The Process

I thought it might be useful to share what my process for writing this blog is. It's nothing too fancy, but it gets the job done.

I do almost all of my creative work at night. I write my entry (or entries if I missed a previous update) before going to bed. The first thing I do is open up my Word document called "Blog Posts." This is where I keep all of my ideas for blog posts that I haven't written yet. Sometimes these are simple phrases, usually with a sentence or two to remind me what I mean. One of the current items says "Comedians are Philosophers". Another one says "Contractions - When to use them". I like to keep a certain amount of vagueness because it makes the writing process easier.

When I've found an idea for a post that rings with me (basically, that it starts writing itself in my head as soon as I see it), I write the title in the title menu and start writing. Since it started writing itself in my head, I don't generally struggle with the opening line the way I would when trying to construct something from scratch. And basically, I let fly. Whatever I think of, I write down. I think it makes the writing feel very natural, like a conversation.

Sometimes, when I'm writing, I find myself traveling down a tangential path. It's not that I don't want to or shouldn't follow that path. However, I do want a post to have a central topic that I am talking about. That's the one downside to writing conversationally: you diverge from the original point very easily. On the plus side, if the idea is one I want to pursue later, I pull up Blog Posts and write it down. As I've said before, sometimes you get a lot of ideas, and sometimes you hit dry spells, so save every idea you can. Blog Posts has grown and shrunk dynamically since its inception.

After I save the idea, I go back to writing my post. I continue working on my main point, working toward a conclusion. Sometimes the conclusion naturally comes from everything that's been said. Sometimes, I don't have anything else to say and I have to really think about what advice can be drawn from it. Of course, the reader is always welcome to draw their own advice from whatever I write.

When I'm done writing, I post it and delete the entry from Blog Posts. Sometimes what I had written down as a thought was radically different from what I ended up writing. I laugh about it, but move on. The blog is what I was thinking when I wrote it. That's the beauty of regular content: you don't have the time to perfectly craft everything, but what you put down is raw humanity.

I know I should go through my post and edit it, even if just for the spelling mistakes that Firefox and my eye both miss, but I don't. I'm happy to be done with it and to work on the next one when it's time. If somebody really has an issue with my typos, they are always free to contact me and point them out and I will fix them. I'm one of the only people left who doesn't mind having his spelling corrected.