Let Your Blog Posts Marinate (4 Steps to Forming Great Ideas)
- Posted by glen on August 22nd, 2006
Man, I can’t tell you how valuable this blogging tip is.
Here’s what my typical blog posting process used to look like. I’d go hit up my RSS feeds at Rojo, flag the feeds I wanted to write about and crank out whatever I was thinking of at the time, all in one session. Occassionally I’d get some winners out of that p
rocess, but mostly my writing just sucked. My biggest problem: I didn’t think through the structure of the blog post. I’ve always had what I would call “writers ADD”. I would write about whatever thought came into my mind at the time of reading the articles, knee-jerk style.
Now, before I go any further with this, I want to give the little disclaimer that some people pull this off and do a wonderful job at it. Why? Because they’re much better writers than me. I have to let my mind process what I’m going to say before I write about it, otherwise it’s really really hard to follow. In order to improve my writing, I’ve had to develop an intricate 4-part posting process, but it’s managed to work for me. Hopefully this will help some of you that struggle with developing your blog posts.
1. Jot It
If you’ve got a post idea, jot down the title and maybe some key thoughts about the idea. For me it’s whatever I can think of in about 20 seconds. After that, I just let it be. You may not even look or think about the idea the rest of the day. Just collecting it is what’s important.
2. Review it
Every day I’ll pull up my list of post ideas that I haven’t written about. I’ll glance through the titles and bullet points, and see if anything triggers a thought. If it does, I’ll write down another bullet point or idea. If not, I let it be. Usually more ideas for the posts come up when I’m doing something else.
3. Let It Develop
It’s hard to say how long this step lasts. Sometimes it’s all over in 15-20 minutes. Sometimes it takes weeks. The important thing is not to rush the process.
4. Post
Once you feel like your post is fully developed, start writing. Many times, I’ll start writing and realize that I don’t like the way the post is turning out. When this happens I just save the post as a draft, and let it marinate even longer by repeating steps 2 and 3. I always try to read through the finished post at least a couple of times to catch my bad spelling and grammatical woes. Sometimes the structure isn’t quite right, and I’ll tweak that too.
By always having a queue of collected ideas, you’ll never run out of material to post. And if, God forbid, you actually run out of content for a day (gasp!), don’t force the issue. Just let it go and skip posting that day. If you force something, odds are it won’t be that good anyway. And nothing ruins a blog like crappy articles. Take my word for it.
By letting the blog post develop naturally, your writing will become easier. Why? Because you’ve already been typing away about it in the back of your brain for a while. You’ll almost have the key points memorized without checking your notes.
Successful blogs are a thing of love, and readers can spot an un-loved blog a mile away. Ask yourself this: Would you read a blog that looked like the writer himself didn’t care about it? I know I wouldn’t.
August 23rd, 2006 at 8:09 am
Good set of tips there.
I’m a big jotter. I have between 20-30 ideas saved at any one time and I go through them every so often and see if something clicks.
August 23rd, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Marinate your blog posts before you publish…
Sure it’s great that publishing apps like WordPress and Blogger let anyone and their brother post their thoughts and experiences online at the click of a button, but ease of publishing can lead to incomplete thoughts and less-than-stellar writing…….
August 23rd, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Thanks Martin.
August 23rd, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Good tips, thanks for sharing them. Bullet points are a key ingredient for me. They provide the initial framework for most of my writing and help me stay focused.
August 23rd, 2006 at 5:07 pm
I’ve realised I was doing the same - an odd brain fart is ok, it let’s people know you are human.
I’ve been using Writely as a holding station - can access the documents from work or home and modify away, until I have the core or a post/article ready.
August 23rd, 2006 at 5:43 pm
[...] An interesting article over on LifeDev, brought to me via Lifehacker, about thinking about your post before you send it out to the world wide webs. I only post this because it ties in so well with what I was saying yesterday about kids blogging more and more. If you are not aware of Lifehacker or the Getting Things Done movement, and you feel like modern life is too complex to handle, I highly suggest you look into the interesting and cult-like G.T.D., they have some interesting thoughts on productivity.. [...]
August 23rd, 2006 at 5:51 pm
hey thanks for the tips, maybe my writing will suck less
August 23rd, 2006 at 6:17 pm
One thing that helps me with my posts is using Freemind. It makes it easier to record whats on your mind in a structured fashion. Once you have all the points you’d like to cover in your digital mind map, it becomes very easy to create a post out of it.
You can find Freemind at: http://freemind.sf.net
August 23rd, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Great post! I’m a big jotter as well. I carry a Moleskine everywhere and it holds random scribbles for three blogs’ worth of posting.
August 23rd, 2006 at 8:25 pm
[...] Let Your Blog Posts Marinate (4 Steps to Forming Great Ideas) at LifeDev [...]
August 24th, 2006 at 1:38 am
[...] Glen has posted a nice post at LifeDev titled Let Your Blog Posts Marinate (4 Steps to Forming Great Ideas) which uses the great image of marinating your ideas for a while before posting them. [...]
