Another Monday which of course means that is time to answer a new and fresh Monday Question. This week I am wondering about your creative process when it comes to your blog. What does your workflow look like? How do you come up with new ideas?
As you know I have a couple of fixed posts (currently on Monday and Friday). Those are posts I can create well in advance (if time allows of course) and for the Monday Question I try to have an evergrowing list of questions ready which I hope you will find interesting to think about. The “Many Faces of…” posts take quite a bit of time preparing, since I will have to go through a complete list of movies an actor or actress has been in and find pictures related to them. Then I have to properly cut them to make sure that the final collage looks good. I must admit that I would love to add the titles of the movie underneath each picture, but I simply do not have the time to do so. On the other days I have my reviews (at least 3 per week) and as you can see on the righthand side, I’ll let you know which ones you will be able to expect. I watch more movies than I review, so I will pick the ones which I think are interesting to write (or warn) about. For those upcoming reviews I will already find the pictures I want to use, format them and put them in a draft. So when do I prepare the actual reviews? My aim is always to prepare everything for the whole week on Sunday evening. This takes a whole evening, but at the end of the evening everything for the week will be ready and scheduled. This means that during the week I have time to spend on other things (reading and commenting on other blogs).
As for developing new ideas they usually come to me quite easily, but I don’t always act on them and give them time to develop. This goes for blogathons, but also new series. This gives time to perfect the idea and change things you initially thought were a good.
What’s your creative process when it comes to blogging?
Well, I blog every 2-3 days, in a four-blog cycle, where, one blog is my movie reviews, another blog is my Canon of Film entry, which is a regular feature where I post a blog on a single great and/or essential film. Many of those blogs are written long in advance. My reviews, I start writing about a week in advance, and that goes on, up until I post. I also have two commentary blog in between, where I look for or think of something to write about in the film/entertainment world. My criteria for those is more elaborate. I don’t like to write what every other blogger writes about, so I try to find a subject that’s different, that no one else is talking and/or something that I have a distinctly different perspective on, that nobody’s given. Since I don’t blog everyday, these commentaries, have to have something to say that’s distinctive and different, and in some cases told in a different way. I try to post in the order of, commentary, commentary, Canon, Reviews, but if I don’t do that, it’s almost-always those four in some per cycle, before I start over again. As to ideas, I go through entertainment news sites, I look for patterns, I look for pop culture things, I write down notes, when I think of a decent idea I might want to discuss later, etc. I just inspiration come to me, and make a note of it, and if it’s still inspiring later, I write on it.
Doing it in cycles is an interesting approach. I think I should be rewriting my reviews more, I know I take too little time to do so. I think it is good to think of things to write about that other bloggers don’t as it makes you stand out. Thanks for your comment!
Your welcome. It’s got it’s advantages, the cycle approach. As to rewriting, I naturally re-write as I write to begin, so by the time something’s posted, it’s often the fifth or sixth edit. My biggest concern is grammar, punctuation and syntax. I think faster than I type, and sometimes I don’t realize when I skip a word or ten, or something like, or I change tense’s midway through, without double-backing to correct. That sucks. Rewriting I’m okay with, but I want I really need is an editor. Maybe someday. 🙂
I don’t have a process, at least none of which I am aware. I get ideas from things that happen around me or are in the news. Or I talk about the book I read (I’m always reading one or two) or the last movie we watched. Sometimes I have an idea and I put a few notes together on it then let it percolate for a while. But. After I put an idea into words, it will often go through many many revisions before I deem it ready for prime time. And some pieces never make the cut. I have method and madness … but no process.
I only do revisions for things like blogathons or new features and will admit I don’t do them enough for my reviews (which I think I should as it would improve my writing quite a bit). I rarely cut anything I’m working on, although there have been some things in draft for ages.
Well, you have method and madness, so I guess 2 out of 3 is good! 😉
I always tell people I write quickly but edit slowly. When I was working, if it hadn’t been for deadlines, I’m not sure anything would have ever gotten published. I’m less nit-picky now than I was, but I still seem to be seeking a perfection that is probably unachievable.
I typically try to write one or two reviews a week as well as offer some new related posts and a weekly question.
Do you do this on a fixed day or do you just write when you feel like it?
I try to get a review posted on Friday, but I’m usually very inconsistent.
My Blog is going through a sort of phase, where I am in the process of completely overhauling the way I write, how I post, the amount of work I put in emotionally and physically, etc.
Before: I would just write the crappiest first draft with my most immediate reactions right after watching a movie. The goal was, over time, to fine tune and completely rewrite that first draft into something Shakespearean. What ended up happening was, over time, I got busier, more Reviews piled up, and in an effort to post more frequently, I would leave that first draft mostly intact except for SOME minor editing. So a lot of my reviews looking back, are pretty crap.
My new process involves free-association writing about a movie after I watch, in bullet points format. Then I take that and form it into a cohesive Review that sounds like I know what I’m talking about. And I don’t jump back and forth between Reviews or watch any other movies, until that one Review is completed and perfect. I’ve also started to do some light photo editing work to accompany my Reviews, and am learning a helluva lot more about everything involving Blogging and other aspects of this medium. I’m a sponge right now.
I have a Regular Feature in mind, however, again, due to time constraints, I haven’t even been able to debut it properly. And given the overhaul mentioned above, I’m going to wait until things get a bit more stable, both on my Reviews and the overhaul I plan to do with my Blog hosting, domain, etc in the next few months.
