So here’s how these posts are written:
The first thing I do is have absolutely, positively no idea of what I’m going to write about. The funny thing is I think of the post all day: should I write about my thoughts on the Church scandal, cleaning the house because we’ve got company coming over, or the living without couches? Don’t know. The topics swim in my head and I wait for something to surface or rise to the top.
Usually, late in the evening, after all the dishes are washed, fires put out, and bed is next on the “To Do List,” I’ll fire up my laptop and open up Scrivener. I’ve been using Scrivener on and off or a few years now. Decided to really commit to the program this year. It’s been working out pretty well so far. I might check what I have in the quiver, seeing if any topics jump out at me. Nothing usually does. So I just write what’s on the top of my head.
I’ll start a new document, pull up Scrivener’s Full Screen Mode, think about the day and just start typing. Something will come up. They have the past week. The words do come. Sometimes the words flow pretty easy. Sometimes not so much. I try to hit my seven hundred and fifty mark. Most times I miss it. A memory will pop up in my head or some connection that I think may be nifty. I’ll write what I call the first draft. Trying to finish whatever thread is running in my head.
Then, once I’m done, I’ll highlight everything and - I’ve done this just recently - listen to the entire post. There’s this speech setting on my Mac. There’s a couple of voices you can choose from, even some female ones, but I opt for the stuffy, monotone Jeeves one. He reads my stuff back to me straight. What’s weird, is that sometimes he get the tenor of my sentences. Queue: Twilight Zone music. I’ll follow along as best as I can. Jeeves is pretty quick. So I’m correcting any egregious errors as he goes along. Then, I’ll highlight everything again and listen to the post up to five times. Just to make sure whatever cadence I’m going for is there. Are any sentences clunky, weighed down by bad writing, or just all in all bad? Plus, I’m finding that I’m missing words here and there. Apparently I think faster than I type. What I’m mainly looking for now is missed words.
I’ll go back and see if I can re-work a sentence or a paragraph. Punch up a little bit of the language. If it passes my “smell test” - which for me is that the post be at least Eighty percent okay - I’m not looking for perfection here, just done.
Throughout the day, I’ll try to take a picture. Like today’s picture:
Earlier today The Wife and I found out that not only was my Mother-in-Law showing up. But The Wife’s grandmother, her two aunts - one with three of her grandkids - the other with her daughter, plus her son and his fiance. Add to that mix me and The Kid. Here’s the thing, we don’t have any couches. We just bought a new house and due to circumstance beyond our control, haven’t been able to get the new furniture we had anticipated to get. All we have is a kitchen table with a mix mash of chairs. And only two are comfortable sitting in.
So, when my mother-in-law got here, the frantic search for a couch was put into motion. We found a set. Only fifty bucks. Thing is it was one hour outside of town. Sigh.
The Kid and I drove out there. It was on some far off ranch in the hill country. We had drive down a dirt road and finally arrived at this house. The sun was going down and man was it a view. Not great, because there was a neighborhood down the hill, but still it was pretty worth while. The guy was nice. I asked if I could take a pic and he said sure. And well, there you go. There were a couple more, but once I knew I had it, that was it.
So now I’ll grab my iPhone 7 Plus, open up my Adobe photo app. I’ll look at the thumbnails and see if any pictures pop out at me. One usually does.
Now, these photos, at least for the last couple of weeks are coming from either my iPhone or my Canon SL2. With the pics from the SL2, I’ll transfer them via wireless to my phone. I don’t have Adobe Photoshop yet on my Mac, so I use the phone app. I’ll edit it till it looks fairly reasonable, then I’ll open up Square Space on my mobile and create a post there. Once I upload the picture, then I go back to my laptop, open up the draft and copy and paste the post. Gramerly kicks in and I’ll quickly check the corrections it recommends. They’re usually spot on.
I’ll clean up the paste, since it gets the formatting wrong, and then once I like it. I hit publish.
And that’s it. That’s how I’m posting right now.
Now, I’ve got a couple of posts in the quiver, sure, but most times I rely on “The Muse” to carry me through the next post. I’ve always read that the best way to get her to show up was to show up yourself. That the muse would find you when you committed to a time and place. I’ve got to say, its been working so far.