Wordy Wordiness – My Blog Writing Process

It’s hard to write blog articles regularly.  Over the years, I’ve developed a loose process I thought to share with you. It may not work for you, and I don’t always stick with it. Some days, I feel inspired and dash off a blog post in no time. Other ideas require days, if not weeks, of research before writing. Ironically, these researched posts often see fewer views than those that I just dash off. It’s a bit frustrating, but I prefer to take the long-tail approach to writing. Long-tail approaches use the power of accumulation. These lesser-viewed posts collectively add up to more views and exposure than a few popular articles. Besides, if the article helps one or two of you with an assignment or project (which is something I keep in mind as I research and write) then I’ve succeeded. But in any case, here’s my writing process:

1. Begin with a Question

I don’t always state the question I seek to answer, but most of my articles begin with some question I have or someone else has asked me. For example, Citrus is a yuri story about two step sisters who fall for each other. It’s the first time I’ve watched a yuri, so the show raises many questions for me. At the foremost, is the role single-sex school environments have on expressions of homosexuality. It’s rare for me to watch some type of anime, even trashy harem anime (that’s the bad part of being a reviewer and researcher: I have to watch shows that I dislike), that doesn’t raise some type of question.

Sometimes, I have to restrain myself from jumping straight to a blog post. I like to wait until I’ve seen all of an anime, or at the last an entire season or two of a long-running series, before I write. A season or two allows me to get a feel for the direction of the work.

2. Dig into Databases

As a librarian, I’m fortunate that I have access to millions of dollars worth of database. I also dig around in the Internet for legitimate sources, mainly academic and news articles. When I research, I try to research around the topic. For example, with my Citrus article I found some direct information about how single-sex schools influence homosexuality, but not as much as I would’ve liked. However, when I started looking around the topic–namely, how academic performance and bullying changes in such schools–I suddenly found much more information. Research information you need often appears in buried sections of academic studies. I’ll grab even loosely related research for one or two nuggets of information.

3. Take Notes

I dump all of the research into a folder with a citations file and a notes file. While I “Dig into Databases”, I drop my citations into the notepad file so I don’t have to go back looking for them when I write. You must learn to summarize and write research in your own words. This helps you avoid plagiarism and speeds up the writing process. There are times when I can copy and paste my notes directly into the article. Taking notes as you read also forces you to understand what the academic writer is saying. Sometimes that can be a pain to tease out because of the terrible way most research articles are written. When I dig into an article, I look at the introduction which typically outlines past research in the field. I skim over the methodology and results areas. Most of the time the information in those sections only matter if you want to recreate or improve the study. I rarely find useful information in those sections. The conclusion and discussion areas contain the best information for blog articles. These sections summarize the findings and possible implications of the research. The sections discuss weaknesses and contrary findings of the study.

4. Take Time Away

When you write anything, it’s best to take time away from it. While I run the risk of forgetting how I wanted to structure my research, I like to take a few days to a week after I finish taking notes to let it stew. Your subconscious is quite a good chef if you let to do its thing. I take time away even when I have deadlines (I am strict with self-imposed deadlines).

5. Draft It

This is where I cobble together all my notes and thoughts. If my subconscious has done his work, I can dash off a draft in no time. I aim for drafts that are over 800 words, but it all depends on the topic. While I write, I try to use action verbs instead of forms of to be like are, is, was, were. I struggle with this because I naturally write using these static words and because of the nature of my topics. I write to inform. That involves stating how things are. I’m working at it, but it’s a process (see that hidden is?)

I don’t outline my notes for blog articles. I like outlines–though not the formal outline–for most of my writing projects, but so far no article here on JP has been long enough to need one.  I tend to retain information, but you may want to consider outlining if you struggle to write off your forehead. Different methods work for different people. Experiment to see what works for you.

6. Let the Writing Sit

This step is, perhaps, the most important. Writing has to sit for awhile. Go do something else. Write a different article. Whatever you do, don’t think about the article. And never post an article immediately after writing it. Let your assignments, novels, fan fiction, blog posts, and even social media posts sit before you publish them.

7. Revise

Step 6 allows you to come back fresh. You can read your work with a better perspective, allowing you to find faults in logic, grammar boo-boos, and confusing sections. Now, I admit that I don’t edit my posts as much as I should. I tend to read it for big problems and leave it at that. Proper editing has you tweak sentences to make them flow better. It has you cut sentences and make the piece as lean as you can get it. But writing is a human action. You’ll have typos, grammar oopsies, and other issues. Some people will point them out to you. They either are trying to be helpful or just like to catch you making a mistake. This is especially true when you publish something like a blog. But I rather like small typos and oopsies in online articles (just not too many!). They show a perfectly imperfect human is behind the text. It’s quite wonderful actually.

8. Find and Make Images

Images ice the article. I try to select images that are relevant to the topic or anime, but sometimes I just have to find something that loosely touches on what I’m trying to say. Images pull gazes.

There you have it. This is my blog writing process. Most of the time, I have several folders awaiting me. I tend to research in batches and return to them later. I like to balance my research articles with articles like this one. Articles I can just bang out in a few hours. Research takes a lot of time, which has been scarce for me lately with my other writing projects ( several novels are in the works), working at the library full time, and all the other adulting I have to do. Anime reviews typically let me take time “off” too, but as you know, I’m not exactly current with the anime I watch most of the time.

Even an anime review can take me 2-3 hours to write. it takes you just a few moments to read and even less if you skim–as we all tend to do online. My researched articles can take 2-3 hours or more to research and take notes on and another 2-4 hours to write at the least. Of course, if I was a Youtuber (which I’ve considered trying), it would take longer to script, shoot, and edit a video. Before I went into librarianship and writing, I was a graphic designer, computer animator, and computer programmer. A 3-minute animation would take me hundreds of hours to write, storyboard, model, rig, texture, light, animate, render, and post-process. Of course, writing takes hundreds of hours too. Anything worth doing takes time.

Okay, I’m meandering. My point: having a process allows you to work efficiently and save time, but you will still sink a lot of it into the project. Experiment and find what works best for you. Don’t be afraid to flex and try something new too. Sometimes you can remove a step of your process and it can save you hours down the pipeline. But whatever you do, enjoy it!