9 Steps to Check Off BEFORE Publishing a Blog Post

When you are about to publish a blog post, there are a few things you should always check for to make sure your post is top-quality for your readers. (I forget to check for all of these things a lot, so this post is quite helpful to me too!)

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D is for Dare to Draft

D is for Dare to Draft

You might classify me as a perfectionist when trying to write my novel, which sounds potentially good, as then the story would turn out amazing! But put bluntly, it's not.

Sometimes I feel fearful of starting that first draft. I become become afraid of imperfection. I am terrified of finishing, feeling successful, but hating my story. Or maybe I adore it, but it others don't think it has the potential that I see in it. This has happened. And this will continue to happen. 

And that's okay. A draft is a draft. It's meant for mess-ups and terrible writing peppered with cliches. It's supposed to have plot holes and way too many adverbs. Anne Lamott calls it in her book Bird by Bird, a "shitty first draft." You need the "shit" because without it you'll never be able to find it's true beauty.

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Deep and Honest Evaluation of my Writing

Tuesday of the Five Things You Can Do This Week to Become a Better Writer says to complete an honest evaluation of your own writing in order to determine your greatest strengths and weaknesses. The idea is to view yourself objectively and then fix the points you need to work on.

Strengths: I'm quite good at descriptions. I love to write poetic, drawn-out, well-crafted sentences that vividly whisk the reader to the scene. My language flows naturally and gracefully. Adjectives trickle through the prose like a gentle rain. I'm typically good with constructing compelling characters - except in my difficult WIP but that's a different situation. People have told me quite often that it's easy to slip into love with my characters. I do pretty well with first person point of view and putting myself in the role of the main character. I am fabulous at designing new worlds and settings. This goes along with descriptions I suppose. Pacing is terribly fun for me, perhaps I exaggerate it a bit too much, but I love it. I know exactly how to speed a scene up, as well as slow it down and make it drag along.

Weaknesses: I excessively enjoy adverbs. I know that it's proper, and sounds much better, when they are not included in the text - or at least as many as I naturally do. But I can't help peppering my sentences with them. I also adore using other more descriptive words than "said" when writing dialogue, but I understand the reasoning by requiring "said" only and have been faithful to it lately. This has helped my dialogue tremendously, yet, that too could use some work. I feel as if my dialogue is not as necessary as it should be. I'm not terrible, but I could use some more practice in third person point of view. I've heard that this is the easiest way to write, however I find it much easier to speak in first. Is this odd?

Averages: Plot and action creation. I'm not extraordinary, but it's not quite a weakness either. The action that is in my stories could use some work, as always, but not as drastically as the others could.

I'll have to find some good exercises to improve these weaknesses. Once I find something amazing, I will definitely share!

My tip: Do this exercise. It doesn't take that long at all, but it really is helpful. It'll also be nice to reference it when editing to know exactly what you're looking to fix.

Are you completing the Five Things You Can Do This Week to Become a Better Writer? If not, DO IT! It's only Tuesday, but I already enjoy it quite a lot. And it's pretty easy. I wish it were 30 days, 90 days, or something longer...

Anyways... What are your strengths and weaknesses? Please share with me and we can help each other.

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Storm Your Brain

Every writer has been at that point where the idea of what to actually write just isn’t coming to them. Writer’s block, you could say. The ideas just run out sometimes, and a writer is at loss of what to do.

But there are so many ideas surrounding you, the possibilities are amazing. You’d be surprised.

To get these ideas down on paper, brainstorming is necessary. There are a variety of ways on how to do this. Do whatever works for you, but do brainstorm to get the best ideas you can think of.

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