Blogging Tips

Do you have a strategy you use for writing?  Do you plan out all the details; i.e. an outline, or do you simply sit down and start writing?
Whether you have a strategy or not there’s still a process that writing goes through.  Developing a strategy can help improve your productivity, improve your writing and editing skills, and keep your work load on an even keel.  The stages which writing go through are: Planning, prewriting, drafting, revising and editing.

In the planning stage you’ll choose a topic, do some basic research, gather facts and organize your thoughts and ideas.  Many writers create an outline in this stage or you may choose the pre-writing stage to draw out an outline.
The pre-writing stage is much like an outline because this is where you determine your main points and jot down sub points as you are honing the idea.

The next stage is to write your rough draft.  This is the stage most of us sit and write frantically trying to get all our thoughts lined out.  The writing in this stage is very random and probably wouldn’t make much sense to someone else reading it.  It may even read like jibbersh.  That’s okay, this stage is very important because it lays the foundation.
Occassionally, if you’re lucky, your rough draft will need very little revising or editing.  Those are the times we really feel good about ourselves as writers.

Once the rough draft is finished, this is a good time to walk away, unless you’re on a deadline.  Take the time to have a snack, start another project or go for a walk.  You need this time away to regroup and come back with a fresh mind.

Read through your rough draft completely.  After reading through it you’ll decide if your thoughts were in order and clear or if you’ve left the reader hanging.

Now you’ll begin to revise the work.  This is the process where you put things in a uniform pattern.  You will also catch mistakes in this stage and it’s okay to correct the obvious one’s, but this stage is for getting the piece lined out so it reads with fluidity.   You’re not looking for mistakes in this stage, although some will stick out.

The great thing about the revising and editing stages are they can be done simultaneously or you can go back and forth from one to another.  But in the revising stage it is best to stick with getting the material lined out.

Once the revisions are done and you feel its in good order, its a good time to take another break.  These breaks are to clear your mind so you can fine tune the work later.  You might be surprised how many little things you miss because, as the writer, we know what we meant to say and often times our eyes see what we think we were writing.  Stepping away and getting a clear head will reveal these things to us.

The next stage is editing.  This is the stage you’ll look for mistakes in spelling, grammar and punctuation.  You may find some minor changes in revision during this stage too, especially if you find mistakes in grammar.  But again, revising and editing can go hand in hand.

During the editing process you’ll want to make sure to check for words that are spelled correctly but out of context.  Words like to or too, accept or except, their/there/their, etc.  Spell checker won’t catch these because they’re spelled correctly, but may not fit the sentence.

The final stage is, of course, the finished work and should be ready to publish.  If you feel you may have missed something and time allows you can always let it sit and come back later for another edit.

One suggestion I’d like to make is to always have something in a stage.  Have one thing in the idea stage, another in pre-writing,  another in revision, and so on.  If you always have something in different stages you’ll have plenty of material to work on while taking a break from something else.  Although, a nice walk can be good for you and sometimes you do need to get away from writing altogether.

Try this strategy and see if your productivity levels rise and your writing improves.  I’m going to walk away now and focus on something else before I decide if this is ready to publish.

Write On!