Folks who write serious blog posts, what's your writing process? What do you like the most, hate the most?
@ru I love organizing all the research I do into sections, but I hate introductions and conclusions. So I start with a placeholder intro, work out the rest of the piece, and then come back to intro and conclusion. Which probably isn’t the right order to write... but my process is haphazardness
@ru I see something I have an opinion on, and I express my opinion.
I hate typos and I don't know how to end a post.
@ru I have used mind maps for some of my posts, they help organize my ideas.
I also wrote articles from top to bottom with very little editing after either because I wanted it out or because I knew precisely what I wanted to tell and everything just flew. It has been rare though.
I usually do little research per se since I try to mostly write about topics I’m very familiar with. I check my references though, and try to find some when the only reference I currently have is my memory.
@ru at a high level, my process consists of the following:
1) I get an idea and add a draft title to either my note taking app (Standard Notes) or a quick draft in WP.
2) I then take the draft title and flesh it out into a few bullets containing the main point of the article.
3) If at this point I’m happy, I write a draft. If I’m not happy, I ditch it.
4) Once the draft is done I leave it for a day or two, then come back to it and edit it.
5) I publish.
Unless I'm being paid of course, in which case I assume that someone else will edit it before publishing.
Things I hate: Nothing.
Things I like: being able to make a modest living from doing something I really enjoy doing.
@ru kind-of satirical, but https://binyam.in/p/2021-05-27/
@ru
This is something I'm starting to do. But my ever-evolving process is:
1. I get an idea and let it swirl around in my brain.
2. Record it in some fashion, most likely in the notebook I carry around.
2a. When I get to a computer, I create a GitHub issue in the repo that stores my posts.
3. I make a branch from the issue and create a draft.
4. I make a number of passes at it.
5. Once I'm satisfied, I'll create a Pull Request, and my partner will read and edit.
6. After edits, post.
I use GitHub to hold my drafts, because then I can copy/paste it to Hashnode (where my blog resides), and Dev.to - to get more exposure.
GitHub also has a Project feature that I use to keep track of the ideas and what I'm currently writing.
@ru Writing process. Can you please explain what you mean? 🙂