Make food writing your living: ten top tips from pro-journalist Andy Lynes

1. If you find yourself using the words 'moist' and 'succulent' in your writing on a regular basis, improve your copy by simply choosing another career.
   
   
2. After several years as a food writer, fool yourself that you're not writing the same articles over and over just with different names/places/things by drinking heavily to impair your long term memory.
   
   
3. Make your self appear more interesting than you actually are by developing an intensely nerdy obsession with stupidly expensive coffee/tea/chocolate/insert-other-mundane-commodity-sold-in-tricked-up-packaging-to-idiots-for-a-fortune-here.
   
   
4. Delay indefinitely actually having to write anything by accepting any and all invitations from PR companies who want to pour cheap champagne down your throat to distract you from the fact that the high-concept Japanese/Serbo-Croatian fusion restaurant they're trying to launch is obviously doomed to failure.
   
   
5. Practice your best rictus grin in front of the bathroom mirror every morning - you never know when you might next have to sit through an hour-long explanation of 'ma cuisine' from a twenty-something chef who in reality can't tell his artichoke from his elbow pasta.
   
   
6. Repeat the following phrases until you can insert them naturally into a conversation:
   

   'Oh God, I simply couldn't live without offal'

   'I get all my manioc flour from this amazing deli in Arnos Grove'

   'It tastes ok but the crema is very disappointing'

   'Supper clubs are so 2010'

7. Learn to love the taste of Pot Noodle - that's all you'll be able to afford on the money you make writing about food.
   
   
8. When dealing with the demoralising daily round of pitches ignored and rejected by unfeeling editors, remember the words of Nietzsche who said, 'What doesn't kill me makes me stronger'. Then recall that the Nazis were quite fond of Nietzsche and find yourself a better role model.
   
   
9. When reviewing restaurants, remember that trifling matters like food, service and ambience are nothing compared to your fascinating life and social circle.
   
   
10. Avoid cynicism at all cost.