PureBlogging

For several days, I’ve been trying to spend a little time getting more organized to increase the efficiency of my work. What I have mostly been doing is reorganizing my Google Reader account.

As a writer/blogger, I have plenty of sources to draw from, and I subscribe to a ton of RSS feeds. I also write for a variety of different blogs/sites, and they’re not all in the exact same niche (plus I have other interests and subscriptions that don’t have much to do with my writing at all). I have been working for a while with pretty much a jumbled mess of all of these things. Don’t get me wrong. I had it organized to a certain extent. I had my work stuff separate from my non-work stuff, although as I take on new writing projects, the line on some of that begins to blur a bit.

But I have been breaking down my organizational structure as far as I can take it. For example, I have a folder dedicated to only blogging-related sources, that I will draw from for this blog in the future. This way, when I know it’s time to write something for PureBlogging.com, I can easily peruse this folder and find a topic that I wish to discuss (if I’m having writers block) or a reference that I can cite. I follow a similar pattern for my other writing projects.

I have also been going around seeking out new sources of information. The more sources the better as far as I’m concerned. The more information coming in, the more informed I am likely to be, which can only enhance my writing.

This is all probably common sense to a lot of you, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but it can be a bit time consuming. That’s just the thing. I think sometimes we get caught up in our work (and non-work lives for that matter) and don’t take the time to get organized, which in the long run will likely save you a lot of time and increase your productivity.

I’ve been doing it a little at a time, from day to day as to not take too big a chunk out of my day. When it’s all said and done, my Reader is going to be a well-oiled machine and my writing quantity and quality should increase as a product of that.

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I Stumbled Upon this post at Rauru today that suggests when blogging that you should write your headlines before you write the actual post. Ikki says:

As I said on a previous post, headings are the first impression you make on your audience. Focusing on crafting a great headline for your blog post will entice them to keep reading what you have to say.

Furthermore, writing your headline first will help you keep your contents well-structured. What lies behind this statement is the fact that you’re developing your contents from the idea expressed in your heading – instead of backwards. This will keep your writing closely aligned to the engaging promise delivered by your headline to your readers.

I respect this strategy (and with all due respect to Ikki), and if it works for you than that’s great, but I find the opposite to be true for my own writing. I almost always write the post first and then determine what I think the headline should be based on what I have written. The biggest reason for this is that when I start writing, I don’t always know what I am going to say for the duration of the entire post, and therefore surprise myself in the end.

I understand Ikki’s point about keeping your post structured by starting with the headline. I could see how it might keep you focused on what you’re trying to say, but on the flipside, I like to be able to have free roam in my writing, and let it take me where it wants to go naturally. Sometimes I will find that I have written a different post than what I had originally set out to do, but that’s ok, because often times, it will turn out better than the original idea I started with.

To me, staying confined to your initial idea of what a post should be about can hinder your writing, and I just don’t see how that would benefit the finished product. That is unless you have been assigned a specific topic to write about with little room for your own thought, which could be the case in some instances if you are blogging for someone else.

This is just my opinion. What do you think? Which method do you prefer?

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Google has yet another tool in the works that could potentially benefit bloggers greatly. Currently in Google Labs (aka: the experimental stage), Google In Quotes is a feature that lets you search for quotes taken from stories that are linked to in Google News.

Currently, there is only a limited number of people whose quotes you can peruse, and they’re all politicians. In fact, the site at this point defaults to an Obama vs. McCain format, allowing you to compare quotes from both guys on the same issues. You choose the topic, and Google In Quotes finds quotes from both.

What the tool does is separates actual quotes from articles, removing opinions and bias from the articles. While it is in such an early development stage, there are plenty of flaws so far, such as misquotes and paraphrased quotes, but maybe these problems will get worked out at least to some extent as the project moves further along.

What I’m thinking though, as this tool eventually (hopefully) turns into a regular Google News feature, is that you will be able to search for both the quote and the person, which will be great for those blogging (particularly on newsy items) and want to quotes from people they are writing about.

Combine a feature like this with Google’s proposed indexing of newspaper archives, and Google News will be an even more important tool for bloggers than it already is.

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Links are often used in blogging to provide reference to a point or a hat tip, which is why one of the latest things Google is up to could provide an excellent resource for bloggers. Google is archiving print newspapers, and not just new ones. They’re going back in history.

