Good morning!
As you may have seen in my 11 in 2011 resolution list, one of my goals for 2011 is to write a vegan cookbook proposal and sell the idea to a publisher. During Project Food Blog, I was contacted by a few literary agents and I am currently in the process of figuring out my next steps.
I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed with the idea of ‘where to start’ with my cookbook proposal and these feelings have taken me back to my thesis days. My undergraduate thesis and my Master’s thesis were both huge undertakings and I remember how I used to feel so overwhelmed whenever I had to take the first step and get started.
For me, starting a big project has always been the most difficult part.
Once I have started and I have a plan, then it seems to get a bit easier. That is just how I work.
My fear of beginning large projects has something to do with the high expectations I place on myself. I tend to put off big projects for fear of not doing a good job; if I can put it off, maybe the right idea will just ‘hit me’ and then I can move forward. But, that is rarely the case. It takes work, and lots of it, to get big projects off to a good start. Sometimes, I wait and wait for the ‘perfect’ idea, when I already have very good ideas to work with. Every project needs a solid foundation and while they shouldn’t be rushed, procrastination doesn’t do any good. I am really guilty of procrastination with large endeavors.
I mentioned ‘once I have a plan’ things seems to flow more smoothly. Having specific and attainable goals are always present in my life, but every good goal must have a plan to go along with it too! The reason why I have felt overwhelmed with my cookbook proposal is that I did not have a plan to guide me.
Every specific goal must have a specific plan to go along with it.
I would like to share my experiences with this process as much as I can. I also want my book to be largely based on your feedback. What types of recipes do you want to see in a vegan cookbook? What ingredients do you like to cook and bake with? What questions do you have about vegan cooking and baking? All of these things are things that I think about and I hope to address many of these things as I go through the process. (Don’t worry about answering the questions now as I will be creating a survey at some point). I want the book to be not only a reflection of my fun approach to a vegan diet, but also a reflection of what types of things you would want to see in a vegan cookbook.
I thought I would show you how I was finally able to get this project off the ground and running.
I have been brainstorming cookbook ideas for over a year now, but my brainstorming never translated into much more than that. I finally realized that I needed to take the next step and create an outline, so I started a Word document and I created a chapter outline of how my cookbook may look. What sections do I want? What would I call them? What types of recipes do I want to focus on? How many recipes per section? How would the order of the sections flow?
While I always do my brainstorming on paper, I prefer not to use pen and paper when doing a large outline. I find an electronic Word document is much cleaner because I can easily delete things and have a clean looking document at all times.
I have half a notebook filled with brainstorming ideas from Project Food Blog!
and weird diagrams apparently! haha
Don’t ask. I really don’t know what’s going on in these diagrams. I think I wanted to make a raw layered pumpkin pie at one point. Then I realized the challenge was to make a BAKED good. Doh!
I worked on my outline this weekend and I am already feeling so much better about things. Once I planned out the chapters in my book, I started to place recipes or recipe ideas underneath each chapter that I may want to include. Over time, this is how my cookbook proposal will grow. Of course, what I plan now will likely change many times over, but at least there is a plan there to guide me and that is all that matters in the initial stages!
Do you have any big projects looming in 2011? Do you suffer from procrastination or fear of failure when big projects loom? Have you ever been intimidated by a large project? How did you begin?
Good luck with the book! I am sure it will be great. All your recipes are great, and I love love love all your food pictures. I am not a vegan but I have tried all your salads, and they are a big hit in my house.
My goal in 2011 is to really improve and grow my blog. I feel quite overwhelmed by the idea now – working a full time job does not lead to very much additional free time! But I think if I start to treat my blog more like a part time job and less like a hobby I can make it work…
It’s definitely overwhelming thinking about where to start with a book. However, I can imagine your cook book would be one of the best out there! You can tell you devote SO much time, effort – and yourself to your projects.
I totally agree with the comments on your cookbook here – I think so long as it’s representative of the way you blog, you can’t go wrong. One thing I’ve found in cookbooks is that there’s no way to distinguish between the v quick and easy recipes, and ones that take longer/require more investment, so I have to read through each recipe that looks good to get an idea of whether it is suitable for a quick 30-min no stress meal, or for a gourmet dinner for friends. It’d be great to have some way of distinguishing. Also, it would be great to have a suggestion as to how long things can be kept in the fridge/freezer or how leftovers could be used in another meal. These are all things I have to try to work out myself once I’m done cooking.
As for putting things off – I am 100% too afraid to start big projects a lot of the time. I am a procrastination expert and always find the first step the hardest. This year I’m hoping to start a jewelry design business but it seems like such a huge task I barely know where to start. And your post gives the answer – with a plan!
