The Continuing Considerations Of Blogging
Posted 31st January 2014
Category: Chit-Chat Genres: N/A
9 Comments
Although I have already written on the subject of blogging, I feel that it’s worth looking back every now and then to survey progress made. This isn’t about blogging in a business sense – it’s not about how any marketing might be going, for example – instead it’s about thinking of your blog, your routine, and how it’s working for you.
So this is what I want to do today, and I thought that discussing it here might be of interest or help to others. I wrote when I first decided to blog to a schedule, I wrote again to analyse how that was going, and I wrote about insights. Now I have to add to the information in that second post – I am finding that having a schedule continues to create ideas. It wasn’t a fluke. It’s as though ideas are forced to appear because there are deadlines and the ‘need’ to create on a constant basis.
Deadlines & Ideas
Plenty of times in the last few months, I have looked at my list of draft posts and been at a loss for what to do. Most of my drafts are incomplete or are posts that I may not end up sharing because I do not like them enough. The majority of incomplete ones are articles that require a lot of time to finish – that’s why they’ve been drafts and plans for so long. But no matter what, even if it’s pushing at the limit between time and lack of, I have so far always had a post for every day of my schedule. I don’t know why or how, but having a schedule promotes creation, inspiration, imagination. It just happens.
In regards to my schedule I’ve discovered I like to be at least a week in advance, but not much more than that. It may be obvious to say that it’s not good to be working the night before the post is due, and the occasions I hinted at in the last paragraph confirmed it, but also it’s not generally a good idea to be too far ahead. With reviews it’s good to be ahead and easier to swap them around a bit if you want to accommodate a new blog tour post or some such, but if you schedule too far in advance or too rigidly you’ll make anything spur-of-the-moment impossible to be happy with and you can forget about any sudden news stories.
Being a week or two ahead means that you don’t have to rush, but at the same time it keeps you on your toes. And it means that if you get sick your blog won’t fall silent.
Ideas & Keeping Them
It’s crazy how long it’s taken for me to improve, but I’m slowly learning to remember to note down even bad ideas. So often I used to have a snippet of an idea and not bother remembering it, but there is great value in noting everything. Small ideas can be combined with larger ones, single sentence thoughts added to a broader topic. I’ve started allowing myself to get out of bed to write if I have an idea whilst trying to get to sleep, and a few weeks ago I actually spent an entire night writing – once the first idea came to me I couldn’t stop the flow of good sentences and fun smilies. (That post may not see the light of day as I placed no limits on the information I was giving, but it was a good exercise.)
And of course keeping a blog means you’ll inevitably question the design from time to time. I asked you all about my genre list; the second thought in mind of that nature is the site search. It took me ages to get the coding correct, indeed it took me ages to get it added in general, but I wonder if anyone uses it.
As I continue my fourth year of blogging I’ve not doubt I’ll soon have many other things to consider.
What have you been thinking about in regards to your blog recently? Or, if you don’t blog, tell me about a long-term past-time you’ve had which kept you thinking about changes and impacts.
January 31, 2014, 11:37 am
I hate having a lot of drafts, so I stopped doing that. Instead, I write down blog topics/ ideas in a calendar, and as I look over the month of whatever, I decide if I can expand on the ideas or not. That prevents me from having a bunch of drafts in my blogging software.
January 31, 2014, 5:10 pm
Interesting thoughts, Charlie.
I agree with you about a schedule actually helping to create ideas. Up until very recently I didn’t have a posting schedule. But at the start of December, as an experiment, I decided to try and post something every day. I thought that for sure I would run out of things to say, but so far it’s been working great. In fact, I’ve been coming up with more ideas than ever!
January 31, 2014, 6:46 pm
Nice article! For me, the main issue around blogging has always been one of time. My fiction writing takes up a lot of time, and I generally have to do other writing as well – like journalism – to pay the more immediate bills, so the time I have is limited. I can always think of so many more things I’d like to do with the blog, but just keeping up with one post a week is about all I can manage. I tend not to plan or schedule much – just have a few things in mind and write them when I have the time.
