Formulaic Posts: Checking out Checklists

So... here I am... on the couch... trying to think of something to post about... um... TO GOOGLE!

When one puts 'Blog Post Checklist' into Google, there are an astounding amount of hits (well, of course there are, it is Google). Still, there are a lot of people who insist that there are 10-12 points that bloggers MUST hit upon before hitting 'post,' and, as expected, there isn't a whole lot of variance.

1. TITLE
Make it catchy? I think I did... did I?

2. WRITE SOME STUFF. (A cool intro is cool.)
Blah. BlahBlahblahblah. Blargh. Tada! Cool intro done.

3. BREAK UP YOUR PARAGRAPHS.
So I'm assuming that means to not write up mammoth paragraphs that only the most dedicated readers (aka my mother... HI MOM!) would actually pay attention to. I don't think I'm doing this - at least, not in this post. Not yet, anyway. This sub-section might be getting up there. ON TO THE NEXT ONE!

4. INCLUDE A PHOTO
Here is a photo of my shoes from a few years ago. I need to figure out how to format that thing. Leaving that there for now.











5. INCLUDE KEYWORDS.
So.... include words that are easily searchable? Should I add this to the Checklist pileup in Google right now? How do I do that? Google says: "Let's give out diagrams that make it probably more complex than it really is." Can I skip this step? Getting a lot of page views is not my main concern (though more page views would be nice, it's not exactly what I'm trying to do with this... right now).

6. TAG A LOT.
I will do that upon completion of the post. So... 'checklist,' 'list,' 'random ideas from the internet,' 'things other people tell me are important,' 'rant,' 'joke,' 'humor...' am I missing anything?

7. EDIT.
But I'm not done yet! What if I make a major typographical error in writing step 9 that I completely overlook because I only edited steps 1 - 7? THEN what?

8. HIT PUBLISH!
But I'm not done yet!

9. STORM ALL THE SOCIAL MEDIA!
But I don't have any social media for this blog. I'm skipping this step.

10. GO HAVE SOME COFFEE.
Why not? You deserve some caffeine from all that hard writing, titling, paragraph-breaking, photo-posting, keyword-including, tagging, editing, publishing, and social media storming that you had to do in the last nine steps. If you don't like coffee, have some other beverage of your choice.


BONUS TIPS:

- Brand yourself
   Ha. Ha. Ha. Haven't done this at all.

-  Use a Call to Action.
   Yes. My Challenge to You: GO ON THE HERO'S JOURNEY. NOW. (not really; this is supposed to ask a question or ask for responses or whatever).

- Be Cool
  But that's easy, surely.


Right, I can't do any other shenanigans that are part of a cool, legit website, because I'm not a web designer. I don't have huge plans for this blog to go viral or anything like that. Though I do like posting things that I write on the Internet, and I've considered using AdSense on the blog, I don't think it would work very well.
There are two major reasons for this: firstly, because I don't think I get enough hits to actually make anything; secondly, because I dislike ads as much as the next person - if I wanted to run a monetized blog, I would probably create a new blog and follow all the steps and try to make it all fancy like all the sites suggest. That, however, is not this blog. That might change, but I don't know.

Call to action for all you hooligans: what do you think about the content of the post? It's not intended to be a set of Legitimate, Follow-Wild-Card's-Steps-Perfectly sort of thing, but did you like it?

Going Back

This month, I want to work on typing up and editing my NaNo2011 novel (the one I wrote during November of my senior year; it is, in my opinion, one of the better novels I have written.  It is also the only one that has an ending that is connected to the rest of the story.  NaNo2012 has an end, but I have a scene or two to add before that).  It is going to be rather interesting, I have to admit.  I have not seen most of this novel in quite a long time - the middle bits tend to get ignored in the grand scheme of typing when there are a lot of false-starts.  Since this novel is in roughly the 100,000-115,000 word range, this is going to take a long time, and I hope I can get through it.

I think there are three important things I will need to focus on when I start editing:
1. Work out characters' back-stories more, especially the principal characters.  It is probably going to take a while, but if I know their stories better, I will be able to work out whether they would actually do or say something, or whether I was just putting a certain statement in to be punny or tack onto my word count (it's been known to happen).
2. Work on general plot arc/ subplot arc.  General plot arc comes first, then the subplots.  I made a list the other day: there are five plots in this novel (one main and four subplots).  I need to work out which should stay and which should go (or perhaps should just fade, but not leave entirely).  From there, I need to...
3. ... Work on scene selection.  I think this is going to be the hardest part of the entire thing, which is why I'm going to be doing it last (it's also last because I can't really do it well if I don't have 1 and 2 sorted out properly).  This step is where I add and subtract scenes to make sure it's actually going to work in the general plot.  I predict that my word count will shrink rapidly if I work on this step for a long time, and go thoroughly through step 2 (though step 1 might add a few scenes).

At this point, I need to stop thinking in terms of word count and start thinking in terms of MAKE THIS A BETTER NOVEL.  I am no longer in NaNoWriMo: I'm in WiCaEdMo (Wild Card Editing Month), in which word count and word quality are not the same thing (they never were, but the NaNo mindset tends to force you to ignore that).

Also, this is not an April Fool's Joke.

On Wording

In my First Year course, we have to write plays as our final project.  It's not supposed to be a long play, but it's supposed to have some sort of meaning.
That's not what I'm getting at, however.
What I'm getting at is that today in class, the drama professor went over wording: he emphasized that what you say is greatly affected by how you say it.
For example, if you have someone say, "I should probably pee," that means that their bladder is only half-full but they're in for a long stretch in a situation where relieving one's bladder is socially unacceptable.   However, if they say, "I NEED TO PEE!" that means that they really shouldn't have drank that two-liter bottle of Ginger Ale half an hour ago.  (drinking an entire two-liter bottle of ginger ale in one sitting is questionable under any circumstances, but that's irrelevant).

It goes beyond the situation of someone's bladder, though.  How you phrase a monologue can imply whether Beka wants Fuze to be happy, or whether Beka thinks Fuze should be happy.  What's the difference?  If Beka wants Fuze to be happy, it can carry the implication that Fuze's unhappiness is a matter of great concern to Beka.  If Beka thinks Fuze should be happy, it implies that Beka is rather concerned about Fuze's unhappiness, but it's also driving her up the wall.  In short, it can define whether Beka wants Fuze happy for his own sake or so that he'll stop complaining to her and stop irritating her so much.  It shows whether Beka is concerned more for Fuze's sanity or for her own.