Follow the steps

Writing a blog post should be a fairly simple, 3-stepped process.

Step 1: choose your subject.

Obviously, you need to have something interesting to write about. This being a knitting blog, a recent FO is primo blog fodder.

Step 2: take pretty pictures.

Pictures are a big plus, especially in a knitting blog. It's all well and good to talk about your progress or your FOs, but if you don't show them off, you're not using the medium to it's full potential. A pictures is worth a thousand words. Duh.

Step 3: Publish your post.

You've got the subject and the pictures, what the heck are you waiting for? Get blogging!

Seems fairly simple, but over the past 3 years I've come to realize that these 3 steps aren't really as cut and dry as they seem. For instance, step 1, now that's a biggie when you've got 2 kids, you're working full time, and most days are a blur of errands and other trivial pursuits, none of which I find particularly inspiring to write about. I mean, if you as a writer can't be bothered to spend time on a particular subject, why on earth would your readers want to?

Step 2 is complex as well. Sure, you've got the FO, but do you have time to take the pictures? Are they nice pictures? Do they do your knitting justice? How do those *other* bloggers do it? Don't they have jobs?

Even if you manage to make it past steps 1 and 2, step 3 is just waiting to bite you in the arse. You'll stare at the blank screen for 20 minutes, the cursor silently mocking you with its insistent blinkiness. You'll pull the memory card out of your camera and drop it, say, between the couch cushions. You'll try to fish it out, but will only succeed in pushing it further into the murky depths of the couch's innards every time you graze it with your fingertips.

Yup, blogging is quite the ordeal. I think it's a miracle I'm still at it after 3 years.

Happy Knitting Everyone!