Awesome ideas :) I was thinking that too re: Q & E and storage.
I too would like to write a cook book and I would love to hear all about your journey. At the moment I’m considering self-publishing however I haven’t done much research yet because I only have a handful of recipes I’m happy with.
Good Luck!
If something intimidates me then iI always put it off, it’s a big weakness of mine. I think a big part of it is down to self-esteem e.g. feeling good enough for the task at hand. I do find that thinking about starting something is usually A LOT harder than actually getting on with it. Having recently discovered your blog and considering taking the step to be vegan, I personally can’t wait for this book and have no doubts whatsoever, that you will find a publisher quickly.
I am exactly like you with big projects! I always procrastinate because I don’t want to fail. It actually took me a lot of courage to create a blog because I didn’t think I would be good enough!
I’m sorry to say that I’ve never been capable of starting a project right away. I never wrote even one paper in college with more than 8 hours to spare before the due date….and I was an English major! So, no tips from me!
I did want to stop and congratulate you on your offers and for getting your proposal started. I voted for you all of the way through Project Food Blog, and I think you’re amazing! :)
oh my gosh! this post resonates with me so much right now. i have followed you for a while, but rarely (if ever) comment, as, i suppose, i’m prone to lurking. :-) but i have just recently finished my coursework for my master’s and am now facing the seemingly impossible (and ginormous) task of writing my thesis. i am seriously in the throes of some paralysis right now… but i agree that, if one just sits down and devises a plan of attack, everything seems more manageable. one step at a time is how things get done- no need to look at the entire picture at once! good luck with the book proposal! i’ll look forward to hearing how that’s progressing over the year.
Your cookbook MUST include as many green monster smoothie and vegan overnight oats recipes as possible!! So easy, and with ingredients most people have on-hand or can find easily.
One thing I have to add – PLEASE have your cookbook proofread VERY carefully. I’m currently working my way through the Color Me Vegan cookbook, and I’ve loved every recipe I’ve tried – but the book contains SO many errors (missing words or punctuation, listing an ingredient and then never mentioning when to add that ingredient in the recipe, even repeating multiple names in the Acknowledgements) that I find it incredibly distracting. (I was an English major – can you tell?)
Oh gosh, I would buy your cookbook in a heartbeat!
Big projects for me this year? My final year dissertation for my psychology degree (it’s going v v v badly) and organising summer camp in america/culinary school in ameirca! Scary times :s
oh, congratulations on plunging into your cookbook project, angela!
i so agree: it’s overwhelming to think about what lies ahead/what needs to be done before you start on a major task. i tend to think in all-or-nothing terms, try to have everything “perfect” before beginning a big project…when really you need to just jump in the pool and start swimming!
i really look forward to hearing about your progress…and for sure will get myself a copy of the final product!
As a commenter above said:
‘A unique approach would be to incorporate your strategies and history with disordered eating. Not a “diet” book – but an actual book that tells us it’s ok to eat foods such as almond butter and avocados because of what they do for us. Really, you make food fun again!’
I like this idea – not suggesting that you go into too much detail over your past disordered eating, unless you want to obviously, but just that yeah, ‘this does this for you and it’s totally great to eat it’. I love it when you include just a few reasons something’s good for you, or you know, otherwise awesome (like, spelt flour. I bought it on your recommendation, and I feel like it’s such a ridiculously simple way to make a better choice. And I made my own almond butter, inspired by you, as well)
Also, I’m English, and a lot of American recipes (not just vegan) call for ingredients I can’t get here – vegan cheese, vegan cream cheese, egg replacer; and that’s just the vegan stuff. So I love that you call for whole foods, but we can’t even get stuff like flax seeds, chia seeds, canned pumpkin, coconut oil, nut butters besides peanut, here without ordering specially off the internet. So maybe like, ‘how to make your own pumpkin puree’, even if it’s just a footnote, or a ‘order this off amazon or similar’ note for a couple of things. But on the whole, yours is one of the sites I’ve had least trouble with getting ingredients (I have a lot of trouble with Pioneer Woman, for instance, when she uses things like Cool Whip – which is what? I don’t even know? Is it cream? Is it mayonnaise? – and pudding mix and stuff). So mostly just keep doing what you’re doing.
Generally I love almost everything you make, I think we have very similar tastes – so just putting in my two pennies worth to say that I’d definitely be interested in a cookbook from you, and actually I’m super-excited at the prospect. I hope this is helpful!!
great ideas Anna, thank you :)
Anna covered my first suggestion with some of the stranger American/Canadian ingrediants (seriously what is Cool Whip?) and my second one is having a section somewhere that states what a cup of something is. It’s easy to do flour and sugar but what is a cup of butter? Is it melted, cubed, packed right in? I know butter won’t matter in a vegan cookbook but there might be similar ingrediants.
