Category: Blogging (Page 15 of 26)

Hey There!  Today i am actually going to give some instructions!  I know, but don’t unsubscribe yet.

Have you ever needed to crank out a blog post in record time?  I know I have.  The best solution for this situation is to Pre-Write a bunch of posts and keep them in Queue. Read this page for more.

I have squandered my 2 weeks worth of posts so I really need to re-write the pre-write.  But say you don’t have a post to get out, and you really want to.  Here is what I do.

Shut down everything on your browser except for your wordpress editor.  If you use something else like Word or the like just have that open.  Sit down and clear your mind.  What is the first thing that pops into your head?  Really, the first thing no matter how obscure.

My first thought?  Boondoggle.  Very obscure.  So now you have a topic be it boondoggle, purple unicorns, or wordpress plugin updates.  That is what you will roll with.

Don’t even write a title to this right now.  Go to the body of the post and start to write.  You only need to write 100 words or so in this stage.  If this were an infomercial I would say “In only 100 words you too can have a killer fast blog post!  Send 19.95 now for an amazing offer!  But wait there’s more!  Order now and have your order doubled only fo rthe price of shipping and processing!”

See what a good deal you are getting just for reading today?  Anyway, start with a short, modest goal.  You will be surprised at how quickly a post can bloom from 100 words to 5 or 600 or more!

Take your topic, (boondoggle) and write what you know about it.  Don’t research or even look at anything yet, just use your brain.  I could write,

Does anybody remember boondoggle? That wonderfully cheesy plastic cord that the camp counselors showed you how to weave into great keychains? How you just wanted more of the stuff to make more and more intricate keychains without caring what the ultimate point was? It was a lot of fun when I was younger and I rediscovered some of that when my daughter was getting her kidney transplant.

All of that in only 67 words. The most amazing part, I jut got boondoggle in my head, started writing about something simple from camp and ended up circling back around to my daughters transplant.  There is more to be written about that and in the end will probably have nothing to do with boondoggle.

Come up with the first title that hits your mind, the more snarky the better, like “Boondoggle and Transplants: Summer camp to lifesaving days”  Ok that is not very snarky but should bring a viewer or two.

So here is a quick blog post that I started on a whim and now it is topping 500 words.  It isn’t hard to start and get something going without a lost of work.

Of course, you can make it a detailed post and search the net for history of boondoggle and include patterns and theories and funny anecdotes from retired camp counselors about how boondoggle saved the camp when they wove fishing nets so they didn’t starve in the summer of ’87 or how they used that same net in ’88 to hold the dam back and save the camp from flooding.

But that is too much work.  Keep it simple.

Tomorrow is fiction Saturday!  The Man in the Hazy Suit continues!

Have a great weekend

-Justin