The Blog is Back

It’s been a year since I’ve written a post, almost to the day. I’ve been focusing on other things like translation work, micro-blogging on Twitter and so on. I had planned out my posts for the past year, but the plan was vague and that’s probably why it didn’t come to much.

 

 

This year I’m feeling much more inspired blog-wise. At least right now anyway. I’m planning to write a summary of my recent Twitter series on how everything sustainable development is connected, about what to consider when writing a style guide and some reviews of the indexes and maps I come across in my day-to-day work.

I hope these blogs will be of interest to my clients (as they are of interest to me) and help them in their work.

This post, however, has a different purpose. I’m writing this one specifically to hold myself accountable (to whoever reads it, I suppose). My target is to write at least one blog post each month.

Why did I stop writing posts before?

Like many translators I’m very detail oriented and writing blog posts took me such a very long time. I would obsess over the research, the structure, the wording and the possibility of a typo creeping in. I would spend hours revising the same thing over and over. Needless to say this was not a particularly enjoyable or fruitful process.

This time around, I’m taking a different approach. For a start, my posts will be shorter, just over 500 words, and they will not be as polished, but I will endeavour to make them interesting, informative and easy to read.

Working on my tweet series, and being methodical about doing so, has also shown me that I enjoy difficult tasks more when I’ve built a system around them. For my tweets I have a couple of spreadsheets that map out which topics I’ve covered and when and what I’m going to post next. For my blog, I’ve now set aside time to do research, write a first draft and revise it. I hope that breaking the writing process down into smaller chunks will make it less daunting and more enjoyable.

What do I plan to write about?

This is my post for October. I don’t want to run before I can walk and try to knock out two posts in one month. I’m going to pace myself.

By the end of next month I’m hoping to have finished Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman so I will write a review of that for November. I’ve long been thinking about writing a book review but I read so little fiction that I was put off the idea. But non-fiction books deserve reviews too.

In December, I’ll share some thoughts on the importance of clear writing, not only to improve readers’ understanding but to increase their engagement with the message by inducing “cognitive ease” (a concept I learnt about from Thinking Fast and Slow).

In January, I plan to write a quick guide to developing a language policy. This will be primarily aimed at the third sector but could be equally applicable to corporations.

If I can get those three blogs written, checked and published, I’ll be well on my way to forming a blog writing habit.

If I don’t, anyone reading this has my permission to hold me accountable. That is the point of this post after all!