The Process

You may have noticed that a number of bloggers have been posting about their writing process.   At the end of their post, they then tap a couple of other bloggers who they want to see write about their own processes.

Well, my friend Jessica from Leelafish, the pride of Shreveport and my birthday buddy, gave me the tap upside the head, so here I am. 

When Jessica wrote up her process, she had it divided in two: work writing and blog writing.  I write for my company as well, but for the purpose of this exercise, I’m going to stick to blog writing.  The “work” writing just isn’t that interesting.  I write procedures and any general communications my boss requests.  She asks, I write.  That’s the process.

So, let me run through the questions, as they appear throughout these “process” posts.

1)      What are you working on right now?

Just my blog.  Well, OK, I’m often told that I should write a book.  I always say that I am writing a book, and I’m posting it online bit by bit.  Maybe one day, I’ll sift through it all and pick out and self-publish the posts I consider book-worthy, probably those containing the wild stories of my misspent youth.

Other than that, aside from a list of ideas I plan to write about when the mood hits me, I tend to write about whatever strikes my fancy at any given time.  I rarely have a schedule mapped out in advance, unless it’s a multi-part story.

2)     How does your work differ from others of its genre?

I don’t know that it does.  There are lots of all-purpose blogs around.  I know that I never wanted to be limited to one general arena.  I want to be able to write about family stories as well as sports, politics, TV, movies, and pop culture.  I will concede that this is probably the only blog to delve into the scientific study of game jersey mojo.

3)     Why do you write what you do?

I feel my primary mission is to entertain.  I love to tell stories… no doubt heavily influenced by my maternal grandpa. 

I’m also a compulsive documentarian.  I’ve kept journals off and on throughout my whole life, and it’s funny because sometimes when I’d go back and read through them, I’d find a passage or two that I thought was particularly well-written or entertaining.   Then I’d mourn the fact that no one would ever see it but me.  So when blogs came along, it seemed like a natural progression. 

4)     How does your writing process work?

That’s a tough one.  I don’t know that I really have anything I’d call a “process.”  I pick a topic that interests me that day, and just start writing.  Often, I literally don’t know where I’m going with it until I get there.  I’ll start out with a little seed of an idea, and just start tapping.  Next thing I know, I’ve got three pages and it’s time to put a bow on it.

There are exceptions from time to time.  Like early this year when I started writing about my experiences with chat rooms, I knew it would be a multi-part series, and that Island Girl and Virginia Girl would each need their own post.  And I knew the end of the final post would lead directly into reuniting with my old girlfriend.

It was funny though… when I started the series; I thought it was going to end with this amazing and improbable love story.  Instead, it ended with another crash and burn.  Just goes to show how reliable long-range blog post planning can be.

As for my physical process, I do all my writing and editing in Word, and then copy/paste it into the blog template, then add pictures as necessary.  I hate writing directly into the template.  Plus, I file all the Word docs, so that I have backup that’s independent of an outside storage source.

I do have the Blogger app on my iPad, but I only use that for short posts when I’m on vacation.

So, that’s it?  Any questions?  And thank you Jessica, for considering me worthy of this exercise.