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Where do you get stuck blogging?

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.

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