By Milli Thornton

I’M USUALLY the one helping other writers with their fear of writing, so it was both poignant and instructional to recently be on the other end of the stick.

My chock-full-of-personality friend (and one of my staff writer at Milliver’s Travels), Ann McElfresh, runs a wonderfully warm, yummy and inspiring food blog known as Cooking Healthy for Me.

I found Ann’s blog last year when I was devoid of any desire to cook and we were having a lot of make-do meals. I was highly dysfunctional when I arrived, but Ann soon had me cooking her recipes.

How did she do this? By making it fun! Also by providing simple, easy recipes with readily available ingredients that even a cooking Grinch like me could handle.

Then one day Ann asked me to be a guest blogger. OMG. Me? The most I’d ever done in that vein was to publish my made-up recipe for Milli’s FlatOut Outrageous Wrapper, which is basically just rolling up some lunch items in a flatbread.

(See Eek! Nutritious Lunch for Busy Writers in our Healthy Writers Series)

I knew I wanted to do it, but I was nervous. Even though Ann makes it look easy, that’s usually the hallmark of someone who really knows what’s she doing—and there’s a lot more to food blogging than just cooking something yummy and throwing up a blog post. You have to make the food look presentable and appetizing in the photos, for one thing. And this was my greatest fear.

My other fear was about food blogging among the people who do it all the time: Ann’s readers. This is distinctly similar to how new writers feel when they guest blog here on FoW for the first time. (And I’m sure it happens on other blogs too.)

I started venting my fears to Ann by email. She was very patient with me and kept encouraging me. She obviously believed I could do it, and I didn’t want to chicken out, so I let her words penetrate me.

Soon, I broke through my fears and got on with the job. I ended up being delighted with the results, and Ann did heaps to make me look better as a food photographer.

I had a blast reading the comments that came in after my post went live—Ann’s readers were so welcoming.

Thank you, Ann, for being my “fear of food blogging” mentor!

I’d love for my readers to come check out my post at Cooking Healthy for Me and see which recipe I decided to make. Please leave me a comment if you like my post!

My guest blog post at Cooking Healthy for Me

RELATED TOPICS

Check out Ann’s “Our Foodie” page on Milliver’s Travels

Eek! Nutritious Lunch for Busy Writers

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Milli Thornton is the author of Fear of Writing: for writers & closet writers. She is owner of the Fear of Writing Online Course, where her mission is to put the fun back into writing. Milli blogs at Screenwriting in the Boonies and Milliver’s Travels and coaches writers individually at Writer’s Muse.

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