The last post that I made was my 100th post on this blog. I’ve tried to keep blogs before now, but I’ve always failed at some point. There are blogs started by me at various places on the Internet, but this is the only one to have got past a few dozen posts.
I’m not sure of the reason why I’ve been able to keep this blog going and I’ve failed before. I don’t think that it is the fact that this is a WordPress blog, as I’ve not found significant differences between the various type of blog. They all do pretty much the same thing.
Of course, there are myriads of themes out there, but it is impossible to hide the underlying structure completely – you create a blog post, you post it and people are able to look at it.
There are no doubt those who have specific needs and need specific features, for example if they are selling something and need to accept payments, who find that a specific blogging platform is required to fill their needs, but most people will find, I think, that the blogging platform that they use is mostly irrelevant.
I have committed myself to creating blog post of around 1,000 words once per week and so far I’ve been able to achieve this. I plan to have a post ready to go on Monday evening. Below I’m going to describe how I write a post. It’s a creative process, with a small ‘c’. It’s not Creative with a large ‘C’, a work of Art, as I don’t aspire to such exalted levels. It’s just my small blog.
When I sit down to write a post, I usually, but not always, have a topic in mind. If I am lucky I will have been thinking about it during the week and I have some idea on what I am going to include in the post. However, I don’t plan it out as such. I just some ideas, some pretty well developed in mind.
Sometimes though, I sit down at the computer with maybe only a topic or not even that. I type the title and I’m away! So far I’ve not had any real difficulty in reaching the 1,000 words, and sometimes I have to leave things out.
It is usually reckoned that a work of this sort has a distinct beginning and end. I certainly open with a sentence on what I about to write about and then go on to write about it, but I don’t try to tag on a definitive conclusion, especially if I am running on, and the word count gets significantly higher than 1,000 words.
So anyway, I start writing. As I write I might plan ahead a little, but more often than not I put down my current thought which might take a sentence or three and I correct and formulate my sentences as I go. I look back a little too, and may revise a sentence or phrase in the current paragraph if it strikes me as being too ugly.
I don’t however have the whole thing in my mind, though I may remember and revisit thoughts that I have written earlier if something strikes me. I do think ahead a little, or maybe a paragraph or two, but in general, I compose as I write as I go.
Sometimes I pause, as I just did, to think my way ahead. This is an indication to me that I’ve said all that comes to mind on the point that I was making and that I should start another point.
I am not formal about references and in fact mostly use Wikipedia for any references, but I try to link to the work of others and sometimes to major references. If a reader has an interest in any of the topics that I touch on, Wikipedia, for all its faults, can be a good place to start.
The result, I suspect, is almost certainly more of a ramble through the topic in question than a serious analysis of it. Caveat Emptor! Of course, anything that I write is my opinion only.
When I have finished writing the post, I save it, and then start “decorating” it. By this I mean that I insert images every paragraph or so, to break up the post into more readable chunks. A single mass of text is off-putting I find. That’s also why I kept the paragraphs short too.
I choose the picture purely on their look. I don’t check the websites that the image come from, so people should not assume that I in any way agree or disagree with the authors of the websites that I borrow images from.
This is probably not a big deal, as I usually use Zemanta to provide the images and they provide links mainly from Wikipedia. Also using a source like Zemanta means that there should be no copyright issues with the images that I include.
When I have finished writing the post and I have inserted my images, I categorise the post using my usual categories and include tags. Doing this is supposed to help people looking for posts on particular topics and tagging in particular should enable my posts to come up in searches. Apparently tagging posts helps search engines.
The way that I write posts mean that there is a danger that I might meander through a topic rather than do a tight analysis of it. That’s OK by me. However I don’t know if the readers of my posts consider them to be rambling or whether I unconsciously put in there a structure that I am unaware of when I write a post.
Essentially, though, I write for myself, to get my ideas out there, to amuse myself and to test myself. When I write, I am, in my own mind, in a way, writing to myself, as if I the reader were a different person to I the writer. I know the occasional real person stumbles on my writing, and if they get something out of it, I am glad. If they don’t get something out of it, well, that’s fine, but I guess that they won’t be back!
Me on the net 