It’s like childbirth. (Apologies if this metaphor doesn’t work for you.) Scary, exhilarating and, yes, painful. To be precise, it feels like the last stage of giving birth. Suddenly it’s going faster, there’s an unstoppable momentum and you know there will be a result that will make it all worthwhile.
And yes, I’ve been through it three times (childbirth, not writing a book) with two remarkable daughters (see Amanda running the Boston Marathon here) and a remarkable son to show for it.
I’ve still got a lot to write and wrestle with… onward.
In writing the chapter called "What Your Organization Could Do With a Blog" I’ve rounded up all the usual suspects. A partial list:
- Blogging as a complement to (or replacement for) traditional PR
- Blogs as the new corporate Web site
- Blogs and microbrands (thanks to Hugh Macleod)
I queried some blogging colleagues on their ideas for "categories" of business blogging. True to bloggy form, the conversation immediately veered off into a spirited discussion of why putting blogs into categories is a bad idea because a blog is just a publishing tool or content management system, etc. Dave Taylor sums it up here.
Despite the detour into "just content management," I’m packaging up the chapter as "ways you could use a blog." Being specific and showing examples of the kinds of things other companies are doing is awfully helpful to most folks. (Of course the book also explains how a blog IS in fact a simple content management system.)
Oh, and a new (or new twist) category of blogs emerged this week: blogging to create a viral marketing campaign. Budget Rent A Car has launched Up Your Budget. It’s an entirely blog-based, four-week, 16-city campaign with $160,000 in prizes…
Continue reading “So what could your organization do with a blog?”
Oh, if only it were this easy to write a book.
I just "exported" the contents of my BlogWrite For CEOs blog into a text file; then turned it into a Word doc.
404 pages. 82,097 words.
That covers the almost one year I’ve been blogging at BlogWrite (November 2004 to date). I’ve also got a blog at www.DebbieWeil.com that I began in June 2003.
Now if I could just press "publish" and send it on up to Adrian Zackheim, Will Weisser, Adrienne Schultz and the rest of the team at Penguin Porfolio. Though they’ve asked me for approximately 200 pages and 50,000 words. Well, we’ll just do a quick edit and cut it down. No sweat. (I’m kidding if that isn’t obvious.)
So blooking sounds cool. (Definition here and here.) I’m interpreting the term loosely, of course. But it’s just not the same as writing a real book. And really, would you want to read my unorganized musings instead of an organized narrative (which will have more stuff in it too)?
BTW, here’s a blook-in-progress: Hackoff.com. It’s a murder mystery by Tom Evslin set in the dot com bubble. Unfolding blog-like on a blog. And have you heard about the new Lulu Blooker Prize for Blooks?
Revealing interview with Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down. Thanks to my agent Elizabeth Wales for the link.
"When I write a book, I invent the process anew every time. It’s about maintaining files and grouping information as I’m reporting and assembling it in a way so that I’ll be able to find it again when I need it. I then shuffle the files as I’m writing in order to organize the information for ready access. I continue to report as I’m writing.
I always outline. I start making outlines for anything I’m writing, whether it’s a magazine article or a book, very soon after I begin reporting. It’s an old newspaper reporter’s habit.
When you have the story organized in your mind, it helps you with the reporting. It helps you make decisions about what is significant to you and what is not.
An outline is a very fluid thing. I change it many times over the course of writing because I find that in a long piece of writing, essentially what you’re doing is thinking the story through, carefully. On these stories you can’t hold them in your head all at one time. The only way to experience the story is to start doing it. And once you start doing it you find yourself pulled in different directions, so if you adhere rigidly to an outline before you begin writing, in my opinion, you cut short any insights you gain through the process of writing."
I’m more of a hare than a tortoise in my approach to writing. And frankly, that’s not a good thing when you’re working on a book. So I’m going to step back into a pre-editorial mode for a week or so to compile more notes, key
points, resource links, quotes, print-outs, etc. for each chapter.
Several helpful readers suggested this below. And
my agent and friend Elizabeth Wales reminded me today that
stepping back into a non-editorial (read "non-judgmental") mode can be hugely productive.
It’s
called "assembling" a non-fiction book so that you have all your
information - organized and retrievable - at your fingertips. Elizabeth
suggested that I make a master list of what’s in each file. Then as I start writing I can refer to the master list to find tidbits, ideas
or quotes that might fit into whatever chapter I’m working on. Of course, there’s a new article everyday on blogging. So this is going to have to be an iterative process.
Onward. Building a book one brick at a
time… or is it one blog post at a time?
P.S. Feel free to add more tips on writing below. They’re helpful and so encouraging!
Useful Links
Writing Nonfiction by Dan Poynter (talks about "building" a book)
The Clockwork Muse by Eviatar Zerubavel (thanks to Christine Larson for the tip about this marvelous book)
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