[The Author]Told I was getting MEMED for blogging tips, I wrote this a few months ago. But the MEME fell through once it was discovered that I was actually a terrible writer, blogger, et cetera.
Still, upon occasion I’ll get an email asking for traffic-building tips, writer’s block cures, or just a plain old 'where the **** do you come up with this stuff?'
I thought it was best covered (albeit slightly sarcastically) in the post How to Blog -with particular deference to the links at the bottom. These are some of my favorite authors telling you their stuff, and totally worth reading. I couldn’t do a better job of that than they did.
But ...
There are tips and there are techniques. None of them, for instance, said ‘Well I get the idea, and then I make a flow chart while waving a dead chicken over my computer.’ The “physical” behaviors were seemingly left out for the more metaphorical and conceptual rules and values.
Also perhaps worthy of note is that at the time Predator Press wasn't even in the top 30 at what is far and away the best site on the internet for laughs: Humor-Blogs. Diesel's creation has "turned me on" to 99% of my favorite authors, and it's a flat-out honor to be among them.
Anyways, this is not a particularly funny piece, but if you’re curious about how a Predator Press post is born, tortured, and finally left writhing on this blog until it dies, read on. :)
About six months ago, Terri and I arrived at a compromise.She works a little later than I, so the deal was for me to try and be “finished” blogging by the time she got home. This worked out to be a little over an hour a day.
Now an hour a day will create one of two responses:
The first would be practical.
“My god that’s 7-10 hours a week. That’s a part-time job!"
The second response would be far closer to mine:
“Now how the heck am I supposed to do this in one-tenth the time!?”
So fine. At first I was posting every two or three days, putting the unfinished work down punctually due to this artificial and self-imposed “deadline”.
This caused me a lot of anxiety. I like getting things out while there’s some passion for it; all too often I would return to the same piece and have lost my enthusiasm for it entirely. (Guys like Chris Cameron of Angry Seafood will tell you he plans things out months in advance; while secretly envious of that quality, I think that’s God’s way of protecting me: if I had months worth of good ideas all at one time I would totally explode.)
Over time, an undetected transition into getting the entire post down in under an hour started to happen.Now keep in mind that this hour is “face time” –actually sitting in front of the computer. Longer posts often took three days, required complex outlines, multiple drafts, blah blah blah. A post you start off intending to finish in one hour will have to be simple, small, potent and tight, and come in at rarely over a few paragraphs.
And a routine developed too: after work, I was "against the clock" so to speak: out of the car, boot up, and get busy.
After time, the difference was amazing.
Now don't get me wrong. I look for blog-fodder 24/7. I’ve always felt that people suffering from writer’s block are introverting too much and not paying close enough attention to their surroundings. Little “seeds” come from just about anything: workplace scenarios, kids arguing, cranky cashiers … Screechy –my five year old- is not only great for titles like “Buyer Seaware,” and “Clash of the Titanics” but he fits ‘LOBO’s’ overall adolescent outlook nicely for occasional inspiration like Spooky. Terri will attest to me waking up from dreams with posting material (Roller Coaster, for instance, was actually a fairly detailed dream that was completed in about 30 minutes after waking). Practice looking for them, and pretty soon you’ll have a notebook full of scribbled story ideas.
(It also helps if you can read your own penmanship ... )
Anyways, most Predator Press stories and blurbs have at least two major plotlines woven in (I’ll spend half the post making you forget where we started, and then twist you back violently once this is accomplished) so there’s a bit more to work out on my end. But once the overall concepts are found, then I’ll start to wrestle with the framework such as “Who/What is the vehicle for my intended destination?” and “What kind of images should I use?” et cetera.All this is more-or-less worked out before I even touch the computer; when that hour starts, I’ve got a very full agenda already and it’s pretty carefully planned.
If there are images to find and/or doctor, that will eat my writing time. Pics -occasionally necessary BTW- are totally unpredictable: for No Mammograms Were Conducted During the Making of this Post, I spent three times the time Googling the perfect "Seedy-Looking Van with an Airbrushed Naked Chick Riding a Panther on it” than I did writing -and ended up settling on doctoring one I wasn’t 100% happy with. The Astronaut Whisperer took fifteen minutes to write, and two full “sessions” to complete the pic editing (and the final result were terrible pics, but I so badly wanted to move on!).
And I’m certainly not making any claims that these post are of the “highest quality” … in fact to the contrary, I almost have to make it a point not to go through my older stuff ‘cuz I’m always thinking “I wish I had done that differently.”-But I’m not here to create “fine art” either. If I can get it close enough to convey the idea, that’s close enough.
I guess, in conclusion, blogging and writing are always based on life.
So don't skimp on the 'living' part.
You need it.