Not only will this provide great linking material for more interesting blog posts, it could open up a plethora of resources to draw inspiration from in the first place.

We all know that writer’s block is a problem that commonly plagues bloggers, particularly those trying to earn some income from their efforts. The need for interesting content is a constant one, and thanks to Google the Search Giant, the inspiration is going to flow more rapidly than ever, I don’t care what niche you’re in.

If Google truly gets anywhere close to the number of newspaper publications even in America, let alone the entire world, into its archives, there are going to be so many interesting subjects out there worth (at least to somebody) discussing. There’s going to be a lot of information for all audiences.

All of the small town news items that never quite make it to national news, “from revolutions and politics to fashion to local weather or high school football scores,” as Google itself says. They’re even including all of the photographs, headlines, articles, and advertisements from these publications. There’s got to be plenty of fuel for advertising and photography blogs alone right there.

What I’m really getting at, is that there is a ton of information on the Internet waiting to be blogged about, but Google is bringing a great deal of the offline information online too, and that is a whole lot of information, stories, and history. Google even has North America’s oldest newspaper as a partner. It’s publication dates back 244 years!

I think you see my point. From now on, if you are suffering from blog writer’s block, you’re not looking for a topic hard enough. For more on Google’s latest project, I wrote this piece for WebProNews.

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Happy beginning-of-the-week, everyone. As promised, I saw The Dark Knight over the weekend and, unsurprisingly, nearly pooped my pants with glee. A little plot-heavy, a little crazy at times… but good gravy, what a Joker. And that Aaron Eckhart was pretty damned unbelievable as Two-Face as well. I still haven’t seen Mamma Mia (nor have I heard good things about it, sadly), but that’s why the good lord made weekday matinees. I’m pretty sure they got made on the fourth day, somewhere between naked mole rats and Tejano music.

So, let’s see what’s going on in the world this week…

(opens newspaper, shakes creases out)

Freelance Writing Gigs asks: Is a Blogger a Writer? My answer: Sure! Every blogger is a writer! Not every blogger is a good writer, mind you…

Two good Twitter-related posts over at friend-of-the-site Crenk: Steven Finch points out ten great tools for using Twitter, and Luis Sandoval offers the top ten Twitter add-ons for Firefox. I’m about the world’s worst Twitter user; I tweet about once per week. Or I won’t tweet for five days, then make between six and eight updates in two hours. Then I’ll neglect it all over again. You know where I belong? 1850, that’s where.

Speaking of Luis Sandoval, he’s got a great post that asks one of the purest and most important questions every writer should ask his- or herself: Are you writing intentionally?

The folks over at SEOmoz are in the midst of a great discussion: What part of the SEO process is hardest for you? For me, it’s pretending I know what I’m talking about. Kidding, kidding. Or… am I?

At the Writer’s Bag, there’s a brand-new post about semicolons which does two things: Settles a discussion I had with commenter PS3 after my comma post, and makes completely obsolete the post I had planned on semicolons.

Cracked offers up its holiest of holies in two articles: The Top Seven Secrets for Writing a Cracked.com Top Seven List, and Seven Cheats for Hitting the Front Page of Digg. My prediction is that they won’t work for you. But then, I’m a depressive, pessimistic bastard who likes seeing other people fail, so I may not be the best source of advice. Again, I’m kidding. We all know by now how awesome I am.

Now: Stop reading websites and start writing something that excites you.

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So, you’ve all heard about Starbucks, right? They’re closing down something like 600 stores in an effort to get everyone to stop making jokes about how there are Starbucks cropping up all over the damn place. Also, they’re apparently hemorrhaging money like crazy.

But I know the answer, and it’s so simple that I’m going to offer it to Starbucks right here, at no cost.

The answer is vocabulary.

And bloggers can learn a lot from Starbucks’ mistake.

Let me explain.

This morning, after some pointless shopping at my local Target, I stopped at Starbucks for the one drink I enjoy there: A green tea frappucino. I know that’s what it’s called because it’s not on the menu, and someone served it to me by accident once. Since then it’s taken me about five visits to get the name right, because Starbucks refuses to treat me like an adult. Read more »

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