(Entry redacted for career reasons. If you know me, gimme a call and I’ll give you the scoop.)

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.

As dedicated bloggers, we are all looking for ways to generate more traffic to our sites. From a business standpoint, the more traffic you have to your Web site, the greater chance you have of someone clicking one of your ads. From a creative standpoint, a writer is nothing without his or her readers. Furthermore, with an estimated five million blogs floating around the Internet, we can’t simply rely on search engines to funnel visitors our way. That’s why it’s important to create your own traffic streams. One way to do that is through traffic exchange sites. While there are quite a few of this type of sites, there are more specialized sites that focus on blogs and these are the services I want to discuss here.

The way these sites work is like this: For every blog you visit through whichever service you’re using, your blog will receive a visit in return from someone else. Most of the time, it’s not a 1:1 ratio. You’re more likely to find 2:1 ratios, meaning for every two blogs you visit, your site will receive one in return. The traffic exchange site keeps track of your blog surfing through a special javascript program that runs in your browser. Once you activate the program, it automatically loads a random blog. A 30 second timer counts down and then a security question pops up to ensure you’re actually surfing and not having a bot do it for you. The timer is there to give you a chance to read the blog before moving on. The idea here is that you might find something you enjoy and now that blog has a dedicated reader. And the same goes for you when someone randomly views your blog through this system.

There are a few problems inherent with blog traffic exchange sites. The biggest problem is that the community is full of bloggers. By nature, bloggers want readers, not to become a reader. So, more often than not, you will have people landing on your blog who are just waiting for the timer to countdown so that they earn their credit. Even if this particular surfer is making a genuine effort to read blogs, you only have 30 seconds to sell them before they answer the security question to view the next blog. This problem of non-reading is further compounded by these traffic exchange sites completely randomizing their pool of blogs. It’s not surprising to run into the same blog three or four times during your surfing for credits.

Two of the more useless blog traffic exchange sites are BlogSoldiers and BlogMad. BlogSoldiers took forever to get an admin to approve my site. Once I was finally approved, any time I made an alteration to my preferences for my blog credits, it required the same interminable admin approval. Lastly, I think their community might be dead, because I’ve set my preferences to use 100 of my earned credits a day, meaning I want to have 100 visitors see my site through BlogSoldier surfing a day. Instead, I get maybe one view every two days. Last I checked, I had over 400 credits waiting to be used.

BlogMad is just as dead. While their system gives you plenty of ways to earn credits, like challenging other blogs to fights, credit lotteries and referrals, I don’t think there’s enough people using that service anymore. Once again, I only get one or two hits every two days. Sadly, they’re usually from the same few people.

The biggest, most glaring problem with these two blog traffic exchange sites is that you can permanently resize the window while you surf for credits. I was able to earn over 400 credits in one day on both sites while at work, just by keeping the surfing windows as small as possible and answering security questions every 30 seconds or so. People using those services are now truly only surfing for the credits and not for the reading.

The best bet is to stay away from traffic generating gimmicks like these altogether. They’re time consuming and don’t produce any quality visitors.

Life as a freelance writer is easily summed up in one word: temporary. One day a publication may need you to write movie reviews, the next day restaurant reviews. The day after that, they may not need you at all. That’s why you have to keep moving and keep scrounging for more work. It’s like being a shark. If you stop, you die. In this case, your writing career dies and you’re relegated to day job hell.

Anyway, when you’re first starting out, you’ll end up writing for anyone who’ll print your work. Unfortunately, the kind of publications that hire no-name writers are typically new, fly-by-night affairs that don’t pay. It’s important not to get too invested in these kinds of publications, because they rarely make it. You should be doubly wary of E-zines or Webzines, since you’ll essentially lose your tear sheet if the site goes down permanently.

Which brings us to tonight’s story. A while back I found a publication through MySpace called MNZ Magazine. They looked like a low-rent FHM or Maxim, focusing on kitschy nonsense and hiring shapely models: male thinking in a nutshell. In fact, I don’t think MNZ stood for anything. I think the MNZ was actually pronounced “menz.” Anyway, they were looking for movie reviews and I saw this as a great opportunity to get on some studio invites to film screeners. I got myself added to the Warner Bros. list for the 300 screening as well as the invite list of an LA PR firm that handles most movie events out there. I was stoked because MNZ agreed to print my reviews and now I’d be seeing the latest movie releases before everyone else.

