Yesterday, Jerry mentioned a few personal wins he's got going on.
Not to be outdone, because I'm an ass and couldn't give him the win - just this one time - I mentioned I've written five hundred words for the past thirty-three days for Skating the River.
I think posting on Day Five was a personal record.
Jerry asked if there was a specific time I wrote, and I told him in the morning.
For the lack of anything better to write about, I thought I walk you through how I write Skating the River.
These days, after I get up, I have a general sense of what I'm going to post. It will be a journal entry about the previous day or some thought worming through my head.
I've had a few days (like today, where the mind's slate is completely blank) we're talking tumbleweeds in an abandoned Western town blank. I've had a couple of those days, like the post for this day. There was nothing, nada, zip.
I've started a few posts on my iPhone when I'm still in bed. I wouldn't say I like it, but when the muse hits, it hits. So I'll start writing those posts in my Scrivner Apps.
But mainly, this is how I write Skating the River.
Some people sing in the shower, I pontificate. So if there isn't a hot-button issue or current event I'm working through, I'll start writing a rough draft of Skating the River in my head.
After I let my dogs out and Keurig myself a cup of coffee, I'll come into my office and tell Alexa to start Spotify. I have a "Writing" playlist with some of my favorite movie scores. I can't write with music with words.
I'll fire up Highland 2, a writing software designed for writers. It's the brainchild of screenwriter John August (Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Charlie's Angel), who made it mainly for screenplays but also has other writing applications as well.
I like Highland because of its minimalistic design, and you can still see the word count at the bottom of the screen.
So I know if I need to ramp up the bulls**t factor or not. Kidding, kidding, every word I write is carefully weighed and considered before publishing each post.
It usually takes me an hour to write five hundred words. Some days are more challenging to slog through than others when it comes to writing. Like this one post, man, I had nothing.
After that, I'll copy and paste the entire post into Grammarly and see how bad I am at writing in my native language. The guy that didn't pay attention in Public School - right here.
Once I correct the draft, I'll fire up my SquareSpace and post it.
In Squarespace, you have to enter a separate screen to enter an excerpt or teaser. While looking for that snippet, I sort of re-read the post for the third time and get a tenor for the post. More often than not, this is where I come up with the title.
Then, I'll find my Skating the River picture, add it to the post, and was-la. I post it.
I've said this before: this blog's goal is to improve my writing. I read the other day that everything you post is content.
For a guy that wants to make his living producing content, this blog has been an avenue to improving my writing and storytelling skills.
It's nowhere near perfect or the complete vision of what I want, but I'm glad I've stuck to it for as long as I have.