Behind the Scenes at the Blog

You've heard it before: "Get organized if you want anything good to ever happen in your life." One exasperated mother I know told her teenage son, "Get a clue, Get a Plan, Get a Life". Oh, yes, the devil is in the details of some planning, prioritizing and developing checklists to begin to share ideas with you

Don't you feel great when you check off the objectives you KNOW will get you closer to your goal? Someone has said "Proper Prior Planning Prevents Panic!" You know, if you've read my profile that we took our time to produce this blog. In 2002 the concept and technology for Blogs were just beginning. Some sixty years ago my parents couldn't have known about Bill Gates' vow to put one of these machines on every desk and kitchen table in the world. The richest man in the world today was barely born back in the day.

Could the parents of today imagine what their newborns will do for a living in a couple of generations? Science fiction movies now give a better hint than my parents got about the future with their science fiction comic books, radio and the beginnings of Black and White TV.

We must deal with the technology we have with focus and with passion. This blog has become one of my big reasons for getting out of bed in the morning. I love tackling the development of the material and getting it formatted and posted. Since we began planning for this project in 2002. It's freed me up as a writer without the worry of being herded by program directors, editors, touchy clients or skittish supervisors. I can write what I want, publish it and enjoy the reaction without any middlemen or women getting in the way.

I'm so grateful to http://www.christianpf.com/ for a more detailed step by step process for developing my own Blog. Bob's advice and genuinely useful shortcuts became the final step in nearly eight years of preparation. I hope you might benefit from what has turned out to be my regular process checklist to produce articles and illustrations for this blog:

1. Develop a good idea for your target audience.
   
2. Write it down in a journal. (Write down one idea, two or three related ideas pop up)
3. Prioritize and develop only the best one.
   
4. Write a stub or partial article--in e-mail (The easier to cut and paste)
   
5. Look for a graphic under Image in Google or take the picture fresh
   
6. Resize the graphic in Photo shop
   
7. Write and begin to polish the final publishable version
8. Read it out loud to Gramma Rosie and correct obvious errors
   
9. Spell check and edit again.
   
10. Add the picture in standardized sizes, single, double etc.
11. Publish
12. Print and back up text and picture for future reference
    
13. Edit on paper and rewrite again
    
14. Edit the post and do final polish
15. Enjoy responding to the comments (or not)
    

After all "writing is not so much writing as rewriting". Mr. Crawford, my Feature Writing Professor at American University in 1969 helped me appreciate the craft of putting words and images together for publication. (The great thing about blogs is you can blurt and edit, so please, if you want to publish your own blog don't worry about going through my discipline. Simply go for it. The world is waiting for your insights.)

As a writer of captions, newspaper and radio stories, notebooks filled with roman-a-clef pages, several puppet shows and a full ninety minute musical including most of the lyrics, a blog is a wonderful excuse to write every day knowing that potentially many, including you will read, chuckle and be touched. This has been a look behind the scenes, how this blog is produced. I love those, "The Making Of___________" on the DVDs. It takes some preparation, yes, some checklists. Today you've had a chance to see some of my process. I offer it with you in mind. Here's to you, gentle reader! I write for you!! Enjoy!!! JRH