Blog posts are usually written on the fly. They’re read that way too, so the blogosphere is full of listicles and trite nonsense.
More and more, I am convinced that the best thing a blogger can do with a post is write a draft, save it and then stop looking at it for 24 hours. This is true with other pieces of writing too but, oh boy, it makes a big difference with blog posts.
I am such a bad writer the first time out. Check out the archives of this blog and see for yourself. The worst posts are invariaby the ones where something came to me, I fired away on the keys and then hit “publish.”
Social media – especially the need to feed the content beast – makes us do things too quickly. Slow down. Write your post and then leave it alone for 24 hours. When you go back, things that seemed perfect but were actually clusterfucks will jump off the screen at you. I promise.
Great advice, Jackson! By way of not having a lot of time to work on my posts, I take 24, or maybe 36, or maybe 48 hours to work on my drafts. But it’s good to take the time to re-read them and do some fine-tuning before posting.