor gently, but firmly steered me in the right direction. Since then, you don’t know how many times I’ve come across a restaurant review that barely reviewed the restaurant. That’s not to say a little bit of personal experience or editorializing is going to kill your piece. Just make sure there’s a reason for it.
2. Temper Your Criticism: Your role as a restaurant reviewer does not give you carte blanche to rip into the establishment. Everyone and every business has “off” nights. Sometimes unforeseeable acts of God get in the way of good service. Line cooks slice their fingers open. Customers bump into servers, spilling trays of food. Sewage systems back up and come exploding out of the floor like a fountain inside the restaurant. (Yes, I’ve seen this happen. I used to work at that restaurant.) Crazy things happen. It would be unfair to lambaste a restaurant on these rare occurrences. A good way to include these events in your review is to focus on how the restaurant handled them. Sometimes, however, bad service is just bad service. If that’s the case, then you should review it as such, but keep it in the professional realm. No one takes outlandish criticisms seriously. For an example of overboard criticisms, read my review of the City Broiler in Chino Hills, CA. This was just written for me, not a publication.
3. Nuts and Bolts: When I write a review, I try to cover a few basic points that I feel are relevant to any reader who knows nothing about the joint:

• Surroundings - I like to describe the area around the restaurant - urban, industrial, downtown, etc. - so that people have a general idea of what they’ll see out the window when they eat there. Plus, it’s always good to know if your car will be where you parked it when you come out.
• Atmosphere - I do my best to write about the décor. I’m no interior designer, so my vocabulary is a bit limited in this regard, but I think it passes. It’s nice to know if the restaurant is geared for romantic dinners or for family fun. Also, giving the reader a feel for the general floor plan helps them decide on party sizes.
• Menu - Since you obviously can’t reprint all the food offerings in your review, tell the reader what he/she can expect to order. Cover the major groups: poultry, fish, steak, pork, pasta, vegetarian dishes, etc. This is a good place to discuss the wine list (if there is one) and give the price range for the restaurant.
• Service - I think for most people eating out at most places, service accounts for at least half of the reason for eating there in the first place. If you’ve never worked in a restaurant, sometimes it’s hard to know what good service is. Typically, you can get by with just covering speed, presentation and demeanor. There’s more to a server’s job than that, of course - enough to fill a book - but most people don’t care about anything beyond those three things.
• Exclusives - I try to mention the things that make the restaurant different from others, like special events, cooking classes, hosted dinners, live entertainment, whatever it is.

4. Ask Questions: Your server is a wealth of knowledge about the restaurant (or at least they’re supposed to be), so don’t be bashful in pumping him/her for information. Also, if appropriate, have the Chef come out and tell you a little about him/her.
5. Expert Opinions - Eating alone sucks, so I recommend bringing a guest. Friends are fine, but I suggest bringing someone who complements your expertise. Since my food and wine knowledge is spotty in parts, I like to bring my friend who’s an Executive Chef to fill in the blanks. I know that most of you aren’t going to have access to this kind of resource. To that, I say get out there and start networking.
6. Experience the Courses - If you’re a serious writer, then due diligence demands you sample every course - appetizers, soups/salads, entrée and dessert.
7. Collateral - Depending on the kind of restaurant, try to snag as much literature from them as possible. Take home menus, press kits, fliers; anything that you might need to review later while you’re writing. There’s nothing worse than being under a virgin-tight deadline and forgetting the name of what you ate and not having something to reference.
8. Revealing Your Reviewer Status - I have mixed feelings about this issue. On one hand, if you eat at someplace under the guise of an average patron, you get to see what average service is like and you can write a more accurate review. On the other hand, if you prepare the restaurant and tell them that you’re reviewing them, they have a chance to put together a press kit for you and you’re that much more prepared to write a comprehensive review. If you’re just starting out, chances are that the publication you’re writing for isn’t covering your tab. Heck, they may not even be paying you at all. In which case, you may want to give the restaurant a heads up on your review. More often than not, you’ll get a portion of your bill comped. For my part, I like springing my reviewer status on them after I’ve paid the bill. It’s fun to see General Managers falling over themselves to boost my opinion, but having no recourse since I’ve already signed the credit card chit.

Alright, fellow reviewers! That’s all I have for one night. I hope at least a few of these pointers will help. Now get out there and write some good reviews.

I don’t want to speak out of turn here since I’m not a freelance writer by trade (anymore), nor do I have tons of experience doing it. On the other hand, I think I’ve experienced enough to give people just starting out in the freelance world some good advice and safety tips. Some of this information is common sense while others fall on the borderline of paranoia. Your mileage may vary.

