Blog Azeroth

Ahh! Help! I just started blogging and my head is just *crammed* with things to write about!!

I thought I would start off with posting once a day, to get myself into the habit and to get my style and my voice established, but my poor noggin is just so full that my fingers can't type fast enough and I have 5 drafts waiting to be posted!

Is this normal? How long can I resonably expect to keep this pace up? What is a good amount of posts per week? What have some of the more experienced blogger found that they have time for, in terms of how often they can post?

I find that my posts are definitively the "zomg wall-of-text" style and I dont want to turn anyone off with that ...

Just looking for some advice

In my experience, your stream-of-consciousness will eventually trickle off. Having lots of drafts is a good thing. I'd recommend spending more time going over those drafts and improving upon them rather than creating more. Add any new ideas that come up to a list to write in the future.

Agreed with Phaelia!

And also, when I get into the mode of writing a lot of posts and having lots of drafts, I'll often just finish the post but schedule it to automatically post using blogger. There have been weeks where all of the posts have been automatic, because one night my brain suddenly opened up to loads of great topics to write about.

For some people, it's normal, for others, it's not. In my case, I'll average between 4 - 10 decently lengthed blog posts per week. How long can you reasonably keep up the pace for? Not long. Eventually, fatigue will kick in. You need to pace yourself accordingly. I've seen cases of bloggers write for 14 days every day before disappearing off the face of the planet for a month before coming back again. Do not get into that habit. Start small. Do a consistent 3 posts a week on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday until you feel you can handle the pressure and the work load.

For me, personally, a lot of environmental factors will kick in:

Exam season
Raiding nights
Creativity well dried up

There's a whole boatload of factors that'll affect posting.

Actually, in your case, I'd wholeheartedly recommend pacing your posts.

Why?

I don't know how large your audience is right now or how small. But don't wipe out a post with another post the next day. Give people time to absorb what you say and allow it to filter throughout the blogosphere. Let people read it. Give them a chance to spread the word. Don't immediately replace a post right away with your next piece. Have it display prominently. If it's one of your better ones, I'd even go as far as saying to leave it up for 48 hours before your next piece goes live.

If you're unsure or want me to elaborate more, don't hesitate to drop me a line. That goes for everyone else as well. You might not care about strategic timing of posts, but you might wanna learn more. *shrug*. I'm a resource. Feel free to use and abuse me. ^^

oh dear dear Matt... that is an offer you should not have made considering who you're talking to

Now just to think of the best way to use and abuse Matt....

Always Pace posts and Always keep a post or two around that's "timeless" so to speak that you can just put up when you can't think of something else. Take it from a guy that's had 25 drafts sitting around before... you'll run out of ideas eventually and you'll find that as your blog evolves that you won't always feel like an earlier idea was worth it after all. (if you look at the archives of my blog... you can probably find the month that I had sooo much to talk about)

Let's co-operate. *adds victim to AIM and grins*

Hi,

I'll second Skaarjonic's remark. If you've got a bunch of good posts ready to be written, go ahead and write 'em up, but use your blog's scheduler and future date them. So your ten hot posts might be written today, but take two weeks to actually appear on your blog.

Greg