My Writing Process

After seeing Robert’s post on the process of blogging, it sparked me into action.  I’ve been thinking about explaining my own process but figured no one would be interested.  Perhaps I was wrong?!

I have a very simple method.

It usually starts with an idea, or sometimes a blogging prompt.  If it’s the seed of an idea I will jot down the phrase, as a reminder, in my notebook.  Other times I blog almost immediately so no need for a note.

The actual writing process is very free form and seems to flow naturally.  I’ve written for many years professionally – not as in books, but reports.  So blogging seems to follow the same process.

The idea is in my head; I almost immediately know the main points I want to put forward, and very quickly I have formulated a plan of the flow in my head.  We’re talking minutes, not hours!  My brain runs at full-speed once I have an idea.

I then sit down and type.  I bash away at the keyboard, entering my text in either Notesnook, or LibreOffice Write.  I stop when I am at the end, as per the plan in my head. 

Next it needs a read-over.  Over the years I have discovered that speed-reading is not handy when you are proof reading; especially your own work.  I find it hard to slow my reading pace for my own words.  To overcome the typos in tense or grammar I have my computer read-aloud the contents.  I've tried a number of reading tools but I have settled on Microsoft Word.  I avoid MS as much as I can, but this is a rare occasion where I’ve yet to find anything better.  I copy and paste into a blank online Word Document and ask it to be read back to me.

I correct any silly mistakes and have one final read-through with Word.  The text is then copied and pasted into either of my two blogs (sometimes both), and published.

I never go back and review the content; I don’t anguish over the flow.  What you read is basically version 1 (and the final) of the content. 

Just for fun, here’s what the reading ‘lady’ picked up for me to edit in this article: 

• “The actually writing process” should be “actual”.
• “enter my text” changed to “entering”.
• “I've tried a number of reading fools” to the more accurate “tools”.

 
How do you do yours?