Write now, publish later

I've been writing blogs for a few years now, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's this. It is so much easier to come back and finish a post that you left unfinished than it is to write and publish a post from scratch.

What this means for me is that if I have an idea for a post I start writing it. If the post is more about pictures then I'll upload and place the pictures and put in placeholders for the text in between. If it's more about explaining how to do something I'll start writing the explanation, with perhaps a picture or two to illustrate the explanation. If I'm telling a story I'll start writing the story without worrying about whether it has a proper beginning and end. If the post is a list of steps to take or points to watch out for I'll start writing the list, or the explanation of what the list is.

I don't have to finish it. Sometimes I'm too tired, or have something else to do, or I don't really know how to finish it.

When I come back to it later it is usually very easy to clean up and finish one of these posts. I have at least a dozen half-finished posts in draft mode at any one time. Some of them I may never finish, or I might rewrite in an entirely different way. Others will be a great relief to me when I think I should publish something but don't have any ideas. The ideas are already there, waiting for me.