We all have blog posts we haven’t written. Boris Mann wrote about why he hasn’t posted some.
Here are the top 7 reasons I haven’t published some of the blog posts I’ve written.
- Half baked. My idea was half baked. A lot of times I find myself blogging about things I’m still trying to work out. Perhaps those half baked blog posts would spark interesting conversations but I often find myself saving them as drafts and starting a conversation in email or in person. These are the ones I think maybe I should publish.
- Twitter. I tweeted it instead. Many things are only worth a tweet these days. When I first started blogging in 2004, I used to blog interesting links. Now I tweet them instead.
- Too personal. Often I realize I need to talk directly to the person, not blog about them. Many times I want to blog when I’m frustrated about a person or a situation. In those cases, I usually just write the post, save it as a draft, and then call or email the person I’m frustrated with.
- Too rude. The person I was blogging about would know it was about them. I actually keep a list of the funny things I want to tweet or blog about but I need to wait a few months so that the subject doesn’t know it was them … these are usually the really funny ones. Although often they are tweets, not blog posts. And no, that tweet was not about you! 🙂
- Too private. I used to blog a lot more about my kids and my personal life. After some really negative comments on a post about my kids, I decided to make most of these private. I still tweet about the funny things they do and blog about some of the insights they give me, but most of my posts about my family are now private.
- Time. I have lots of really good topics I’d like to blog about. In many cases, I’ve started the post. I just haven’t taken the time to polish it and publish it.
- Not mine. I find this the most frustrating one. Often there’s a really good opinion, idea or a news item that I think should be shared but it’s not really mine to share. I’ve often offered to interview or guest post for someone but they rarely take me up on it.
Take a look at the draft posts you have. What are the top reasons you haven’t posted them?
Do you think I should post more of the above topics? How would you suggest I do that?
Top reason: I tend to do more journalistic posts at post404, and they take a lot of research. By the time I get to some, they’re obsolete!
But on the other hand, that leaves me with a higher percentage of timeless articles… 😉
Thanks for the prod, though, Stormy– I have some research/writing to do…
Usually I have to rewrite things to be more productive and less petulant. With blogs you have that luxury. In person, once you say it you can’t revise it.
In many cases I’ve revisited angry posts and made them into something useful. Those have been my most successful posts.
The things we write with passion shouldn’t be thrown away. They should be polished so people will listen — there’s usually something valuable in there that we learned through pain or hardship. It’d be a shame to tell that story and have people dismiss it because it’s too raw or personal.
I agree that the best posts have a lot of passion or emotion behind them. My top blog post of all time (still gets more hits daily than any other post I’ve written) came from a very emotional place. It attracts a lot of other people facing that same emotional decision.
Hey Stormy,
Heh, I’d noticed you’d stopped writing blog posts about your family. Shame about the comments that stopped you. But I can understand, and I think your 7 reasons are probably pretty common.
Cheers!
Excellent points, especially #4! GW made the same mistake that his dad did. Future presidents will need to take more time to examine the writings of potential nominees. Thanks for a good summary!