How to write a blog post/short story
It's not easy to just dash off a blog post. There's a real, well defined process to what it takes to go from "idea scribbled on a cocktail napkin" to published. Everybody has a different system. Here's mine.
- Change into comfortable clothes. Sweatpants, bathrobe, or a muu-muu is perfectly acceptable.
- Sit down in front of computer.
- Open a blank google drive document.
- Check facebook.
- Check to see if that was your phone notifying you of a tweet, text, email, or facebook notification, or the neighbor slamming the door again.
- Double check the phone since you’re waiting to hear back from that person.
- Write your first sentence or thesis of what your post will be about.
- Spend half an hour trying to think up the wittiest opening line you’ve got.
- Stare at the wall for 2 minutes.
- Change the song on your playlist.
- Change the song on your playlist.
- Change the song on your playlist.
- Decide you need to hear more from the same artist and look them up on YouTube.
- Download several songs by the same artist and a few by others that were suggested by YouTube.
- Realize that it’s time to get back to writing when you find yourself watching cyst removal videos.
- Write the first paragraph.
- Get up to get a beverage from the fridge.
- Realize it’s been 6 hours since you've seen the dog.
- Clean up the pile of shit in the living room and take the dog out to water the lawn.
- Answer the 4 texts that came in while you were briefly away from your computer.
- Come up with another great idea for a blog post and scribble it on the back of the envelope for the cable bill.
- Write the second, third, and possibly 4th paragraph.
- Lament over using the same word 6 times within the span of 4 sentences.
- Consult thesaurus.com.
- Wind up on urbandictionary.com.
- Change three of the instances of the offending word.
- Stare at the madness that is the blinking cursor in hopes of staring at the abyss, and hoping it will begin to stare back at you.
- Struggle over the final sentence, looking for one that ties up the entire article with a neat little bow, that delivers a punch, and conveys any intended lesson like an after school special.
- Give up and accept the vomit you've come up with anyway.
- Click “publish”.
- Wait 5 minutes or 7 page views (whichever comes first).
- First revision!
- Click “update”.
- Obsessively click “refresh stats” for the next 37 minutes.
And that is what it takes to write for Hurricane Ephemily.
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