Birth of a Blog Post
While preparing a previous post (and another post yet to come) I considered, amusedly and also thoughtfully, my writing process. It begins long before I put pen to paper, in the busy and sometimes chaotic recesses of my brain. There are usually several notions crowded in my pate, and keeping a few in mind at a time has often resulted in fruitful if sometimes unexpected connections.
The things I have read, heard, or watched over a few days or weeks mingle and synthesize in my mind. Since I've begun pursuing independent study, I've definitely noticed a more web-like structure to my thinking; I am making more connections than ever! Some connections, I confess, are quite unique. Some of these are later filled out by further ideas, and then they finally might make sense to somebody else!
After various thoughts and ideas have formed fruitful connections in my mind, I think, "I could write about this." Since my primary medium of writing is currently my blog, this usually amounts to "I should write a blog post about it." Writing my thoughts helps me both to clarify and expand them, so I might end by writing several posts instead.
At this point, I have been mulling over the issues long enough. I sit down, and I write all in a flood. (This is similar to the way I talk. I decidedly dislike sharing my raw ideas, but once I have them figured out, siblings have to fight to get a word in edgewise. Ask Littlest Sister.)
Simply put, my first drafts are not exercises in calligraphy. Not only is the handwriting atrocious, but I end up scribbling out many words and phrases. I cram the lines with things I forgot to say. I draw big, bold arrows across the page to show the order of the paragraphs, which are rather scrambled. Big question marks indicate where I couldn't think of the word or name right away. I underline or circle words I want to replace with better ones later. I mark words I need to double-check in the dictionary (spelling or meaning). It is a mess.
(The really random scribbles you see below are made when the pen temporarily runs dry. If you are an especially devoted reader, you might recognize just a few of the phrases that later became the post Folk Dance: The Ship’s Cook. Most of the rest are awaiting further development.)
Afterwards, I write it more plainly, though I still have plenty of crossed words and carrots sprouting between.
Finally, I type everything into the blog template. I find or create an appropriate illustration. I sleep on it. The next morning, I might not like it. I might. Until I do like it, it isn't published. Sometimes I file away an overworked article and save it for another day. I might find it months later, and have just the gumption needed to finish and post it. (This post is, in fact, such a one.) Perhaps I have since experienced an additional mental connection that would add just the right rounding to the topic.
Voila! A quick press of the button, and I'm published online! Kind and hopefully interested visitors read my work and then comment. Hint, hint.
How Do YOU Prepare Your Own Blog Posts?
COMMENT ON THIS POST BY SENDING AN EMAIL TO THE HANDMAIDEN.
ELISSA said...
Wow. I wish I could be more organized about my blog posts. The only posts I physically wrote out were the posts I did during my "Eagerness and Delight" challenge about two years ago.
Unless it's one of my more thoughtful posts, I usually just type my introduction, upload photos, and start working on captions for them. Pretty boring compared to yours. I am definitely more of the type to burst out with my raw ideas the moment they pop into my head, rather than to wait and mull them over. My more thoughtful posts take me a couple of days to put together, but I refrain from analyzing too much or else it would never get posted.
Thanks for a peek into your posting process! —Elissa
Sunday, January 16, 2011 01:27 AM
HANDMAIDEN said...
Hello, Elissa! Thank you for commenting and sharing your own blogging process.
I am not sure that I would describe my method as necessarily organized. I have scribbled notes and unfinished drafts everywhere (unfilled), as well as a computer folder of maybe fifty unfinished drafts (mostly filed).
Also, there are advantages and disadvantages to either "mulling" or "spouting." Sometimes my family and I wish I could/ would do more of the "spouting." My father recently let me know that my self-criticism and carefulness might sometimes prevent me from sharing something that needs to be shared. That made me think. It was actually because of necessity that I first began physically writing my blog posts; our one modern computer is shared by four during the day. I was dismayed to find that I had lost the focus, concentration, and even the logical succession of thought required to write fluently on paper. I had become very dependent on the ability to immediately and seamlessly delete, retype, transfer, and interpolate text. As I was required more and more to write on paper, I regained these skills to an extent, though I continue to notice weaknesses which I suppose will persist as long as I continue to do some original writing or extensive editing on the computer.
Now, even when the computer is available, I prefer to do at least the preliminary composition on paper. I find that the results are more thoughtful, cohesive, well-developed, and well-written than they would be otherwise. Besides this, I enjoy the physical aspect of handwriting—the ink flowing from my hand to the paper, as opposed to the impersonal mono-type that mysteriously appears on the screen when I hit buttons.
I love the contrast Wendell Berry made between the "palimpsest" of handwriting to the "present absolute" of computer typing. I can recommend his essay "Feminism, the Body, and the Machine," found in the collection The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry.
By the way, this comment was first composed on paper. ;-)
Monday, January 17, 2011 11:53 AM
HEIDI said...
I have often thought about writing about my writing process, but have never been brave enough to try it! Through my growing acquaintance with deadlines, I have completely transferred my always-write-it-on- paper first theories to the think-through-my-poking-fingers approach.
However, I still edit best on a printed page. I like to get things out on the screen, print them, and then scribble all over that. In blue ink—always blue ink. I like to see the difference between my first thoughts and my later thoughts, and somehow the editing tools on the computer don't suffice for me.
Have you done much with team writing? In a former job of mine, it was my duty to compose letters or devotional newsletters, sometimes as if my boss was the one writing them. She found that I could ooze out a draft faster than she could. I would print it, she would make her marks, I would make marks in conjunction with hers... which process we would repeat until we were so close to the deadline that we didn't dare do it anymore! I was amazed at how over time I was able to sound more and more like another person in my writing. The two of us had great fun (and even got paid to do it!).
Thanks for sharing about your writing! We blog readers enjoy the results.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 07:29 PM
HANDMAIDEN said...
Deadlines do things to my writing that I don't like. ;-)
I too prefer to do my editing in blue ink. Black ink doesn't stand out well enough from the print, and red ink is too stressful a color, one that (traditionally) means "mistakes" instead of "developments."
The closest I can claim to your experience of team-writing is writing in third person when writing a family letter or update. Next Sister and I have often thought it would be fun to co-author a book together, but it hasn't happened yet.
Thank you for commenting, Heidi!
Friday, January 28, 2011 03:09 PM
Friday, January 14, 2011