August 24th, 2006 at 1:42 am
Marinate Your Writing…
LifeDev has a piece, Let Your Blog Posts Marinate (4 Steps to Forming Great Ideas), that presents an interesting alternative to my five-stage Manage Your Writing model. The new twist is the concept of marinating:It’s hard to say how long…
August 24th, 2006 at 2:28 am
Nice post, I hope it will help to get my posts better.
And by the way, how do you find ideas for your posts ? I must say that this is the hardest part for me (and to come up with ideas to post at least 4 posts a week).
August 24th, 2006 at 2:58 am
To be honest I would normally jot few lines quickly…and read it atleast twice to ensure it makes perfect sense and is interpreted in the way I want it to…but I don’t have a lot of blogging experience under my belt. ;o)
August 24th, 2006 at 6:55 am
Good idea, I was thinking of a decent way to form my posts better. I was thinking of writing the post in word processor before posting it so that I could write it, leave it and reread it later on.
Another thing, research. I’ve found that a lot of my thoughts are on topics of which I know very little, hence my assuptions and sometimes misguided thinking. Can’t hurt to at least read a wiki page on the topic to get a better idea :)
August 24th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Kris:
Honestly, the ideas most of the time just come to me. I’ve stopped reading a lot of my feeds dealing with productivity, etc. just so I won’t try and write something that somebody already has. It’s allowed me to be very creative. And this way most of my posts are unique.
As for when my ideas come to me: any time. For reference, check out the Idea Dumping post.
August 24th, 2006 at 9:03 am
[...] Ãœber einen Eintrag auf Livehacker bin ich auf einen sehr interessanten Artikel auf LifeDev gestoßen: “Let Your Blog Posts Marinate (4 Steps to Forming Great Ideas)“. Obwohl ich meine Gedanken lieber spontan niederschreibe, ist es vielleicht nicht schlecht, den einen oder anderen Artikel länger ruhen zu lassen, bis die Gedanken wirklich gereift sind. Wer die englische Sprache nicht scheut, sollte sich den Artikel mal durchlesen. [...]
August 24th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
[...] Let Your Blog Posts Marinate (4 Steps to Forming Great Ideas) at LifeDev [...]
August 24th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
[...] Let your blog posts marinate [...]
August 24th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
Some really good advice. I tend to do the same thing. I have a Backpack page with a note for every idea that I haven’t yet written down and then when the idea is ready I draft it in a Writeboard and start revising it.
You can find Backpack here: http://www.backpackit.com/
and Writeboard here: http://www.writeboard.com/
August 24th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
[...] Este post de LifeDev enseña algo fundamental a la hora de publicar posts. Algo tan simple como dejar que las ideas maduren durante un tiempo antes de publicar nada al respecto. [...]
August 24th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
Reminds me a bit of Robert Boice’s work on “How writers journey to comfort and fluency”
It contains some apparently contradictory ideas (e.g. numbers 1 and 2) that take some getting used to.
1. Wait
2. Begin before feeling ready
3. Work with constancy and moderation
4. Stop in timely fashion
I like the last one best, don’t finish it right away or burn out trying, which fits with your jot it and return later technique. This means you must be practicing the others e.g. working with constancy and moderation so that you are not on top of some deadline. Of course this last thought is primarily for other than blog posts.
August 25th, 2006 at 5:27 am
[...] Let Your Blog Posts Marinate (4 Steps to Forming Great Ideas) at LifeDev (tags: writing blogging tips lifehacks) [...]
August 25th, 2006 at 5:56 am
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August 25th, 2006 at 7:19 am
links for 2006-08-25…
Careers and Marriage - Forbes.com There’s nothing like a good ol’ Battle of the Sexes for good reading. Michael Noer points out that two career couples have a higher rate of divorce and general malaise than those households where……
August 25th, 2006 at 9:19 am
Excellent post!
I use Google Notebook (http://www.google.com/notebook/) for my ideas/brain dumps.
August 25th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
I do this a lot as well. The most useful piece of advice though is to let it sit. It’s during that time that you really do think about it - even if you don’t realize it - so that when you come back to that particular blog posting you find that it’s got a few tweaks in store.
Good post!
August 25th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
[...] LifeDev has an article for bloggers who wish to improve the standard of their writing, entitled Let Your Blog Posts Marinate. It’s an approach to blogging that I’ve found works really well and enables me to come back at a later date and read my words with a fresh perspective. Trackback Feed for this Entry [...]
August 25th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
[...] Let Your Blog Posts Marinate (4 Steps to Forming Great Ideas) via 43Folders [...]
August 25th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
It sounds like we have something in common.
Great advice. Thanks.
August 26th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Thanks for the ideas. I used to just post immediately, but some things I let sit for a while so I could mentally sort through them before I posted them. I do a monthly newsletter re:my 10 month old son, and that always takes a few days to mature. Good advice, though. I think I’ll work with drafts more often. Thanks!
