Inspiration
The coffee plant is one of my roommates and great source of inspiration.
It and a few other plants keep me company near my work desk.
The stick in front of the coffee plant offers some extra support while the roots settle in after being re-potted.
So why add this image and description to a post about writing and blogging?
Because writing and blogging, like any activity, is not a truly solitary experience. At least, not for all parts of me.
Alters who can move and use our physical body will follow traditional writing methods – like typing or writing outlines and drafts in electronic or paper notebooks. Alters who cannot use our body have their own methods of “writing” and “drafting” posts. Then they pass the information to an alter personality who can use our body to share the post here.
My point being: we can all use some extra support once in a while because it’s really hard to get out of our own way.
Especially when we are the obstacle(s) and don’t realize it.
Sharing my process
Since I couldn’t figure out a way to share my blogging tips without writing a short book, I decided to share the outline with you instead. This way, you can take what you want (i.e. anything that seems helpful), and discard the rest as you work on your writing and blogging skills
Concept
- Overall Idea, goal, or purpose for this blog
- Related topics you can write about
- Who you are writing for (besides yourself)?
- Are you going to build a community with comments?
- Are you gong to not allow comments and keep this strictly informational only?
Due Diligence
- Do your research
- What you know and skills you already have to make this work
- Knowledge Gaps and how to compensate for or address them
- What platform are you going to use?
- How much time and money can you afford to invest in this project?
Organization
- Choose a hosting platform – Blogger, WordPress, GoDaddy are a few examples
- Create an account
- Decide on basic schedule for posts and addressing comments (if any)
- Keep it simple and build slowly
- Will you add web pages too? How will they look? What kind of information will you add here?
Priorities
- Do you want ads on your blog?
- Do you plan to use the blog to make money?
- Will you add the blog to your social media accounts?
- How important is attracting followers? How will you cope with having or not having followers?
Simple Structure
- Home Page or straight to the blog?
- About Me page?
- Contact or no contact?
Write
- Are you going to add photos?
- How long do you intend to spend on writing each post?
- For a consistent look & feel, creating a formatting template (or 3) helps
Work Space
- Where do you plan on working?
- Is noise a problem?
- How can you modify your work space to feel safe, comfortable, inspiring, etc.?
- p.s. you can substitute “safe, comfortable, inspiring” for other words that suit your needs
- Can you focus on our work with minimal distractions?
- Can you take breaks and relax in your work space? Or will you go somewhere else?
Back to the Featured Image
As you can guess, I am often my own worst enemy when it comes to success.
Hopefully this image inspires you and me (all parts of me) to be kinder to ourselves in all aspects of our lives.
Thanks for reading
