Thursday, August 2, 2012

Admin Notes on Writing This Blog 08/02/2012


This blog will have an occasional "note to myself" about writing the blog every once in a while.  The idea is to document thoughts about where this is going so I can review what I thought I was doing when it is all done, if it is ever done.

We plan for the blog to cover about 10-20 major topics, and at least another 20 or so minor topics, as well as a few posts that are not on one of the larger or smaller themes.

With 40 posts currently in place, I estimate that it will take at least 500 posts to develop the arguments and to develop any depth.   At the rate of 30 posts a month, this would take about 18 months to do.

So far posts are of two general types: simple and involved.  Simple have one idea or one joke and straightforward commentary.  This takes about an hour to do.  Involved, as the name suggests, requires one to write an essay and explain something.  These may take much longer to get into a publishable form, 4 hours is not untypical and more is possible.

I have found it a useful methodology to get the post in nearly final form, publish, and then revise.  This avoids a lot of problems I have had with formatting issues in the blog editor.  The revision process takes place over the next few hours or possibly the next day after the post is published.  Most of the revisions are fixing spelling and minor grammatical errors.

I have found the implicit deadline of needing to publish something every day a useful technique for forcing me to get my thoughts organized on a topic.

For every post that is published, there is generally at least one other post that I am having difficulty with, and which has been shelved until later.


2 comments:

  1. This is great in a subtle way.

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  2. I am glad you like it! I wonder what is subtle about it? You might be reading too much into this, but that is, after all, the reader's privilege. Thanks for commenting...

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