Blogging - How Do You Do Yours?

A while ago Java told me that he writes a post whenever something comes to him. He has an idea, sits at his PC, writes a post and publishes it. Simple as that. He's a laid back chap with a sense of confidence about him and I think that's why it works for him. He knows that ideas and posts will come and can relax with that knowledge.

Me? I worry about the possibility of "drying up". So if I have an idea I write something down. It may be a handwritten scrawl in a pad or it might be the start of a post that I save in my drafts, perhaps just writing the title of a post that I can come back to at another time to finish. I save them as drafts and they lurk in the vaults of London, Lanka and drums like little creatures waiting to be fed. Every now and again I look at one or two and add a sentence, delete a whole draft post or think that I really should publish that one.

I often use mindmaps. They're a powerful way of putting down random ideas on paper, of getting your thoughts out without having to worry about the logical progression involved in making a list or a nice organised diagram. So I can have an idea and get it out, then add to it, edit it or scrap it whenever I want to.

But it's of vital importance that I get these seedlings of ideas down somewhere, whether it's a full scale mindmap, a scrawl in one of my journals or a draft post, I have to make a record of it or I wake up the next day with a vague recollection of an idea I had the previous night.

Indyana wrote an interesting post a few days ago on the same subject. The comments are worth checking out, to see how different bloggers take differing approaches.

As Chaar-max mentioned in this post many of us bloggers go through life with half an eye or ear open to the possibility of blogging about things. Does your blog revolve around you or do you revolve around your blog our soon to be married author asks. Do you go through life wondering whether something that has happened to you is good blog material?

I must admit that sometimes I do, but I'm determined to live and enjoy life in its own right, not to see it as an training exercise to give me good blogging material. There are many, many things that happen in my life, or to people in my life, that I don't blog about, usually for one or both of two reasons; that I don't think the person would want me to share that thing with my small readership or that I think it's just not interesting.

All bloggers must have that thing that goes on in our head during a conversation. The thing where we think, or perhaps say to the other person

"In fact I wrote a blog post about it a while ago"

And then wonder if the other person thinks of you as a saddo blogger type. Should I have kept that thought in my head, that kind of thing.

But, as time has ticked on, I've found that the thick black line that used to exist, the one that split the things and people I blog about from the things and people I interract with every day has become a fuzzy grey area. I've met many people via this blog and via their blogs, I've made some good friends through this pimped up diary and I'm quite sure I'll meet more people and make more friends from it.

Isn't it a fascinating and exciting thought that, in time to come, our future generations will be able to read our blogs and find out so much detail and information about their ancestors. While we put together pieces of the puzzle of our grandparents' generation to look at the way they lived, through old black and white pictures, diaries and word of mouth, our grandchildren will almost definitely have full access to our blogs.

In the meantime I'll keep writing my draft posts, scribbles on scraps of paper and mindmaps everywhere I turn.