How do I go from 300 unfinished/half written blog posts, to published posts?
Goal: To publish a blogpost 2 times/month (from once in 4 months)
Currently: 300 blog posts in drafts/unfinished. I even have three 20k word unfinished novellas gathering dust. (Over 5 years of casual writing)
Writers please help me: What process can I follow (or mind change can I do), to go from unfinished drafts to published posts? Am I alone in this challenge?
I don't know if I'm just being too picky/too perfect/too afraid of public opinion, or just plain lazy.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/44089. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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One at a time.
It isn't laziness. That's just a word people throw out when work doesn't get done and in many cases, including yours, it's meaningless. You've done a lot of work, you're just not finishing it.
Set up a source of external pressure.
I had a novel in my head for 10 years before I did anything about it. I did some research and wrote an outline but then went 10 years before writing a single word of prose.
Then I joined a writer's group. Something I'd been wanting to do for years then it finally worked out. I get to present every 2 months. My first presentation was the outline, which I worked on to flesh it out. I was so nervous that the structure wasn't working or the idea was bad, and so on. My spouse was the only person who knew the story and he loved it, which helped, but wasn't enough.
I started writing. And writing. And writing. It's been 9 months and I'm more than halfway through the novel, working on chapter 20 (with 4 others written as well). I know I will finish it. I know it will be published (my dreams are a large publisher, my reality might be a small publisher or self-publishing, but it will happen).
All it took was making a promise to a handful of strangers that I would pull my weight.
Set deadlines.
I'm someone who thrives on deadlines. If anyone ever asks me to do something, the best way to make sure it happens is to set a date it must happen by. Daily fake-deadlines don't do it for me ("write 1000 words a day" or whatever). It has to be a real deadline, for other people, with a concrete finish.
Obviously I don't know you and can't get inside your head, but I'm going to guess that deadlines work for you too. Join (or form!) a critique group for bloggers that meets (online is fine) once a month to discuss each others' posts and the requirement is at least 2 posts a month (the consequences for failing don't have to be dire, just disappointing the other members is enough). You might post yours the day before the meeting, but that still counts. Or find some other compelling way to make your posts not internal goals but external deadlines.
Do the same with your novellas.
Invest other people in your creative output and write for them.
Sure, write for yourself, blah blah blah, but that isn't working. Doesn't work for me either. Write for the 5 members of your critique group. Write for the readers of the local organization's newsletter you've promised articles to. Take a class and write for your teacher. Whatever works.
Once you feel comfortable releasing "imperfect" work and focusing on just getting it done, you may not need the externals as much. Or maybe you always will. Doesn't matter, so long as you find a way to make it happen.
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I imagine the issue is psychological, but not necessarily fear of public opinion.
I would pick an endpoint for the post; just basically what you think you want to conclude. The result. The point you wanted to make; even if the "point" is "I had a great time at this party."
Use that as a "compass" while you write the post. Meaning, what you write is to let you say that final thing. If the final thing is "I had a great time", then why? What happened? What was fun? Who did you meet? What is in your head that translates into a great time?
Writing often stalls out because the author feels like the writing is boring, or they are bored writing it, or they don't know how to find an endpoint. Knowing the ending helps you get over all that.
If the issue is getting bored, you are not following your compass. You have strayed away from supporting the final point and gotten yourself into some distraction, a sidetrack argument, or position or description.
And you know how to find the endpoint: When you run out of arguments for the endpoint, you write it! If your endpoint is "I had a good time at the party", you've shown us why that is true, so you can write the conclusion. If your endpoint is "I'm voting for Roger Rabbit", you've told us why.
I can't see the blog posts you abandoned, but I'd guess for all of them you began because you felt the urge to say something, and then wandered around and didn't say it, and gave up because that felt unsatisfying. Know your basic ending before you start writing, and that will automatically give some structure as you write the "support" for it.
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I would like to ask, what is your goal with the blog posts?
For example 1: If your goal is SEO; then publishing the content for later updates will be best.
2: If your goal the 300 posts are something else I would start writing the conclusion if possible at the end of each post. Trust this will lead you the way to get the content going in between.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44144. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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The other answers have given you great suggestions about understanding motivation and getting to work.
You now need a calendar. Decide on your blog post frequency, as you have done, and plan your topics, month by month. If you have a trusted beta reader, test some of your content with them.
Next, you need to prepare your content. Note that you can schedule posts in advance, which will be published on your blog at the set date. This will help you if you have moments in which you feel you can't produce anything, and moments in which you could write till world's ends.
I would also consider chopping up one of your novellas and use them as posts. If the story is interesting, that is an easy way to create a reader base: they will come back to your blog to know how the story continued. This is often the case for many sites with comic stories with a very long arc.
One final suggestion about preparing your content. You have already planned the topics. You just need to sort the posts, and finish them. Make sure that your topic order starts with the posts that are nearly ready for publication. These are low hanging fruits to achieve your goal. You will get momentum and experience as you do this: there is no reason to start with the hardest challenge.
And for all the rest: good luck :)
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