After three years or so of blogging, I have come up with one rule. This rule applies to me, it may not apply to you.
The longer I think of a 'bloggable' topic, the less likely it is to ever grace these pages. This, for example, explains why this site is host to so many "part one" articles that never see a part two.
To me, blogging hits that sweet spot where it is 90% inspiration and 10% perspiration. Fired by an idea that is filling my brain, I sit at the keyboard and type. Posts rarely see a second draft beyond simple spelling and grammar corrections. Words flow from my brain to the keyboard, out to the world, and then I'm done with them bar the comments.
I have a list. I've got a little list: an honest, formal list in VoodooPad of topics I plan to write about. Some of these topics have been on this list for more than a year. And I can't say any of them are any less interesting to me today than they were when I put them on the list.
The single attribute they share, however, is that I've allowed myself time to think about them. The inspiration has faded, but in thinking I've given myself even more ideas that I need to perspire over before the article is done.
And that's what kills them.
Spot on. I totally agree. I no longer keep "draft" posts in my database. It gets posted, or it dies. For good or bad. :-)
Yeah I agree too, I used to hold some DRAFT posts but everytime I went back to them they seemed... jaded...
Although I do edit 'current' posts occasionally, normally if they fall into the 1% perspiration category and were badly written in the first place!
Absolutely true. If I post something to my site, it's usually written in half an hour or less. After that, the caffeine wears off, and it gets deleted. Only once in my life have I ever managed a multi-part series, and that was a collection of write-ups for some JavaScripts that I'd already written for my own use. (This was back when JavaScript was new and shiny, which gives you an idea of how long ago that was.)
The very act of blogging is often an act of introspection. When this is done on paper, we call it journaling. What you write may only matter to you in that moment, but by writing it, you establish theses, potential truths, and observations which you may later prove false, ill-conceived or irrelevant. It's thinking out loud. This is what blogging is to me.