February 2, 2014, 8:28 pm
Sounds like scheduling has been really helpful for you in terms of blogging and generally writing – helping you continually improve.
I’ve really enjoyed having my schedule, up until this week really when I’ve hit a point where I have nothing of interest to discuss. This Thursday’s discussion post is the lamest I’ve ever done. But, hopefully from the ashes of that disaster will come a post where reading.
February 4, 2014, 10:13 pm
I have always and will always say this: It’s your blog, and you can share as much or as little as you want.
I also come up with a ton of drafts, move them around on my editorial calendar, or just delete them. It’s okay. I think it’s like a growing process about making sure you feel good about what you put out.
February 8, 2014, 1:03 pm
I always enjoy reading your thoughts on blogging! I have a lot of drafts barely started or in progress (more of the former than the latter!) and have started using a blog calendar to try to get on a more regular schedule with no success so far. I figure that I don’t keep track of other bloggers’ posting schedules, I just read them whenever I can, so keeping to a regular schedule doesn’t seem that important to me. I never post so often that I run out of posts, because I do mostly reviews and I always, always have a backlog!
BTW, I used your HTML tip for acronyms the other day. Thanks again!
February 8, 2014, 8:59 pm
I’ve also noticed that when I keep a schedule and jot down ideas that I’m usually more on top of my blogging game. These days I’m shorter on time (I used to be able to do a lot of brainstorming during “mental breaks” at work) and honestly sometimes I feel guilty posting if I haven’t also had time to comment on my favorite blogs. Ugh! I’m trying to be better about both–I figure if I can draft up posts as the ideas come then I’ll have a store of posts that won’t need a ton of time to draft and that will give me more time to comment as well. Seems to always be a tug and pull. I DO need to be better about writing down ideas, though. I try to keep my posts balanced so there aren’t too many book posts or too many personal posts but it seems like when I do have a chance to sit down to write I draw a blank. Like today. :)
February 27, 2014, 10:36 pm
Jeanne: If it’s not broke don’t fix it :) I keep thinking I should change my design and then think similarly, that it’s going okay. Yes, it’s weird but it happens, and I read the same just recently on a blogging blog. Schedules beget ideas.
Tanya: Oh it clogs the dashboard up for sure! As long as you’ve ideas whatever works… works!
Maria: Yes, the initial thought is ‘nice thought but I won’t be able to keep this up…’ and then you do. And you end up doing better than you would have without any schedule at all. Glad it’s working for you, you’re certainly posting a lot :)
Andrew: I suppose you have to come up with a lot more ideas and categorise them when you do, so it’d be a different kettle of fish entirely! That said, even a rough once a week is schedule enough to help out with it.
Alice: Yes. I put it off for ages and it turned out to be what I needed. Oh you do every now and then; it works the vast majority of the time, but there will be a few occassions where it doesn’t. It’s natural to have a less than stellar post sometimes :)
Rebecca: True, it’s your own choice. I’ve never been confident enough to delete anything other than posts that are very incomplete (I suppose I still worry about rainy days even then), but it does work for you, you have new posts regularly.
Laurie: Thanks, I’m glad they’re okay! Hear hear on that draft status – though it will happen, I can tell you that :) That’s true, other that those who post daily I’m not sure of others’ schedules, it’s more important for the blogger themselves. That said, if the scheduled stopped, we readers would notice then! I’m envious of your review backlog, I read too slowly :( I’m glad the tips were useful!
Trish: Yes, it just happens when everything’s like that. You shouldn’t feel guilty, it’s obvious where your time is spent :) I think the time you do spend is amazing. Notebook, or rather, notebooks, plural is everything. Notebooks everywhere. You’ll still wonder where to find one occasionally, but if you’ve several, it’s hard to miss an idea. It’s difficult keeping a balance between subjects sometimes, and just knowing you want a balance helps.
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January 31, 2014, 2:44 am
As I start my sixth year of blogging, I keep trying on different ideas of how to make changes, but then I don’t because I don’t mind the way it’s been going and I don’t have as much time to put into it as I used to. Maybe that’s a choice, though. I like what you say about putting the structure in place and the writing will follow.