August 26th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
[...] Still, all of this is just an excuse to actually write anything proper. I did manage to almost complete a post about normal mapping based on a good question I saw on that there internet. It will probably be finished and posted tomorrow. Why not post it right off? It is almost ready, but after reading a great article on letting posts marinate, I reckoned an extra day couldn’t hurt. That’s not procrastination. Is it? [...]
August 26th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
[...] Let Your Blog Posts Marinate (4 Steps to Forming Great Ideas) at LifeDev Writers Block (tags: writing lifehacks creativity) [...]
August 28th, 2006 at 9:55 am
Thanks for the tip. I often get half way through a post, don’t like it and go back and edit. A lot of time I find myself “writing” a post the night before. I need to remember to keep a notepad by my nightstand.
August 28th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Great tips. I have the problem of posting about something right after deciding I want to write about it also. I publish many of my posts when I’m rushed or pressed for time (posting while at work instead of working), so that doesn’t help the situation either.
I’ve started a few posts, saved them as drafts, then came back to finish them and the quality was better than my usual rushed posts. I’m going to take that a step further and try the steps you outline above and see what I come up with. Thanks for the great article.
August 29th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
I’d really like to hear more about the workflow aspect of this.
I’m having trouble finding the right blog editor that lets me focus more on the content and less ont he formatting shortcomings.
One thing I did like, when I used ecto (ecto.kung-foo.tv/ ), you could store drafts and come back to them later. It would be nice to be able to group them in folders, or create a more defined workflow of how a post makes its way to being published.
Anyway, great post!
My quick posts are definitely junk, the ones that wait are definitely better, and I think I would get more good posts out if I had a better workflow involving this “marinate” step.
August 31st, 2006 at 12:25 pm
[...] Glen at LifeDev has a great post on letting ideas marinate for blog posts, which ProBlogger Darren follows up with his Marinating Ideas into Blog Posts - My Posting Workflow. Aside from creative endeavors like writing, letting an idea marinate can have other benefits, especially in relieving FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. [...]
September 1st, 2006 at 2:01 am
I liked very much the idea of “marinating” the posts. So far, I’ve been only marinating fish or meatballs. But as I feel many times that my posts suck, I’ll try to write them this way, to see if they get better taste.
I agree that my blogs are representing me, but in the early stage of development, they might not look as I want (I’m quite new to programming, too). Nevertheless, I enjoyed the stay on your site and I added it to favourites on my blog (I hope you don’t mind that).
September 7th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
[...] LifeDev had a really great post about not posting. As he sees it - the trick is letting your ideas sit for a little while, simmer in their juices, and not only will they come out easier when trying to type them up, but they’ll be better developed and tastier. [...]
September 9th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
[...] Here’s a thought: let your blog posts “percolate.” Write them, then sit on them for a while. See if this approach to blogging helps you. [...]
September 13th, 2006 at 8:32 am
[...] - September 13, 2006 Marinate your blog entries Glen Stansberry over at LifeDev put into words the process I have adopted to use draft blogentries. It helps to come back to something I’ve written after a few days because I’m fresh and may notice ways to improve it that I wouldn’t have seen if I did it all at once. [...]
September 14th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Right now I’m actually going through some bookmarks to marinate a bunch of fledgling posts - and lo and behold, I discovered this one :). Thanks for the tips.
October 4th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
[...] This is a technique I use for everything I possible can, including this very blog post. I had this post idea a while ago after I read this blog post. I decided to take that basic idea one step further and apply it to everything possible. [...]
October 29th, 2006 at 9:58 am
I’ve been “letting them marinate” for a couple of months now and the results are getting better. I’ve been generally using the blog editor, ecto, and its ability to store drafts of articles before you actually publish them to your blog.
November 2nd, 2006 at 12:14 pm
[...] the writing is crap! Tags: Asides, Blogging, Taiji, tips, writing No Comments Leave a Commenttrackback addressThere was an error with your comment, please try again. name (required)email (will not be published)(required)url [...]
November 2nd, 2006 at 4:14 pm
[...] The post goes on to say that none of Technorati’s top 10 blogs and only 2 of the 15 top diggs for the day it was written actually have these buttons. Very interesting. From a guy that stresses post marination and an overall “quality first” mindset, this came as a pretty big blow to me. But he’s right. If I’m constantly worrying about tweaking things to help the reader, I’m overlooking the easiest way to please more readers: better content. It’s times like these that I really love the internet and how much you can learn from other people. Filed under: Internet Marketing, Blogging Tips on Nov 02,06 | Tags: No Tags. [...]
November 9th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
[...] All of us bloggers should strive to write in such a way people want to hang on to our every word. Taking more time and care into each post is one way to make sure your posts are read completely. A great tactic is to let your posts marinate; coming back to them several times before you post. I’ve revisited this post four times today now. Hopefully it will be four times better than what it was when I finished it the first time Filed under: RSS, Blogging Tips on Nov 09,06 | Tags: 43folders, blogging, blogs, books, learning, lifehacks, productivity, rss, rss feed. [...]
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