In no particular order:

1. IT’S BETTER TO BE EARLY THAN LATE. More than likely, some of your first gigs will require you to drive someplace and cover an event, whether it’s reviewing a restaurant, covering a concert or interviewing a celebrity. The worst thing you can do is show up late. In the case of movie screenings, the PR firm holding the screening will probably have very strict adherence to their schedule and will lock the doors to the screening room to anyone who shows up late. I’ve even seen fellow journalists remind the PR people to do that. That’s because people suck. Anyway, running behind for an appointment means you’ll be rushing, and bad things happen when you’re stressed on the road. I got into my first and, thankfully, only car accident because I was late to a screener in LA and couldn’t find parking. I was at fault, not looking at oncoming traffic as I tried to turn down an alley where I thought the parking garage was. Luckily for me, it wasn’t serious and the other driver decided it wasn’t worth his time to involve the insurance companies and just drove off after giving me a dirty look, but it could have been a whole lot worse. I get that waiting around sucks too. That’s why you should travel with a distraction like a Nintendo DS or a book or, if you’re like me, with a pack of cigarettes.
2. KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING. This is kind of an extension of 1, but it’s important enough to have its own number. Before you travel on assignment, it’s good practice to have a map of your route and a backup alternate route in case there’s construction or traffic or whatever. This is especially handy for budgeting your time. Sometimes the junket following the nighttime screener is early in the morning the next day. It’s always nice to know when you’ll be getting back home to maximize your sleep before you have to hit the road again. Speaking of which…
3. KEEP YOUR CAR RELIABLE. Yeah, I know. Common sense, right? But you and I both know how easy it is to keep putting off that oil change or to say, “I’ll just fill up tomorrow before I had out.” These are little things easily and quickly resolved. So to put them off is dumb, since the little things have a habit of rallying together into something nasty at the most inopportune time.
4. INVEST IN A VOICE RECORDER. Unless you’re an expert in shorthand or you can write fast and legibly, a voice recorder is a necessity. A) It allows you to interview someone while still engaging them naturally like in a conversation. B) A recording protects you and your publication from libel when you quote something unsavory said by the celebrity or political figure or whoever. I’ve heard stories of celebrities denying making disparaging remarks about a particular location, not knowing that a journalist in the room was from that location who consequently printed the celebrity’s words. Anyway, it’s probably best to get a digital recorder, that way you can transfer your data to your computer with little to do. You can get a decent one for about $100 these days. That’s not to say that the recorder will replace your pen and paper (which you should also always have), but you’ll definitely need the recorder for review later.
5. RESEARCH THE HELL OUT OF YOUR ASSIGNMENT. It’s a dicey situation when you sit down to interview someone and don’t know the first thing about them. Sometimes their management will get you a press kit before hand. Sometimes they won’t. Sometimes you’ll go to review a restaurant and the Executive Chef will come out and sit down with you. As a writer, you need to perform your due diligence by knowing the contextual facts surrounding your assignment. You may not be a professional writer yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t behave professionally.
6. TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS. During the early stages of your career, you’ll be scrounging for assignments to build up your portfolio. Sometimes, after a string of rejections or losing assignments to other writers with more experience, you may start feeling a little desperate to take anything you can find. Fight that urge! Remember that there are a lot of people who want to take advantage of you. More importantly, there are a lot of people who want to hurt you. If you feel like something is a scam or you show up to a location and you don’t feel safe, just walk away. The potential of getting a writing credit is not worth risking someone stealing your work or doing you physical harm. Recently, a woman was lured to a home through Craigslist and was killed for entertainment. Granted, she was applying for a babysitter position, but it’s easy enough to swap the scenario for a writing gig. Startup publications will often want to meet with you to make sure you’re a good fit. Try to schedule the location in a public area rather than some small back-office or a home. Once, I applied for a writing gig to cover an event and the employer wanted to meet. The location was a public place to start, but then he emailed me some excuse about feeling sick and asked to meet in his hotel room. I backed out of that job without hesitation.
7. HAVE A LIFE LINE. If you do take a gig that you’re not 100% on or if you’re simply going to a place you’ve never heard of before, make sure someone knows where you’ll be and will be expecting to hear from you within a certain amount of time. Better yet, tell a lot of people. My friend Danny Boy teases me about doing this, but I say better to be laughed at than missing my kidneys.
8. NETWORK. As writers, we’re typically maladroit and antisocial. We much prefer to communicate in writing rather than in person through speech. Too bad! Writers these days can’t just be writers anymore. You need to be your own agent, publicist and manager. If your writing career is so important, you need to take control of it yourself. If you’re lucky enough to score an industry gig where you know celebrities and professional journalists are going to be, maximize that opportunity. Get your name out there. Exchange business cards. Make friends at different publications and let them know you’re looking for professional work. Chances are slim, but you might get a bite. If you don’t network, you definitely won’t.

Whatever kind of writer you’re aspiring to be–whether you focus on screenwriting, business writing, book writing, magazine writing or general creative writing–I hope at least a few of my tips will prove useful. My greater hope, of course, is that my words will have more authority when I become more prominent in the industry.

Well, here we are again, folks! René Garcia has another brand-spanking-new Web site! Yeah, I know. You’re all probably tired of following me from site to site, so luckily, this will more than likely be my final “professional” site. My last site, www.writinginthedark.net, was a little off putting, I found. I’d tell people my domain name and they immediately thought I was some arm-cutting-emo-kid or something. Besides, this is a .com to boot. No more pride-swallowing .net for me!

Anyway, for all the new visitors, this site is meant to do several things: It should showcase my writing and artwork for prospective employers. It should share the writing lifestyle with would-be writers and those who are just curious. Lastly, I hope this site also gives everyone a chance to get to know me. At least a little bit.

I’ll try to keep it upbeat around here and post relevant news items I come across that I feel like bloviating about. Just keep in mind that if we ever meet, I probably won’t be anywhere near the ray of sunshine I’ll most likely come across as here.

With that said, thanks for stopping by and I hope you come by again. For now, forgive the dead links. I’m getting to them.