When

I hated writing. I remember being given a piece of construction paper and being told to fold it in half and cut out a random shape. The teacher is at the front of the room with a big pair of very sharp scissors that have the ability to slice and dice and be precise. These things reminded me of the sewing shears that my mom kept in her sewing box. I can't ever admit to using them. No, not ever. I knew where they were, I knew exactly how they were stored, but no, not ever, could I ever cut paper with these fantastic scissors.

So here is my 3rd grade teacher, or a substitute, or was it an assistant? Yes, we had assistant teachers that would do things with the class when our regular teacher needed to grad tests, or make a test, or compute your grade at the end of the quarter. Yea, you had to respect the assistant, because if you didn't, well, a minor math error might keep you in the 3rd grade.

So I get a nice rectangular square of construction paper. Not the nice fine-grain, easy to fold artist brand paper that my mom kept around the house. Nope. This stuff was made from corn stalks, and practically had husks embedded in it. When I went to fold it, I cracked and split, and made an edge that was worse than a folded piece of plywood.

Then I get the scissors. Nothing like the shears that the assistant teacher has, I get a pair of blunted, dull, stamped 3" blade scissors. What's going on here, am I in an institution? I can't have a pointed object? I was bold. I walked up to the teacher. Not the assistant, I walked straight up to the teacher who was working on my grade, or someone else's, and said:

"Pardon me." and shut up. I waited for her shock to wear off and prepared to smile.

Up from her grade book she looks, and turns her head toward me, her eyes floating above the rims of her glasses. I began to ratchet up a smile and seeing her anxiety, I asked, "Do you have any sharp scissors? I really need something that has a good point on it."

"No. I can't let you have pointed scissors. You'll have to wait until the 4th grade for pointed scissors."

Here I was with a nice idea on my mind, and I needed something sharp and pointy to execute the design in my head. I figured that I could spend some time making a nice and intricate edge to give this thing a good look and I get handed a lump of rock to cut a delicate design. Confounded, I roughed out a fluffy cotton-ball shape that looked like a tree I saw in a book one time. It was with this space that I was then to write a story.

By now, I was just steamed. My mind had vapor locked and I decide that I was not going to do it. It was just not happening. I took the zero and just dealt with it. Had I been given a day or two to write a story within the given constraints, yea, sure. Give me the tools I need to excel at the initial task, and the inspiration will unlock me.

It's been a long time since the 3rd grade, and things have gotten quite a bit easier since then. I've apparently reached that age where I've got something to say and a way to say it. As is the case with any blog, you should consider a realistic post schedule. You might not want to communicate it to your readers, but you should communicate it to yourself. Make a commitment and keep it.

For this publication, I intend weekly frequency, with more frequent posts in the early days. I also schedule posts, since it is the case that I often have more material in a given time than is suitable to publish, either by rule or common sense. Writing keeps, and working ahead is the norm in the industry. Just ask any columnist.

The When of posting is very important when you consider the kind of interaction that you are aiming for. In the case of my daily blog, it supports comments, but not labels or reaction buttons. The reasons for these choices on a daily blog is fairly simple. Allowing comments gives the reader the opportunity to interact. It demonstrates openness. Labels can be added later, and I removed the reaction buttons after about post #35. I might re-enable them later.

All considered, I really don't expect comments, due to the fact that it is a fictional blog, or blogfic as the Web Fiction Guide classifies it. The goal of the blog is traffic, since it is an advertising supported site. I also track it using Google Analytics, and there is a feed available via FeedBurner as well. Everything a starved Science-Fiction addict could hope for.

If you are looking to spark conversation and get multiple points of view, advice from readers, or encourage the sharing of ideas, then a more infrequent posting schedule may suit you better. The general rule on the relationship to participation and post frequency is related to popularity. It may take some time for your blog to be discovered, but it is inevitable. The more viewers of your page, the higher the probability of comments, discussion and interaction in a shorter period of time.

Blogging allows for random, haphazard, and unusual publication as well. All of these methods work, but they work better with an established audience. Once you have an audience, then you can use tracking information to decide the freshness of each post, and this can determine when you choose to release the next post. Once you get into a situation where you are getting dozens of views a day, and comments start, the view rate will increase rapidly, but your user count will not experience a similar increase, since comments tend to generate return visits in addition to lower bounce rates.

In the process of getting listed on the fiction directories, the update frequency was one of the metrics that I was asked to supply. I noticed that my listing was put up fairly high for an initial listing, and perhaps the fact that it is a daily update helps too. I did notice that many of the blogs that make Blogs of Note have daily updates frequencies.

It still all comes down to You, and the commitment You make with Yourself. I'm not going to tell you it's going to be easy. I've pressed some deadlines lately, and I know all too well the panic that can ensue and constrict the creativity necessary to do a task well, and have it be enjoyable. However, I will tell you truthfully, that I like the feeling of accomplishment when I finish off the final proof and hit that Publish Post button.

Carpe Diem. If you're in the mood to write, just to it. Remember that you can always save it as a draft, and come back to it later. If you have three or four good ideas, make three or four drafts. Feel free to leave the title blank, and use the post list as an Idea file. You might find that working on two or three posts at one time is conducive to a particular task. Use the tool any way that works for you, but just do it.

Finally, you are in total control of When. Use the little Post Options link at the bottom of the text entry window when you are editing a post. This will let you see and change the date and time of publication. Note, that editing the post after publishing it will not change the date of posting or the sequence of the post in relation to other posts. If you change the date and time on an existing post, it will move, as you would expect it to.

If you're considering a blog that is suitable to be fed directly to a feed reader, or is something that lends itself to advertising by excerpt, it might be the case that edits to a post may cause a retransmission of an old post. I don't subscribe to my own blog feed, but perhaps I should, just to make sure that it is working as I expect it to. I'll keep you posted, and please do the same.