There’s always something to howl about.

Blogoff Post #19: How to write a great blog post . . . ?

From the Problogger ‘How To…’ Group Writing Project, Blogging Blog teaches us how to write a great weblog post:

Once you’ve decided on a topic and a goal, begin writing. Don’t be hard on yourself yet – write whatever pops into your head. You can always change things later, but often you cannot remember lost ideas.

After you’re out of ideas, start editing your post – and be tough on yourself. Quality is far more important that quantity here. You want to be sure that your original message comes across exactly the way you intended it. You also will want to cut out some of the fat – remember, editing is absolutely crucial, and is a step you cannot afford to skip.

Actually, I consider this hideously bad advice, but probably the only way to learn to do better is by following it.

Usually — meaning not now — I have things written in my head before I take keyboard to finger. I don’t hate the idea of free-flow writing with a lot of chop-and-drop editing — except that it can be a huge waste of time. If you train yourself to draft next-to-perfect prose, editing becomes simple. Even better, because you have so little editing work to do, you can concentrate on punching up the prose with more-active constructions and perfectly apposite word choices.

But: How do you learn to do this? Write a lot. It gets easier…

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