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Continuing Breaducation

Hey, it’s been awhile! What have I missed? I’m not sure if this is my official return to regular posting at Wordloaf, but I’m finally (I think) in a place where I can start at least easing back into it. Amy still has more to share with us (yay, thank you, Amy!), but I’m going to be here regularly again too going forward. I’ve been away too long, and I have a backlog of things to share with you, including a stack of new books that have come out in the interim I need you all to know about, many of which I have a direct connection to.

I’ve spent the last three months or so trying to pin down the “front matter” for Breaducation, all the stuff that comes before the recipes. I always knew that it would be a hefty part of the book, but it turns out I had no idea quite how hefty it could get if I attempted to cover everything I thought I knew about bread (much of which I figured out in the writing of it itself). I sent what I had to my editor about a month ago, and it topped 100k words, and the draft had major holes in it that probably represented another 20-40k. Which is a lot!

It’s also a lot more than is reasonable to fit into a book of its size, and, though I resisted the idea at first, my editor has convinced me that I need to rethink the scope of the book somewhat, in order to make it more approachable to a wider audience. Which means I have a lot more work to do. As a result, I’m going to be working on it through the end of this year, and the publication date won’t be until Spring 2026. Which is ages from now, but that is the book biz, and I’m trying not to think about what it will be like to sit on my hands for more than a year once the book is entirely out of my hands.

The good news is that much of what I need to do to craft the new front matter is already there, though it is going to take a lot of reworking to shoehorn it into a different format. And, even better, much of what I wrote is exactly the sort of thing I’d normally share here, so I have a pile of really great bready content to share with you soon.

More good news is that the recipes are coming along nicely too (including that sourdough pavé pictured above). I’ve been baking in the background nearly every day, and I’m gearing up to start sharing recipes again with the testing group in the next month or so, and with all of you too as well.

The lineup of breads hasn’t changed drastically with the new concept for the book, though the organization of the recipes has: Whereas before I’d been working up a series of formulas that would serve as illustrations for many (but not all) of the topics I covered in the front matter, now I am going to rejigger the front matter to support the recipes instead, and leave out most of what doesn’t have a specific set of recipes tied to it. I’m not convinced that there will be another book after this one, but on the off chance there is, I’ll certainly have plenty more to say then.

Working for oneself is an inherently lonely business, but I had no idea that writing a book could feel quite so isolating. I have barely left the house since the start of the year, and have let my ties to friends (both IRL and online) wither to the point of potential demise. (Sorry friends! I miss you!)

Even the writing itself is isolating: I like writing generally, but it is also fairly easy to do when you know someone will be reading your words in the near future. You have a conversation with a reader in your head and put it down on paper, knowing it will continue soon, once the words are out in the world. But it’s a very different thing writing thousands of thousands of words that no one will read for months or years, if even then. Not only is it much harder to do on a sustained basis, it’s challenging not to navel-gaze yourself to death in the process. I had no idea about this aspect of writing a book, and it ain’t fun!

None of this is meant as a gripe, to be clear. I just thought it might be interesting for you all to hear where I am at with all this, and simply to write something someone might read for a change. I’m still excited about the book—which is good, given how much more work I have to do—and I’m excited to be back here more. Not sharing on Wordloaf has been isolating too, and I appreciate the connection I have with you all, even more than I realized before I went down into my cave to work on the book.

More soon and thank you for your patience with my long absence!

—Andrew