P.S. Anna check out Holland and Barratt as they have most of the things you mentioned. They do 4 or 5 different nut butters as well. Waitrose do canned pumpkin in autumn/winter and it is in the canned fruit/baking section and loads cheaper than the internet. Haven’t found coconut oil in the shops yet but I’m working on tracking it down!
I’m the same way! I have really high expectations for myself and a bit of perfectionism which sometimes causes me to not try new things or big projects! I need to learn how to push through and realize that I’m never going to succeed or do anything if I dont’ try.
I’m so excited about your cookbook– you have quite the loyal fan base because your good and passionate about what you do and it shows!
You rock! Looking forward : )
Like you, I often put off large projects for fear of failure. I have been doing it for years and only realized what I was doing about a year ago. For example, I am going back to school (pt) and because I had so much to do when applying; getting university transcripts, writing letters, getting $ orders in order; I kept putting it off and off. I got so discouraged. When I finally sat down and competed the task, it was actually a lot less stressful than I thought and I was finished within a month!
In terms of your cookbook, I would love to see a few low or no fat vegan recipes. To me, being vegan is also abt being as healthy as possible and I feel that fat (added) is not very healthy so a few recipes on this would be nice.
Also, a way to make most recipes vegan would be a giant hit, I believe. You had a post up with a fake book called, How to Veganize everything, or something along those lines. I have to admit that before I knew it was fake, I jumped on google looking for the book. I was so excited because I thought it was real. So, this might be a good thing for you to do.
I have to also say I love how honest you are on this blog. I can totally relate to you on a few levels as I have high levels of anxiety and love to travel and am Canadian so it is nice to see such a successful blog like yours. Keep up the great work.
that is such a cute story about that fake book! lol
For a big project to be a success, I need to set deadlines for myself. I loved high school and love college because I am forced to get things done by a certain time. I definitely produce better work under pressure. I used to have an art teacher that set very vague deadlines and that led to pieces that were never up to my full potential… Also, like many people I think, I find that getting started is the difficult part, not the actual work.
I can’t wait for your cookbook!
I’m not a vegan, so my approach to eating vegan meals comes merely from the fact that I like eating and don’t feel the desire to eat meat every night. So… as a omnivore (or maybe I’d be called a flexetarian, I don’t know), I don’t want to eat vegan food that pretends to be meat. If I wanted to eat meat, I’d eat meat. Or if I wanted to eat cheese, I’d eat cheese. Does that make sense?
The recipes that I love the most are your ones that don’t try to replace something I could make as an omnivore. I love your recipes that incorporate vibrant colours and balanced nutrition (the spicy rainbow black bean salad is amazing). There’s a lot to be said for targeting non-vegans with the cookbook, keeping the recipes accessible to as many people as possible.
I’m going through my thesis right NOW (well, admittedly, it’s not a thesis per say, it’s my “advanced research methods” class which is, quite frankly, my thesis) and I have to have to do a presentation on my proposal this coming Thursday and I’m not overly confident in it. However, your reminder of having a plan has calmed me down some!
Other big things this year include launching my own business, my 30k race and my own possible book proposal (although I may hold that off until 2012) but all of them require a good plan!
Your cookbook is going to be amazing, Angela and it’s because you put such heart AND hard work into everything you do!
you are amazing! I know you will rock your proposal. Goodluck :)
I AM SO EXCITED FOR YOU (and your future book!!!)!! :D:D:D:D:D:D
I also get intimidated by large projects. When I finished my coursework during my master’s, I spent quite a bit of time panicking about my thesis. I set rough milestone dates for myself, like “by this date, I will have my lit review draft complete”, “by this date, I will be aiming to propose”, and “hopefully by this date, I’ll be graduating!” ;). I even structured my days a bit so I would say Monday to Friday, I’d make my thesis my job and be in the library researching for an x amount of time, but I would be sure to relax that a little on the weekends. That way I didn’t feel like it overtook my life, and I was still able to take each day one step at a time.
Things change though, and timelines sometimes need to be adjusted – that’s okay! As long as you have a rough idea of where you want to go (even if the next step is “figuring out the next step”), then it’s easier to stay on track. I find this helps me the most because otherwise I end up procrastinating big time!
1. Yayy!! for you and the cookbook! haha and 2. I always have to have a plan…if I don’t – I get way too overwhelmed.