Goal of the day: 1590 words. Written: 416.
...The fact that it's more fun to create new content than to edit old content.
Despite the fact that a blog is like a shelf of your favourite collection on your living room wall.
A blog is a kind of creative work (writing, drawing, music... um, and so on) that you do in small bits and pieces, and over the course of a year or six months, you build up a big collection of work.
If it's a knitting blog, like the quite charming Virbalynė, which I find quite charming, then if you write it less often, you'll inevitably end up with a little beginner's knitting encyclopaedia. If you write a novel, over time you build up a big book from small chapters.
Unnoticed.
It's like smoking cigarettes to grow crayfish or eating doughnuts to grow fat. One article and one cigar doesn't kill anyone. It's a different matter if it goes on for a year or more.
I've been building my blog Debesyla.lt for 3 years.
First of all, of course, I didn't know how to write or illustrate. Now, I am no better. But that is not the point.
Instead of leaving my collection to mould (or dust), I started repairing it.
1. I have reviewed all the articles on the blog. Which ones are worthy of my attention and that of my future readers? Which are not worthy? Which have received hundreds of shares? Which have received less than 100? Which topics are still relevant to me and which are no longer relevant?
2. I deleted all the texts that I was desperate to correct. Too many mistakes, too much nonsense, too little attention (and readers' attention is a sign of whether a work is worth keeping). Yes, they can be kept. But why should I dilute the quality of my blog? After all, you don't find 50-year-old computers sitting in an Apple store "because someone might still like them".
3. I am starting to revise the texts. I have warned readers that some articles will be unavailable for the next three months (November, December and January 2016). One by one, I took them out of the live page and rewrote, illustrated, and linked to newer articles that I had not yet written.
4. I gave the texts to the editors. Because who am I, a fool, to correct them myself? A writer's job is not to put words together - his job is to select ideas. The editing was done by my wonderful helpers, whom I willingly paid euros to. For good work, it's worth it! <3
5. I have returned the texts to the page. I published. Each week I sent out a small email advertisement to subscribers telling them which articles had been updated (slightly, substantially or not at all).
6. At the end of the revision, I went through the texts and checked each one carefully. Do all the links work? Are all illustrations visible? Are all ideas logical? Is the flow of the texts also logical?
Some texts have changed beyond recognition. Others have just become tidier, shorter and more knowledgeable.
Perhaps the only drawback is that all the articles have become somewhat more uniform after this update. But that's OK - the new ones are different. Like the text you're reading (or hearing from your friend's lips) at this very moment.
You can now find these articles directly at Debesyla.lt. On the archives page - only the best ones are left.
Well, aren't you thinking about updating your blog?