On blogs

This is my first time I've written a blog that had more than one entry since bebo (which most people don't know stands for blog early blog often (not that you're necessarily part of the subset "most people")) and I guess only time will tell whether I stick with it or not. A couple of people who read the first 2 posts of this blog said it was alright. I'm not sure whether to be offended that they seemed surprised that I can string two sentences together or just take it at face value.

For whatever reason, its in my nature to just do things in one go. Whenever I used to write, I'd go start to finish in one sitting. This was pretty much my strategy through school and college for essays and just about anything that it could be applied to. Impatience and a short attention span were major reasons for it but in many cases it the simple fact that I'd left myself only a matter of hours to meet a deadline.

So that was it, straight through, a quick once-over for wee mistakes and submit. This was a pretty wasteful way of working. If I got to a point where I didn't like where it was going, I'd start over, or just stop completely.

Only now have I decided to start doing things differently. I've been writing this blog for longer than I'm letting on, although you see three posts on this blog, there are twice as many more saved as drafts. Now I'm writing down everything that's in my head as quickly as possible for a first draft. (I could call it automatic writing but that would be wank!) At this point I barely have any idea what form the published article will be like; I only begin to think about this after the first draft is finished. This way is so much easier than before. I would make the final decisions as I went, never looking further back than a paragraph.

So under the new regimen I'll go back over this first draft (hours of days) later, making sure it makes sense, cutting the crap (sticking to the point is NOT my strong suit!), adding in afterthoughts and giving it a vague sense of flow. Then I'll come back to it at odd intervals and do it all over again. The post isn't finished until I can read it through without the urge to change something.

I know writing a blog is different to analyzing literature or writing a lab report and it's a bit late to improve any of those grades but better learning a lesson late than never. There are plenty other things I've never been very good at- perhaps I should adopt this new strategy to writing job applications, maybe finishing a song I've started writing or the script for that porno I'm making with the real story and everything.