Summary

The author discusses the challenges of maintaining a daily writing habit while avoiding over-researching and staying focused on the intended narrative, specifically when writing about personal experiences with their grandmother.

Abstract

The author, who has a PhD in American history, reflects on the struggle to write a daily post without getting sidetracked by extensive research, a common pitfall for historians. They share their experience of spending a day and a half trying to write a story about their grandmother, "Nana," but ending up delving into family history and genealogical research instead. The author emphasizes the importance of planning, setting specific story goals, and limiting research to maintain a daily writing and posting schedule. They offer lessons learned, such as making a list of stories, planning ahead, and considering reader interest to avoid writing about tangential topics. The author also acknowledges the difficulties of balancing writing with ADHD and a historian's curiosity, advocating for concise, easily digestible stories that can be written and posted consistently.

Opinions

The author believes that historians should be cautious about blog posting due to their tendency to delve into the extensive history behind every topic.
They suggest that writers, especially those with ADHD or a deep interest in history, should limit research to avoid getting off track.
The author values the importance of writing every day but also emphasizes the need for planning and focus to ensure productivity.
They advise against writing long stories every day, recommending a mix of short and long pieces throughout the week for a balanced approach.
The author implies that spontaneous writing inspired by sudden ideas can be beneficial, but it should not replace having a structured plan for daily writing.
They advocate for writers to critically assess their work to ensure it aligns with their goals and is of interest to their readers.

A Daily Writing Habit That Works

Without Writing All Day and Nothing To Post

Licensed from 123RF; copyright, melpomen

I spent days and nights and weeks at my Grandmother’s. I called her “Nana”, pronounced with a soft “a.” She loved me unconditionally. She had arranged my adoption.

Nana was crazy and partially blind. Opinionated and distrustful of anyone not in the family. By 12 years old, she had lost both parents. She grew up an orphan.

Our story together would be a chapter in my book. But first I’d put up a post about her and then after extensive editing put the story in the book draft. The focus would be “my life with Nana.”

But I got in my own way. I have a PhD in American history. This is not good. Historians should avoid blog posting at all costs. We think as historians. Everything has a history, a long history, a fascinating history, a history that goes back at least to the 1850s. A lengthy story that should be told.

I spent a day and half on Nana’s story and my story growing up with her. It still isn’t finished. But wait, my goal is to post a story every day. Not just write every day. Remember the challenge: write 30 stories in 30 days?

For writing Nana’s story I find the 10-pound, 132-year-old family Bible that has blank pages between the Old Testament and the New Testament for writing down births, deaths, marriages, and christenings.

Fascinated, I read pages that have nothing to do with Nana’s story. And add the names of great-great-grandchildren whose names are missing.

Then the Webster County history. It only weighs 5 pounds. Nana was born in Webster County, Nebraska. She isn’t in the book, but her parents and grandparents are, as is my Grandfather’s family, as is Willa Cather’s family. Ooh, so much to read here.

It details the history of a dozen families who moved to this county from Winchester, Virginia, including my Grandmother’s family, the Wilsons. I find my Grandfather’s family and a story about my great-grandfather’s general store and how he moved it to a new location by the bank on Main St. They came from Ohio, not Virginia. They are not part of the story about Nana and me.

Since information in the family Bible and the Webster County history doesn’t tell the whole story. I get a temporary subscription to Ancestry.com (I used up my 7-day free trial years ago.) Now hours pass as I’m deep into census reports going back to 1880 before Nana and I were born.

This leads me to Newspapers.com where I’d read Nana’s father’s obituary in the Richmond (Virginia) Times. He drowned in a pond on his homestead at age 45. (At least I didn’t drown in The Red Cloud Chief, the newspaper for Webster County which also can be read at Newspapers.com.)

The focus of my story was to be me and Nana. Not Nana and family members who died in 1902.

I wrote and researched for a day and a half and ended up with nothing to post for others to read. I’m not only still writing, I’ve yet to get to the part about Nana and me.

Lessons Learned

Make a list of specific stories you can write about. Growing up with Nana was on my list. An essay on her family going back to before she was born was not on the list.
Plan the week before. If every day means 7 days a week rather than 5, make sure not more than two stories involve research. 5 days a week, only one long story. Limit research to that which is easily searched on Google. Not half a library of old tomes.
Revisit your list. Could some stories be split into two or three stories? (Avoid setting them up as a series.)
If you write in several niches. Make lists for each of the niches. I write a lot about writing. I’m careful to break it down into multiple topics.
If you tend to blather on as I do, ask yourself if readers would be interested in what you’re writing. Ask if you’ve gotten off track. For example, if I’m writing about me and Nana, do readers want to know that dozens of families moved to Webster County, Nebraska from Virginia before she was born in Webster County?
If you’re an historian or PhD in almost anything and you have raging ADHD, reconsider if writing blog posts for a career is a good idea. ADHDers are interested in everything. Historians are interested in everything that could possibly be related to a topic. The combination of ADHD and historian is challenging
Think in terms of a 4–5 minute read for most of the stories planned for the week. If you have several long stories on your list, don’t put them all in same week. I’ve written some 15-minute reads with good reader response and been curated. I don’t regret writing them, but I didn’t write a new story every day of the week when I wrote them. They took too long.
Sometimes the best stories come from a light-bulb flash when you sit down with the morning’s first cup of coffee. Great. Go for it. Don’t bother with your list. But don’t count on light bulbs. If your goal is to write and post every day, plan ahead for those times when you can’t think of something to write about.

Now get busy and write. Write every day. Remember the more you write, the better writer you become.

How To Write Every Day

It’s not as hard as you think.

medium.com

If You’re Stuck:

When You Don’t Know What To Write About

Write What You Know, What You’ve Done, What You’ve Seen, What You Think, What You Feel, and What You’ve Learned

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