My Blogging Process

Today, I’ll tell you the story behind every blog post I write, the process involved in turning my ideas into scribbles, then drafts, and finally, blog posts! There’s a blog post in everyone, every place, and every moment shared, and it seems I see this blog post shortly after midnight every day. LOL.

I have this book that’s always beside me when I want to sleep, just in case I get any ideas I don’t want to forget when I wake up in the morning, and I always get ideas! Keeping a notebook that’s just for the blog has been very helpful, believe me. I’ve seen some amazing apps, like Writer Plus, that could serve as substitute for a book and they’re also great for helping me organise my thoughts.

Idea and Inspiration.

I get the ideas of about 90% of my blog posts very late at night, when I’m lying on my bed, reliving all what I had done that day — the people I had met, the conversations I’d had with them, the places I’d visited, the things I’d done, the things I’d not done and of course, the blog posts I’d read.

Most times, I get tons of ideas and am overwhelmed by how much information my brain tries to process. Which is why I have my notebook! Two notebooks actually — one for scribbling ideas, and the other for devising blogging strategies. If you’re yet to get a book that’s just for your blog, please go get one, or better yet, get a blog planner like this one with a smooth design that Cassie is dishing out.

Planning.

So I happen to have a weakness — procrastination. Eight months ago, I would get many post ideas and create a list for all of them, stating next to them, the time I wish to post them. The bad thing was that my list was a mental list, always in my head and never on a book or app so I almost always forgot them. It’s not like I’ve completely beaten procrastination now, but I should say I’m more mature and responsible than I was when I first started blogging.

Now, I turn every idea into a headline and fix them into my calendar, kind of like the idea of a to-do list. Most times, the post gets published days after its set date (blame procrastination), and other times, it comes up earlier than its set date — like this one, it’s two days earlier!

Images

Okay, okay, I know: my blog won’t be winning the award for most-striking-photos anytime soon. Believe me, I know. I don’t have a digicam so I take pictures with my phone, and I even rarely take pictures! Most of the images I use are got from Pixabay and Shutterstock, some from other sites (that I give credit to), and sometimes, I use my bitmoji.

I wish I had a digicam, though, to make up for my phone’s poor camera quality. But even with the bad camera quality, it’s somehow difficult to get someone who’s willing to take my photos without grumbling and grunting.

Soooo…. while I pray, fast, work and save for a camera and a selfless Photographer friend, I’ll stick to Pixabay and of course, my bitmoji.

Writing

First off, I’m scared of typing my blog posts’ first drafts; I’d rather do it the old fashioned way — writing.

But there are many amazing writing apps!

Yeah, I get it, but I still don’t like using them. Why? I’ll tell you why. When I write in a book, I’m myself, like the words, my thoughts, everything just flows naturally from my heart to the paper. Whereas when I type, I find myself giving in to my phone’s keyboard’s prediction. For example, I might type: I want to…. and my phone would predict recapitulate. If I’d been writing with a pen, recapitulate would have been sum up, or recap. LOL. So I write the first draft of almost all of my blog posts, and when I’m done, I type them!

PS if you see any of my posts that looks too verbose like an English paper, just know I typed the first draft instead of writing it.

Editing

After I’ve written my draft, I type it using my favourite writing app, Writer Plus. And when I’m done, I simply copy, then paste it to WordPress where I would do the basic editing. I know they say not to obsess over typos and grammatical errors, still I dedicate much time and attention to this department. Some typos just make you look stupid.

Related: What’s Your Blogging Story?

Posting

Perhaps the final phase. Since I don’t have a laptop, I do everything concerning the blog with my phone and it can be annoying sometimes, waiting for images to load, or worse, facing something every blogger dreads — Flying words. But after my images finish loading, and I manage to escape flying words, I click on Publish or schedule the post for another day. And that’s about it, all done!

Now, what’s your blogging process like?

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