Blogging isn’t always as easy as it looks. Now in my fourth year of blogging, things are a little different (as I’m sure many of you “old timers” can attest).
I still get a lot of ideas for posts. Sometimes, they’re thoughts that come out of the blue, and sometimes they’re good enough that I can just hang onto them until I’m ready to write them (I did that with yesterday’s post on hard work for about a week and a half). Some are inspired by others’ posts, others by my every day life or pictures I’ve taken of the kids.
Once I get a good idea, especially if it’s inspired by another post, I write up a little draft of it. Sometimes it’ll be nothing more than a phrase or a link.
And usually, that’s about where they stay, sometimes even after I write the post on that topic. So right now, I have over 100 unfinished blog post drafts.
On the one hand, hooray! I have so much stuff to write about! On the other hand, boo! I don’t want to go through 100 posts looking for something I feel like writing about today (especially not if I have to read something first!).
So today I realized, that’s where I get stuck blogging—taking it from idea/draft to post. (And it’s not like my every post is a masterpiece that I spend days crafting.)
Confession: I wrote this post a couple days ago and thought I posted it. I was all sad because I didn’t get any comments. Then I was checking something on the site and discovered . . . I never hit Publish. What a great illustration of this, LOL!
So today I’m turning it over to you for a little help. How can I take more drafts to posts? Where do you get stuck blogging? What blogging questions do you have?
Photo by Shovelling Son
5 replies on “Where do you get stuck blogging?”
well, I never have more than 5 drafts waiting in the wings. That helps me because I know what each one is, don’t really have to “reread” what I’ve started, and can quickly find the right one to make changes and updates. I sometimes wonder if I should make shorter posts, since sometimes my drafts end up being rather lengthy as I keep adding things to my original beginning.
also, I had real trouble with the “scheduled” option… until I realized my blog clock was set for, like, European standard time or something ridiculous like that.
I get stuck with photos and videos. I have the entire post ready to go… but it needs such and such a photo… which hasn’t even been uploaded to my computer from the camera yet, still needs to be edited, etc etc. That slows me down often.
I struggle with this all of the time! I need help in this area! I seem to find myself in a rut quite often actually so if you get any brilliant ideas here I would love to read them!
My blogging seems to come in waves! Some days I can type up several and other days it seems I cannot type two words.
I like what Elisa said about only have a handful in her draft box. Maybe focusing on a few at a time might make it easier to actually get something ready to be posted. I also feel as if I have made progress if I can get several started. So maybe setting a limit on how many drafts you hold might make a difference. Just something to ponder……
I, too, have quite a few (about 75) blog posts that I’ve written up, which are almost ready to post. I also have a “Blog ideas” doc where I keep a running list of the top 25 or so docs I’d like to further develop and/or post.
My “Blog ideas” doc is broken into sections:
*Ready to post (essays/writing exercises)
*Poetry
*quotes
*Pictures to develop into a post
*Future ideas
Because my blog alternates between samples of my writing exercises, poetry, quotes, and art/visual images, that organizational scheme seems to work well for me (I’m a professional Librarian, can you already tell at this point?). 🙂
Having my ideas broken down into sections usually helps me in deciding what to blog about that day. It’s like having an outline that I change periodically, adding and taking away from (once I’ve posted something).
PS: Responding to the comment about pictures…
I spend huge blocks of time online searching for visual images that are striking/captivating and that fit the theme/feel of my blog. Then I label them and save them in a “Blog picts” file. From there, I’ve further subdivided them in order to access and scan them quickly for the perfect picture to match my poem, essay, etc. It’s a lot of work, but I feel that the visual part of my blog (erm, any blog?) is almost as important as the written word.
Just my .02.
The hard part about blogging is the need to update. I can churn out a good post, but I can’t do it every day.