My Blogging Process

This post has been a long time coming. Ever since I read about Harriet's process over a year ago, I've been wanting to share my own method for all things blog-related. It's so funny that something I started as an accidental outlet has pretty much taken over my life and now I have a few systems in place to keep things ticking over. There are so many guides for new bloggers out there but back in my day (okay 2008) I pretty much had to figure it out all by myself. I can't remember the logistics side of things when I started but eventually I came up with a complex folder system, a particular way of editing photos and a certain structure to my posts. I realised that people love to read blogs on Sundays, your first picture is what will come up on Bloglovin to entice people and a little bit about SEO. I'm dabbling in photography, copywriting, web design and marketing and I'm not quite sure where it's going to lead, but I'm having a lot of fun and reflecting a lot along the way!

Gathering Inspiration

Somehow with blogging, the ideas just keep a coming. My mind is probably a bit overactive, I'm always thinking about the why and how. A lot of posts can stem from something personal, whether it's finally finding dungarees that fit or the items I'm finding it hard to get rid of. Sometimes ideas just stay as observations but every so often, something more concrete springs to mind and I jot it down on a list. I try to see if there's a theme within items I've bought recently or sometimes a conversation with a friend will throw up something entirely new. External places can also be a useful source of inspiration, blogs and sites like Refinery 29/Man Repeller/Fashionista are a given but I also try to keep up with magazines for any further insight. At the moment I have a massive list of ideas to work through over the next 3 months but even if that starts to wane, there’s always wishlists, lookbooks or blogger street style to collate. I like to have a mix of things on IWYTK, especially a monthly post that will go a bit 'viral' (this means that 3 out of 4 aunts have read it in my case) and provoke a little bit of a discussion. I was nervous about sharing my honest experience of fashion week but it was so worth it in the end to see the comments and learn that I'm not alone.

Working through the list

I have a strange way of working as I like to do things digitally but also have a few physical lists on the go in some notebooks. I've been using Google Drive for the last 6 months or so and it's really revolutionised things, I have spreadsheets and all sorts! I transferred the ideas from several books into one main 'Ideas List' and outline the kind of posts I'd like to do that month, the following month and sometime in the future.

Logistics & Planning

Once I know the things I'd like to blog about within a two-week period, I start to plot the posts on iCal so I can visualise the order of everything and make sure that similar posts aren't too close together. I typically will post on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays and I know that my outfit will be on at the end of the week, so I try and work out which posts work better on the other days. Some things need more prep than others, so I try and make a note of the kind of pictures I need to take, source or arrange on Photoshop.

Snapping

All of my photos are taken with my trusty Canon 600d and 35mm lens (my tip if you're buying a DSLR is to just buy the camera body and a 50mm instead of the kit lens). There can be a few limitations, my house isn't very Pinterest-worthy so if I'm shooting a still life type of post, this usually happens in the living room where the best light is. I end up standing on chairs and sofas just so I can be far away enough and usually there's a rug to move and washing baskets to shove out of shot. Sometimes I can use a strategically tidied corner of my bedroom but most of the time I'm running back and forth, finding those extra touches to make things work. I have to be a bit creative so I have plenty of printed papers, wicker trays and pretty plates to make things look a bit more interesting. When I'm out and about things are a little easier, I know the areas I like and although it does seem weird to take photos outside random houses, it's a great backdrop and shows off London to the world. I always try and think of the bigger picture (geddit) whenever I'm getting stares or people try to photobomb my shots. Hopefully the end result will end up inspiring someone or creating a bit of a discourse but it's hard to explain at the time, so I just pretend to be a really enthusiastic tourist!

Editing

When it comes to editing, I don't do everything at once. With outfits sometimes I'll feel great about the pics when they're on my camera, be a bit iffy when I've uploaded them and slowly come around to what my face is doing once I've come to edit them. I'll curse myself for the shots that weren't quite right or completely unusable but then I try and tell myself, what will be will be. No one else will know or care about that perfect image you could have got, because it doesn't exist. Not everything can be documented and as long as you take a lot of options, you're bound to find something that will work. I've been shooting in RAW since August and it suits my control-freak tendencies well, as I can salvage the shots that are really overexposed. With this set of photos I edited down 466 photos of my Belgravia day out to 92, then selected 48 and ended up splitting everything into two posts. Once I start to place the photos in a post, I naturally end up filtering out a few so in the end I hopefully have between 10 and 20. Even though I'm quite happy with the way my photography has progressed, I feel like I still have so much to learn. Eventually I'd like to buy a full frame camera and master Lightroom for editing. I could also challenge myself a bit more when shooting indoors when it comes to setups and lighting.

Writing

For some reason my blog posts folder seems to be the most organised I get, each post has a designated area and they move from 'planned' to 'posted' to free up space. I start to construct a post in batches, I place the photos in the order I want, write some dummy text as a marker, go off and eat something, come back write a bit, check Facebook, you get the idea. Then there’s the wheel of death. Sometimes I get my ideas for copy at the most random times. For example, this sentence came to me during Alan Carr's Chatty Man on the 2nd, whilst simultaneously tidying my room. When I think that something needs to be noted down, I make a quick note of any paragraph ideas on my iPhone. There's nothing worse than not knowing how to start something off so these little starting points are handy when I'm ready to start constructing. In terms of this post, I made some notes on the 2nd, took some photos on the 3rd, added a bit more on the 8th, took more photos and edited on the 13th, then tweaked and published on the 14th.
Not all of my posts are this much of a faff, usually I like to do everything in clear stages but due to the nature of this post, I took some snaps whilst I was working on other things plus I had plenty of ideas for text at the most random times. An outfit post is usually a bit more straightforward, I select photos on one day, edit and place photos the next and write everything after that. Basically at any one moment, I may have about 6 posts that I'm thinking about, it's enough to make your head hurt The key for me is to give myself flexible deadlines, if something isn't working I usually have a bit of time to rethink it before it needs to go up and I always try to have less time-consuming ideas waiting in the wings. I will double check posts just before they go live or in the morning if I'm scheduling them and need to go out.

Ta da!

Usually if a post is going live that day, I double check a few things before publishing. Does it actually make sense? Are there any rogue apostrophes? My writing is pretty instinctive and it's easy for me to have a sentence of several lines or to use 'but' repeatedly, so I try and reign things in a little. Once I hit 'Publish' I create a custom bit.ly link, schedule a Facebook post and sometimes prep a reminder for Instagram. My guilty pleasure is checking Pinterest to see what people are pinning (have you noticed that every image has a 'pin it' button, just sayin'). It’s not just pictures of me (thank god) but a diverse mix of everything this blog is about and of course that circle scarf tutorial. Somehow I attempt to have a life when I'm not blogging, but I try not to get too comfortable as there's always another post on the horizon. By this point I should know what it is and it should be halfway there.

I'd be interested to know what your blogging process is or if you've written anything similar. Some of the steps in my routine have come from reading about other methods or seeing how bloggers like Lucy and Carrie work. I'm fully aware of the time everything takes (Plum's written a great post on the subject) but for some reason it doesn't bother me, as I'm building something for myself and doing something that I love. My key is breaking things up a little, shooting one day, writing on the next and spreading the work. I've created a blogging help Pinterest board where I'm going to keep any useful articles, so make sure you follow!

P.S I don't know why the formatting of this post is so dodgy, I hate Blogger sometimes! I'm currently double checking this on my phone, which messes things up a little.