1. I wake up each morning with a nagging conscience because I haven't the foggiest notion what to offer you as a legitimate post. However, I know better than to even start to think about subject matter before becoming properly caffeinated. So, I drink one, two, or three cups of coffee before opening up my Mac and staring at a blank document.2. This goes on 20-30 minutes before my fingers start to do their thing.
3. I read over the final post exactly one time before I hit the "Publish" button. I realize my post probably contains all sorts of ugly grammatical constructions and typographical errors. Still, I've never really considered blogging as a form of publishing anything. So, it really doesn't matter.
Or, does it?
4. I feel guilty about my laziness, go back to the site, and read it again. I spend the next 20 minutes correcting and editing my original post, all the while wishing you hadn't read the first draft. It wasn't worthy of you.
5. A few hours later, I get another nagging feeling about the day's post. It's still not right. I realize I made other blunders and decide to save myself from further embarrassment. I go back to the post and make even more edits, realizing all the while I am not a writer and my posts are never going to be perfect.
6. I close my Mac out of an utter feeling of pointlessness.
7. I wake up the next morning and repeat steps 1-6.
What's your approach to blogging?
19 comments:
Mine's "spend hours being frustrated because I'm going through a patch with nothing blogworthy to say" then write something nonsensical or substandard just because I feel the obnoxious need to interact even when I have nothing to say! :) Thanks for asking!
HEE!
geez it's like you're my sister.
I blog all day long in my head. Sometimes, I'll sit down and write 4 or 5 posts and hit the publish button as needed. Other times, I've got nothing. I currently have 44 draft posts...but that doesn't mean any of them will actually be published.
OMG hilarious! Or what about when you read your post hours later and discover a revolting horrendous mistake. And you just cringe thinking about everyone who read that mistake, but what can you do but go fix it right.now. LOL That's too funny!
Which is pretty much what you said in no. 5 but oh well..LOL. (See? I even do this in comments)
I no longer blog every day, more like every other day.
I often have no idea what I'm going to write about, I just start writing and see where my thoughts take me. It's a lot like putting my fingers on a Ouija board stylus and waiting to see what comes next.
I edit several times before I hit publish and continue editing afterwards.
In the studio, when I'm making art for my blog, I usually start out with a phrase in my head and then just see what happens. I rarely, if ever, have a vision of what I want to create, it just unfolds.
Whether I'm making art or writing, it all usually starts with a phrase I can't get out of my head.
I get this.
I have misspelled a word in the title of my post and felt mortified!
Silly, huh?
I try to always have coffee in hand or on my desk first. But.. now comes "scheduled" posts. Oh dear. I've realized with the ability to schedule my posts to publish days in advance I am writing three to four days of post ahead of schedule. And then I'm bored so I go back and edit, add, change. All the time. I proof several times before hitting publish, I simple can't help it. If I hit publish and there are still errors, I'll edit again and fix it. I posted a letter this site called Letters to the President (you should check out the blog) only to realize I left out one word when I sent it in. And it's sitting up there for the world with my real name on it! With a mistake. I'm mortified. If I make a mistake in comments, sometimes I even delete and start over. And I always reread and reread.
That said. I'm neurotic, better get more coffee!
LOL! This is me. I always wonder, after I've re-edited after publishing a few times, if this is screwing up the subscriber thing..
Oh well! At least I feel better about doing so, knowing I'm not alone ;-)
I can't remember your email but here is the link to the Letters to the President site if you were interested.
http://posttothepresident.blogspot.com/
Why not write fewer posts instead? Your readers will stick around even if you only write one or two posts a week, I'm sure.
And you are a writer. So that means you should respect your readers enough to care about your grammar and spelling.
I don't really think about frequency so much. I just wait for something I want to blog to come into my head, then do it! If I get an idea but don't want to blog it right now, I keep it on a list and pull it from there later if I'm itching to write something but low on ideas. I don't want my blog to become a chore so I don't force myself to keep any sort of blogging schedule.
It's similar to yours, but I sometimes write the posts ahead and edit them for 2-3 days before they are published. (too much time on my hands....LOL)
Any blogger who does not recognise this behaviour is probably a liar! HA ha ha!
Yes, I hit post this morning then realized I didn't title my post, which I hate because it shows up without a title on the sidebar of other people's sites without the title even when I go in and correct it. I don't know why, but it doesn't update out there. I hate that and it's going to nag at me all day.
You're a lot more serious than I am, Diane. I just write it and forget about it. I often can't remember what I wrote when someone comments to me about it later on.
Honestly, I love the process, normally after the kids go to bed and it is quiet...finally, I sit down with the computer and run over what happened that day, just let it all trickle past and see what catches. I go from there....I love the chance to mull over the day.
I think you are perhaps too concerned as well. I don't care about your small errors (and I hope most people don't care about mine).
The thing I hate is when I reread a post and then I see an error and correct it and the post pushes out to the folks who read it by e-mail and then when I republish the poor folks get doubles.
Sometimes I write blog posts in my head and then when I come home and get on the computer I am just too tired to put them together and post something simpler, or read other blogs.
I was up at 2 am last night fixing my blog. *sigh* I'm not sure if that's an addiction or an obsession. LOL
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