BUDA BITES

Writing a Book:

Sitting down at the computer to actually start writing a book is quite an intimidating task. Looking at the screen–knowing that the blankness has to be turned into an entire book of a certain length in a certain amount of time–was overwhelming, to say the least. But not as much as it could have been had I not had my handy, and very thorough, outline already prepared. My deadline, which at first seemed like a great many months, now seemed like no time at all when I sat down to begin the book.

So I quickly made a plan. I started by making a master list, which was continuously updated, even until the day the book was completed. The list included all of the restaurants I wanted to visit for possible inclusion in the book (some I knew well, others I had been meaning to try, and others were recommended). Even though I knew that some of the restaurants would definitely be featured in the book, I went back and re-visited all of them, looking at them more critically than I had before. I didn’t tell any of them that I was reviewing them, and so I never asked for special treatment or free meals, and never got any. Luckily my publisher agreed that dining anonymously was the way to go, and gave me a budget that covered most of the meal expenses.

The list also included cafés, pastry shops, neighborhood markets, and food and wine shops that I knew about and had to check out to see if they were worthy of being included. While I wanted the book to be comprehensive in its scope, I wanted it to be selective at the same time. I didn’t want to waste the space to include any venue that wasn’t worthwhile seeking out for some reason or another. In addition to this ever-growing list, I had maps of each district which I took with me wherever I went, crossing off streets that I had checked out and noting any worthwhile places where I needed to return. While walking most of the streets in the central districts searching for new places, I found many of the smaller shops that made it into the book. Budapest has 23 different districts spanning more than 525 square kilometers, so obviously I didn’t attempt to cover it all. But, I did end up covering the most important areas, as well as some interesting not-so-central areas.

The best part of my research was the part that kept me eating well (and walking off some of those extra calories). Every day I discovered new and fresh ingredients at the markets, sipped coffee and ate cake at cafés, took home different wines to sample which came recommended from wine shop owners, and of course, ate at many restaurants. In order not to become too overwhelmed with all of the information, I tried to come home and write all of the venues up immediately afterwards, even if I wasn’t sure whether I would end up finally including them. Writing the restaurant reviews, it turned out, was one of the hardest parts about writing the book. It was sometimes a struggle to write them intelligently, giving a complete picture of the restaurant, keeping them interesting and lively, and not falling into using the boring clichés and play-by-play dining that characterize so many bad restaurant reviews

But there were, of course, other aspects to the research since the book is much more than just a collection of restaurant reviews and shop listings. There were people to interview, books on Hungarian history and food to read, libraries to go to, and information to gather. I studied various cookbooks in order to come up with the best explanations and definitions for Hungarian dishes, I continuously added to my glossaries whenever I came across a new food-related word, and I sampled different cheeses, honeys, cakes, and anything else that I happened to be writing about that day.

Although the chapter on visiting wineries eventually got cut from the American edition, it’s an important part of the Hungarian edition. Obviously I could not include every winery in all 22 regions. This chapter, too, is selective. I ended up deciding not to include a few of my favorite regions, like Szekszárd and Sopron, because I knew from experience that they were just not that easy to navigate without having all of your details planned out well in advance. There’s nothing worse that planning for a weekend of wine tasting with a group of friends and ending up having to buy your wine at Tesco and drink it in the panzió (which happened in Szekszárd once when the winemaker we came to visit cancelled out appointment at the last minute). In the regions that I did decide to include, I scheduled interviews with the winemakers and toured the wineries which I decided to profile. Some of the best wineries did not, unfortunately, make it into the book because they just made it too hard to arrange tastings.

I can’t emphasize enough to anyone who is writing any kind of book, how important it is to have a thorough outline before you write your first word. There’s no way I would have been able to keep this mass of information I was constantly gathering straight if I had not had my very detailed table of contents already prepared (even though that was constantly being tweaked as well). It was almost as satisfying as a good meal when I finished a section and got to cross it off the list. Knowing exactly what I would need to write and research the following day made things fo so much smoother. Somehow I stayed on track, even though I ended up finishing the manuscript the morning it was due…does anyone ever finish a book before its deadline? Check back later for a post on the (still-ongoing) editing process.

Read Book Update (Part I) (How Books Are Made)
Read Book Update (Part II) (The Pre-Book Phase)
Book Update (Part III) (Publishers and Contracts)