Does anyone have some good advice/course/method for writing blog posts?
Other than 'write often'?
Problem with Google Search is that blogs of SEOd the shit out of that question.
@JollyOrc :) When I write it's about design: technical stuff, process and purpose. Currently I'm writing about color: quite technical, but I like to make it as human and light as possible.
@koos I usually blog technical stuff in a sort of post mortem format: What did I try to do, why did it go wrong, what is the technical lesson.
Examples: https://www.orkpiraten.de/blog/why-i-dont-identify-as-sysadmin-anymore and https://www.orkpiraten.de/blog/subsonic-with-caddy
@JollyOrc any standard structure or something you use?
@koos apart from that outline (aim, problem, solution) not really.
If you want your content to be found by search engines: Put yourself in the shoes of the folks who have the same problem, then include their most likely question into your post.
@JollyOrc yeah I'm not so worried about SEO. It's more about forcing myself to write down what I learn and having a way to share it with colleagues and friends.
@koos then do it in whatever format is most fun for you. That way it's less a chore :)
@koos what's stopping you from writing blog posts currently? the answer differs depending on your personal bottleneck
@sonya I just seem to get stuck on a topic for months - I do write, but while I do, I learn new things that I then have to include. It's not so much that something stops me, it's just that I'm not a good writer. There's no structure or whatever in my posts and I feel I need that I would need that in order to make something more than a list of facts.
@koos have you tried outlining?
honestly, the advice to just do it and embrace imperfection is the best. you get better at writing by doing more of it.
the book Bird by Bird is not geared toward blog posts but it's great writing advice in general, especially in terms of allowing yourself to just do it
@sonya I had some rough outline but got derailed haha. I'll go find that book. Thank you!
@koos what's your main problem? What kind of issue are you trying to figure out? The creative/inspiration? The regularity? The storytelling part? The procrastination part? The hate-myself part?
@jsavalle I have a lot of ideas, but once I start writing, posts get massive and I can't finish them. I have no methods or training, but I figured that if there are templates for detective novels, they must be there for blog posts!
@koos Is the new stuff you learn strictly necessary for the current post? If it gets out of hand, could you break the post up into a series?
@jsrn I guess there is no way to know while I am learning :-)
Generally I think it's a good way to keep it short of course.
@jsavalle thanks !
@koos personally the way I deal with this is (bc I am running in to this problem once in a while) is to try to break it down into smaller publishable articles - and the later one to gather them again into a big one.
@koos limitations! This is 1 of the great rules for creative productivity in any field. Make rules before you even begin a post. Creativity is transforming problems into opportunities!
E.g, It MUST be between 1000-2500 words, no more, no less. It MUST be done in 14 days. Now you're prevented from adding & adding to a post, you have to make creative decisions: do you edit brutally? do you use brief, staccato language, trim the word count? do you decide this is part 1 of a series?
@paralithode I like it!
@paralithode I should write like I design things.
@koos I don't mean to be sarcastic, pls NEVER TELL PEOPLE how to install wordpress. If they can't use google to find the other 99,999,999,999 articles on this, they should be silent.
@koos I have a blog about pop music, so, when I need to write some album review, first (and obviously) I just listen to the album and write on notepad some references and infos about each track. Nothing deep, just little impressions.
after that, I listen again and begin to write with more details. After, I write my conclusion; in the end, an introduction to the track-by-track and voilà. I don't know if can work with your subject, but...
@srtaveneno yes I like the writing the intro as a final thing. It's where I often get stuck when I start with it.
@koos what about writing a condensed idea of the entire article as the intro?
@koos that depends on your intent: What do you want to achieve with your blog posts? (Depending on your answer, I might be completely unable to give advice though)