Note 271 – Ten tips for preparing blogs and articles in advance

Even if you love writing, there may be days when you are feeling a bit under the weather and cannot face logging on to your computer.  When you find yourself feeling like this and you are up against a writing deadline, wouldn’t it be lovely if you had something prepared that you could just tidy up and post quickly rather than start from scratch?

Being unwell today with a tension headache, it has been a test for me on how well I have been doing with ‘preparing blogs in advance’ (I couldn’t stand the thought of missing a day of My Writing Challenge).   As I am getting these headaches more frequently, I’m finding it easier to have blog posts prepared in some shape or form. Fortunately I prepared this one last week (very apt title don’t you think?) so I only had to add a few paragraphs and edit it. 

If you are like me and have filled notebooks and half-typed ideas all over the place, you could use this to your benefit on the days when you are unwell or just not inspired. Here are a few tips that I have found handy:

1. Place notebooks in places where you usually find yourself in the mood for writing: handbag, briefcase, bedside table, kitchen cupboard, car, desk drawer or even a small one in your dressing gown pocket (just thought of that!).
2. Use the notes function in your smartphone (or similar) to type snippets that you think of.
3. Use the voice memo on your smartphone (or similar) to record ideas or messages to yourself.
4. Reserve a few pages in the back of your diary or planner for ideas.
5. Whenever you think of an idea write it down (or type it) straight away – you could use these as potential titles or prompts.
6. Head up a page with a great title and leave a few pages blank for thoughts at a later date.  Put another title a few pages on, and so on…  When you get a spare few minutes each day, look at each title – is there anything that can be added to it today?
7. If you don’t like having notes everywhere, dedicate an hour per week to consolidate all these ideas into one master document.
8. Cut out newspaper or magazine articles that attract your attention and keep them in a folder (or similar). Organise by topic if necessary (I need to get better at this).
9. Copy URLs for cool blogs or websites that you found interesting but didn’t have time to read properly.  Paste them into a word document titled ‘ideas’ and revisit this when you need to be inspired. 
10. If any of the above are starting to take the shape of a blog or article, copy it into the appropriate software as a draft.

In no time at all you could have a constant stream of blogs and articles in progress. 

Good luck!

Sandra
Freelance Writer
www.sandramadeira.com

Related articles

• Note 196 – Writing (or thinking about writing) whilst you are cooking! (mywritingnotebook.wordpress.com)
• Note 257 – Little Writing Steps v Writing Burnout (mywritingnotebook.com)
• Note 210 – You can’t put a price on a writer’s notebook (mywritingnotebook.wordpress.com)
• Note 175 – Is it okay to not feel like writing some days? (mywritingnotebook.wordpress.com)

Image attribute: Jeffrey James Pacres – Flickr