Well, to make a long story short, after I turned in my reviews, MNZ stopped communicating with me. Furthermore, they didn’t publish my reviews. Even worse, they printed their resident movie buff schmuck’s reviews instead of mine. And this guy was horrible. His reviews barely covered the movie at all. His review of 300 went so far as to say something like, “You’ll see this movie anyway so I won’t bother telling you about it.” Ridiculous, right?

After repeated unanswered emails, I said screw it and just wrote them off. That was a year ago. Out of curiosity, I swung by their home page recently. Apparently, the site’s gone and is now being squatted on by some porn site (the model on the landing page is quite alluring). The MNZ MySpace is no longer being updated as of September of this year. Looks like another publication in a long line of crappy publications has bit the dust.

And the world is better for it.

I’ve been getting back into the writing lifestyle recently and have been making a good-faith effort to join as many writing sites as possible. One of the forums I’ve joined has an area for non-fiction and since that’s my forte I’ve been reading a few pieces members have submitted for workshopping. Instantly, I was transported back to college, sitting in a circle with people who had no idea of how to take advantage of the workshop to benefit their work. So, for any would-be writer who’s thinking of either joining a writing group or submitting their work to public online forums, I’ve put together some pointers for you. The following list is not meant to be exhaustive in any way. Think of it more as a guideline.

1. UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS AND ADHERE TO IT. In most writing workshops, it works like this: A writer brings his/her work to the group and distributes the proper amount of hard copies. The group takes the piece home, goes over it with a red pen and brings it back the following week for discussion. The author sits quietly and absorbs the constructive feedback, ideally taking notes all the while. Afterwards, the author gets to explain and rebut any anything he/she feels needs to be explained or rebutted. That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway. You don’t know how many times someone shows up with less copies than necessary or no copies at all and forces group members to print their copy from an email. That’s just tacky. Furthermore, when you’re the author having your work discussed, you really should shut up and listen. On very rare occasions I’ve been OK with authors interrupting discussion to get clarification on vague feedback, but by and large, the author should do his/her very best not to break up the flow of discussion. I know it’s tough when someone is ripping your piece to shreds, but that’s the process.
2. BRING ONLY YOUR VERY BEST WORK. There are two very big reasons for this: First, when you’re confident in your piece it’ll be easier to have people read it, because you know that you’re not being completely judged on incomplete work. If you get squirmy when people read and discuss your piece, then it’s definitely not ready for workshop. Secondly, realize that the writer’s workshop is not there to write the piece for you. Only you know what story you’re telling. The group can only offer feedback on how it affected them and what techniques might serve your story better. The rest is up to you.
3. KNOW WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR IN YOUR WORK. While it’s enough to simply go to a writer’s workshop, have people read your work and then gauge their reactions, you’ll get more out of your time by targeting specific parts of you work. If you have an experimental passage, you may want to address that in particular during discussion by asking questions about it. If you’re not sure about the pacing of a scene, be sure to bring that up. Just because someone doesn’t raise a criticism about that aspect doesn’t mean they thought it was fine. It might have slipped their mind to talk about it or, the worst case, they’re a lazy reader and this is your opportunity to force them to read more closely.
4. FILTER OUT THE NONSENSE. This one is a bit trickier and will have to be developed over time. Writing workshops are made up of people and people, for the most part, suck. Either they’re a moron and have no idea what’s going on or they’re a bad reader and just glossed over your work or they’re having a bad day and just want to destroy something beautiful. You’ll have to learn how to filter the feedback. For my part, I immediately discard praise, because it’s usually empty and does nothing to help improve my writing. When someone tells me that “this flowed well” or “I really liked this paragraph” what am I supposed to do with that comment? How do I integrate that into my revisions? Hearing that something I wrote is “good” is one of my workshop pet peeves, because I already know the piece is good. It’s supposed to be good. It’s my very best work. I just want to know if it’s bad. On the other end of the spectrum are the overly harsh criticisms, which you’ll naturally want to disregard. The only advice I can give for that is to glean what useful criticisms you can out of them.

Well, that was a shorter list than I expected to write. As you can see, being successful in writer’s workshops is simpler than many people may think. If you treat the method with respect, it can be a very handy writing tool.