What's New And What's Next: Editorial Calendars

So those of you who read this blog on occasion will know two things:

1. I have to spellcheck "occasion" because it is one of those words I just can't quite figure out
2. I am constantly talking about how to write and publish more consistently

The first one will probably never change, but I am working on the second one in a very concrete way by creating an editorial calendar. Editorial calendars organize writing topics and publishing schedules so that you always have something to write and always have a post in the pipeline. Right now, it looks like this:

That coffee cup in the lower left corner is empty. #NotGood

Yes, that is a planner, an old-fashioned tool if ever there was one. Guess what? I love a planner. I love it more than the fancy editorial calendar I signed up for online because it will allow me to work on the future without lugging my laptop around. I don't always want to be chained to electronics.

But I digress. For those of you who are writers, wondering how an editorial calendar might help you, here's what I have learned:

1. You need to use what works for you. CoSchedule is a great online editorial calendar that also helps organize and schedule social media, but I prefer the tactile sensation of writing it down. Once I get the act of planning and working ahead down, then maybe I will look at it again, but for now, my June-July planner works great. Plus, CoSchedule costs money, and I am a big fan of #free.

They do offer a 14-day free trial, so if you are a fan of online tools, give it a whirl. 

2. Everything is a blog idea, but creating overarching topics help. I currently have two blogs and a million ideas for both. Anything can spark an idea, but if you have main topics that you cover, you can easily tailor the ideas to your blog. For example, my food blog right now has four main topics: how-tos, recipes, ingredients and local food, and reviews. My next blog on the calendar is a recipe for gluten-free pizza, but I am also working on a blog about the Maryland blue crab (local ingredients and local food) and a book review of Ratio by Michael Ruhlman (life-changing book for a cook). I keep a running list of quotes, ideas, and websites, then look for an angle that fits my mission.

3. Speaking of a mission....Write a mission statement for your blog. I will be honest and tell you that I am still in the process of this. I will also be honest and say that until it is finished I will have an uneasy feeling. A mission guides everything that you do, as an entrepreneur or a writer, and without one you are simply flailing about wildly.

From here. 

Side note: A mission is not quite the same as a goal. My goal is to monetize my blogs usefully for my readers so that they make money for me and replace my mercenary writing income.  This goal will hopefully be realized as I focus on each blog's mission. 

4. Don't sweat it. I won't lie: I sweat it hard. Anxious is my operating system. I am a worrier. I get overwhelmed by everything I don't know about what I am doing. This is bad business and patently unhelpful. In these times, like today, where I have a million little notes scattered across three notebooks, I like to remind myself of this lovely little saying:

What's the best way to eat an elephant? One bite at a time. (click to tweet!)

So today I am working on organizing blog ideas into topics and matching them with a theme or a structure for the end of September. I am writing this blog to help me track the process and to start to test some new technologies (like the "click to tweet" and the gif above).

5. Social media should be an integral part of your editorial calendar. I have used social media in a haphazard way, but an editorial calendar can help you plan and keep track of how well a blog post is doing. I use Hootsuite to schedule social media, but I don't follow up and re-visit posts that do well (or do poorly). This is part of the learning curve for me (tailoring the message to the media), and honestly one of the reasons I have avoided this whole process for so long. But as the seasons change, it's time to move forward and get serious.

I am still a bit overwhelmed by this beginning, and the realization that I am going to have to do this type of planning on a regular basis, but I am also hoping that I will be able to streamline what I do a little bit. Right now, I don't take any days off from working, and I sometimes have long gaps in publishing. This is not good for me as a writer or my blogs as a place to get any kind of legit info. I want to be able to take a week off and still have all of my blogs and social media go out. I want to be able to spend a day at a museum or on a road trip exploring without worrying about how far behind it will put me. I can build these things in. #EyesOnThePrize

Writers, what about you? How do you stay on track with blogs and social media? Do you use an editorial calendar? 

The Road To Hell

So my 30-days-of-blogging extravaganza came to a screeching halt on the 15th when life intervened in the form of malware.

I am going to go ahead and give myself a big fat pass for missing the last five days because, well, just because. We all of us sometimes need to just forgive ourselves for not following through. It doesn't matter a bit sometimes why we don't follow through. In my case, a substantial malware infection, a yoga teacher training weekend, and a renovation intervened, not in that order, but even if I just felt like taking the weekend off because it was a gorgeous two days strung together, that's good, too.

This yoga weekend was not particularly fabulous for me, on a couple different levels, but the one thing I had reaffirmed was that it's really important to figure out what it is you want and go for that. The guest teacher talked about the word "should" as the heavy cat-o-nine that we flagellate ourselves with. He called it "shouldistic behavior" and said we were "shoulding" all over ourselves, two clever plays on words to indicate the painful and grotesque ways in which we sometimes attempt to motivate ourselves.

This applies even when your intentions are good. If you say things like "I should exercise more," then maybe your inner anti-cheerleader is talking shit in your head about how flabby you are. Maybe it's comparing you to the toned arms or buff abs of other people. In this way you perpetuate the cycle of feeling badly about yourself instead of focusing at the core of why you aren't doing what you feel you "should" be doing.

And here is (one of the places)  where the teacher and I parted ways. He said that motivation is about changing the word "should" to the word "want," and then everything will be just peachy. Turns out that is kind of bullshit. I have studied what motivates people for the past 18 years and have found unequivocally that just changing the words, although that may be a start, is not nearly enough to change the behavior. Even just changing the behavior (like forcing yourself to exercise more) doesn't really silence the anti-cheerleader or change the internal dialogue.

And here's the unfortunate punchline: motivation is a complex issue that I have no answer to (nor do experts, really. Just suggestions.). Neither did the speaker in the workshop (although he seemed to feel that he had the only answer, and any time there were objections it meant the objector just wasn't ready for his message or the objector was lying to themselves or  some other something. I felt like this teacher's ethos was very deeply rooted in est, the cult founded by Werner Erhard. I can speak directly to my interpretation of his premise because my father forced the entire family to go to an est weekend when I was younger, and the humiliation of that remains a vivid memory).

In other (somewhat depressing) words, motivation is unique to each person and can change over time. Key components to following through seem to be a mix of factors that are both internal and external. People who spend their lives being externally motivated (by gold stars as a child in school, by money in a job, or by compliments on appearance) may find themselves at a loss should (when) those external things disappear. Internal (intrinsic) motivation is far more valuable in the long run but far harder to cultivate, especially in a culture that is so comparative (and competitive)  in nature.  And, as evidenced by this weekend's computus interruptus, internal motivation can still be affected by the vagaries of life.

And here's where the rubber meets the road to hell:

"Notice that the stiffest tree is most  easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind." ~Bruce Lee~

It's good to have goals and develop persistence and internal motivation. It is satisfying to meet the bar we set for ourselves.

What's not good is beating ourselves up when shit happens. What's not good is comparing what we are doing to what other people are doing. What's not good is "shoulding" all over ourselves to the point where we are a puddly mess, incapable of taking the shape of the next move (that's  a Wonder Twins reference).

So today I am back on the road to hell. Expect blogs this week covering writing like a motherfucker and why Deepak Chopra made me cry. But if it doesn't happen, that's fine, too.

Have a beautiful week. Or don't. Either way, don't beat yourself up.

Namaste.

(image source)