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The road to hell is paved with blogging about blogging but what the hell, I'll do it. I post a blog entry every other day (at least after January 1st, 2010), which is fairly constant and frequent. Here is how I do it.
1. Devote the best hours of a day to blogging
My brain works best right after I wake up in the morning. So that is when I face my laptop. I spend about two hours for researching and writing before I head to work. Sadly, many days the "research" part takes too much time because it is easier and writing is hard.
To recoup some of the lost opportunities, I try not to indulge in stuff that are not related to blogging (such as watching a re-run of Racing with the Moon with young Sean Penn and Nicholas Cage: I watched bits of it in no less than 4 times but still haven't gotten the whole story)
2. Do it every day
Many people say brain is like muscle: in order to be better, you need to use it every day. Making writing a habit is the best strategy. I find it also helpful for keeping me concentrated on my work during the day. If I do not spend writing time in the morning, I feel the urge to compensate for it during office hours. Needless to say, it's risky.
3. Take notes and put them in a single location
Jjot.com is my favorite online note-taking tool. When away from a computer, I send an email to myself, or if the idea is good enough to stand on its feet, tweet it. Twitter is a wonderful tool not only for broadcasting micro-messages and interacting with people but also for keeping online memo.
Having all memos in a single location matters, because the most interesting aspect of writing (or blogging) is forming a new combination/idea from old, seemingly unrelated materials. More about this topic can be read here.
4. Locate a large chunk of time once a week to write in bulk
On Sunday morning I allocate several hours to assembling all the drafts I wrote during the week (yes they do not have to be published immediately) for the upcoming week. During this stage, I complete unfinished drafts and correct goofy errors. Also, taking another look at the initial draft often generates another idea or leads to previously unnoticed mistakes.
Having more than a couple of hours is important because for some reason my brain needs idling time when it comes to writing, even when it is most active.... The two-hour writing hour during weekdays usually gets shortened to a one hour of concentration, which is not long enough for completing an entry.
5. Schedule posts beforehand
Typepad, my blog service, allows scheduling. I make sure there are always at least two stocks of unpublished posts. That way, there is no pressure in rushing and posting something I would later regret or starts the day with a bad mood. The workplace pressure is already giving us enough headaches. We should be spared from that at least while writing for the sake of writing.
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Comments
03.03.10
Thanks for summarizing it in such a concise form. I'm actually already trying to do some of the suggestions as we speak, as I have failed to publish a post for a week as I got overwhelmed with other work as a college student. Having a good blog is surely NOT easy, as mentioned in today's webinar on BC. My question on BC today related to this topic didn't get answered all that well either.
03.03.10
I am glad it had some positive impact! Actually I was worried about posting (1) what I already know and (2) yet another 5 rules article. Your comment justified its existence, thanks. Today's webinar was wild, wasn't it? We are lucky to have joined it :)
03.03.10
I find usually the 3 rules articles are much easier to remember. Acronyms may work too. I totally got dissed again in today's webinar. I'm not sure if they were drunk.
03.03.10
Btw, I've just managed to publish a short blog entry again. I have 3 blog entries, with one of them involving some question asking before publishing them.
03.03.10
These are great, Isao. I definitely had already started to do them, but I'm going to try and be more intentional with them as a way to improve my writing.
03.03.10
Stanlee, yes I think an entry is an entry. Personally I get turned off by a blog post requiring more than 3 minutes to read :)
Emily, it's good to hear other people doing similar stuff. My current challenge is to shorten the "idling" time to get writing. Sometimes I find my synaptic fibers all warmed up (rats running in my head) and I find it's time to leave the house. Noooooh.
03.03.10
Only write something if you have something interesting to say. Blog LESS. There is so much rubbish in cyberspace why add to it? And that pretty much sums up my philosophy to blogging although others may care to disagree...
03.03.10
@tempo: I like your recommendation of "Less is More". In that sense the latency issue may not be as relevant as long as the published content is not garbage/rubbish. Hope that would help me deal with my long latency between posts, although I have 3 unpublished complete entries waiting to be published, with a 4th one in the works.
03.04.10
Writing every day is my habit for keeping the blog going. I only post 2-3x week, but it's important for me to always have a few drafts working at once in my Google Docs. I write a food blog, so my content's probably a little different than most, though writing drafts is common to us all. I write the ingredient list and instructions right after I finish cooking/eating. File. Next day, on my lunch hour I edit instructions and write the story portion of the post. If I have time, I edit another complete 1st draft post in the works. 2nd day, I do a third and final edit. In the evening, I do a final read-through, select and edit images and assemble the post.
03.04.10
Tempo, we see the world is filled with garbage, but the good point is that information can be filtered pretty effectively into gem and garbage, so to say. What Google allowed us is to churn out as many content as possible and be okay with it, because in the end only the good ones come up on top. I think 100 experiments beat 10 serious attempts.
Jenn, I like your habit of working on an article in stages. That way a blog entry gets refined without losing its freshness. I think I should adopt your methodology. Liked the chick pea recipe in your blog. And black popcorn.
03.04.10
Thanks, Isao! And thanks for checking out my blog!
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