Writing A Post + Blogging Essentials

Hello everyone! I’ve been reading a lot of posts lately that talk about how people write their posts, and obviously I’m often intrigued by these posts as they’re usually hilarious (take Katie Grace’s for example) and quite informative.

Today I’ll be talking a bit about how I write my post, how I come up with ideas (aka searching around in my brain for an idea, somewhat like fishing, hoping to catch a big one.) and what materials I use to create the perfect blog post.

The Brainstorm Process

This step is by far the most difficult process, and usually takes the longest. I settle into a nice area, close my eyes and think. I go into the huge room of ideas in my brain, grab my bait and begin to fish. In the beginning, I’ll grab some measly little post ideas, like a smaller fish, that could work for dinner, er the post, but is not quite good enough, so rejected.

Now I feel bad for that poor post. Eh I'll get over it. There are many more fish in the sea. 

I’ll usually grab more fish, as I try using more bait, such as watching Youtube videos, reading old posts. Then I’ll get a medium size fish, not too shabby. I put it in my little post/fish box, if I don’t like it I’ll throw it back.

Going deeper, I finally find the post idea I want, I trap the fish, oop, post, and prepare it for eating. Er, writing.

The Prep Process

That has a nice little ring to it, doesn’t it? In this step, I like to open up a Docs document and begin preparing the post. Making little notes to myself, and writing out the post.

This step does include the most self abuse, as I constantly yell at myself for making a grammar mistake. Or headdesking because that sentence just doesn’t work.

Usually, by the end I’ll have some decent words. Or an angry blogger willing to throw her computer out the window because nothing fits and this was a stupid idea in the first place. (back to idea fishing..)

The Images

Every post should have a graphic of some sort: is basically my motto. I need either a nice taken picture, a gif, or some sort of thing to slap somewhere so the post isn’t all words. That can hurt the eyes.

My image creating process usually consists of the following phrases:

-No that’s too bright!

-WHY did I choose this font?

-This picture is rubbish.

-Stop. Being. So. SLOW.

-centerus texterus! (it usually doesn’t work)

But I’ll come out of the gruel and pain of the image process with a shiny picture, and perfectly centered text. ah.

The Proofreading + Pretty-uping

During this step, I usually have a little checklist running through my head. Are all the images centered? Is everything bolded that needs to be bolded? Can I sneak a gif in anywhere? Did I use the correct form of there, their and they’re? How about your and you’re?

Then I’ll hit preview and check to see if the post is too long, too short, if there’s any spot where it looks too wordy. And then I’ll hit Publish.

and then 2 hours later someone will point out a mistake and I’ll scream for the rest of eternity. AND repeat.

As for my blogging essentials, I usually don’t use too many items. Just the basics.

Computer

Big essential of course, it’s what I use to erm, write my posts. Oh yeah and do the.. editing. And waste time on Youtube. Every single time.

Camera

I don’t think a camera is on everyone’s essential list, but for me, well let’s just say I don’t know where I’d be without it. I usually take most of my pictures that I use for the blog, and since I do have a DSLR handy, I like to use that for posts. It creates nice, (usually) quality pictures that hopefully make people read my post.. or keep reading my post.

A Planner/Notebook

Honestly, just anything where I can quickly jot down a note. Maybe my brain decides to go idea fishing when I’m trying to write a post and out comes another post idea, so then I can just quickly write it down. It’s really nice to just keep a little notebook wherever I go to be honest, my brain really likes to fish.

Food/Tea

My brain and my stomach gets hungry and tired while writing a post. Food is a necessary item in writing ANYTHING. Without it, I’d get halfway through my post and go brain dead.

That’s all for today’s post folks. I hope you all enjoyed! I think I wrote a sentence 300 times because I just couldn’t get the wording right. sigh.

What are your blogging essentials? On a scale from 1-10, how frustrated do you get while writing a post? (probably an 8 from me) 

Thanks for reading,

Noor