Awesome question man. :p
Hope the overhaul is going ok and that the tips I gave are helpful.
Interesting way of writing. I guess I do the bullet points thing in my head, knowing what I want to write about. I just start writing and usually have a pretty good idea hwo the article should “flow”.
Good idea to wait a bit with that regular feature, you need to have enough time to perfect it.
Your tips have definitely been helpful. The biggest challenge will be when I do my own domain + hosting. I think I’ll keep hosting with WP. I might annoy you with more questions regarding those when all of that will go through.
For now I’m putting more focus on my content and style of writing. Awesome topic. Hope to see more of these from you in the future. Very helpful!
WordPress is a great platform and I would not switch to something else myself. As for hosting I prefer the freedom selfhosting provides. I can install plugins I normally would not be able to use (like the one I use for “The Many Faces of…” page at the top of the page. If you have any more questions please let me know, I’ll be happy to answer them for you.
Will try to come up with some more blog related questions, people like answering them!
I try to put up 4-5 new posts every week, though this can change drastically if my workload becomes overwhelming.
Understandable. When do you sit down for it, how do you decide what to write about etc?
I write about the movies I have seen lately (either new releases or my 50 movies project) or video games I have finished. Usually by the weekend I have a few things to write about, and I will finish them in one session.
So also a one session blogger (like I usually am) 🙂
Not as organized as yours.
When possible, I try to setup and write as much as possible on Sunday.
Setup means creating the title card, listing the cast & crew, finding a fan artwork of the film and linking the trailer to it. The best I have ever done is writing two reviews in a day. The same day a review goes up, I proof read it one last time in the morning to catch any errors.
As for the Weekly Wednesday Funny. I use the same background art and only change the words. This I usually do the night before.
Well, you try to write on Sundays too, so I guess you are as organised 😉
I should be proofreading a bit more!
Hmmm, I don’t know if I have a regular process per se. I just try to mix things up, so there’s at least one or two reviews a week, and a variety of others like top 5/10 list, trailer, music break, etc. and once a week I’d check which actor/filmmaker is having a birthday to give me an idea who to feature. My goal is to post 5 days a week, though sometimes it’s actually more than that.
Some posts do take a long time, I figure your “Many Faces of…” posts are pretty time consuming, but they’re great so keep ’em up Nostra!
Yeah, you do have a great mixup of different types of articles Ruth.
I don’t mind time consuming articles if I enjoy writing them and you are right, the “Many Faces of…” posts are time consuming and I will keep doing them!
Set a time and date and stick to it, if you can’t post something big just ask a question or set up a poll 😀
Exactly, that’s what I do every Sunday and Monday 😉
I’ve actually been considering writing about my process as one of my “article days” for a while. So to keep this comment short, I’ll just go over things in brief. I try to have something for every day of the week. Sundays and Wednesdays are article days; pretty much anything is fair game then, including the occasional review. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays are always movie review days. Monday is the Monday Music Video. Friday is for the News Bites. Monday and Friday serve as my “light work days” so I can keep up on the other stuff, which is more time-consuming; the MMV doesn’t take much time, and the News Bites can be built piece-by-piece during the week.
Yeah, don’t want my question to take your whole article away 😉
I’d probably be able to write for each day, but I quite like the one or two days I don’t need to have something ready.
My process is fairly haphazard. I rarely write anything well in advance, although I think I probably should. Writing is odd, really. Some film reviews can take me days and numerous edits before I’m happy. Other times (although more rarely), they pop out fully formed in the space of an hour.
I’m toying around with adding more graphics to my reviews as well. Throwaway stuff that people might get a laugh out of. This can be fairly time consuming to put these together, but I feel it’s worth it.
Great process, my reviews are usually fully formed although I might sometimes have issues writing a review.
Graphics is something I’d love to spend more time on, but I simply don’t have it unfortunately.
I don’t really have a process to be honest, I just write whatever I want when I want and post it up whenever! Ha! I try to post something up around every three days though. Oddly, for someone who writes a film blog, I don’t actually watch a huge amount of films – well, not as many as I’d like anyway. It’s pretty ad hoc for me.
That is odd indeed, not watching a huge amount of films and being a movie blogger 😉
No particular process or discipline here. I write when I have something to say. The exception is of course if I’ve agreed with other bloggers to post something on a certain theme on a certain day.
I often have to go through a post and change it here and there until I find it decent enough to post it. I try not to aim for perfection, because if I did I wouldn’t get anything published at all. As a blogger you need to learn to find your “god enough” zone an be comfortable with the fact that there always we be room for improvement – particularly so if you’re writing in a foreign language. Errors abound but I’ve learned to live with it.
Well, I’d say don’t change a winning formula as you are running one of my favorite blogs 🙂
Yeah, you try to do your best but you have to let it loose at some time…
I’m the same. Watch a lot of ills and review some. My twitter chats (now three) keep me busy most of the time, so my blog gets neglected. I don’t have a running feature, but I like to interact with people so I usually do come up with ideas once in a while, usually when I’m in the loo, and implement them. I’m not as devoted to my blog as you are so I feel less pressure I guess.
Yeah, it’s hard to focus on a couple of things. Although I’m on Twitter and Facebook, the last one I don’t check as much as I probably should.