My Article Pastureland
This is where articles go when they have lost their ‘oomph’.
I don’t know about other writers, but I start an awful lot more articles than I finish. I see some Triond writers posting several articles every day, and I wish that I could be that disciplined. It’s not that I am not spending time writing every day. My problem is that I don’t finish most of the articles that I start.
I do have lots of ideas that start off well in my mind, but never get written. Some that I am sure must have been brilliant ideas just fell out of my brain before I had a chance to write them down. Others that sounded brilliant in my brain just sounded stupid when I did write them down.
But most of them just lost their ‘oomph’ after a paragraph or two. I look through the titles of the articles in my pastureland every now and again, and I do go back and finish some of them. Often all they need is a concluding sentence or two, and then I deem them ready to submit. Many of them need some research to shore them up. I have actually stopped working on some articles because I couldn’t think of a word that was on the tip of my brain. Others really were just stupid ideas and ought to be deleted.
So how about you? Do you write most of your articles in one sitting, or do you send them off to pasture and come back to them later? Do you finish what you start?
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December 15th, 2011 at 5:51 pm
I have over two hundred in drafts, and have dumped about the same, but I write something every day, on my computer, or my lap top cheers Karen
December 15th, 2011 at 6:27 pm
One sitting for me, but my husband is like you he starts many and never finishes them. He often loses track of what he started out to say too and the article takes off like an out of control weed.
December 15th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
Same here… Sometimes I found myself sleeping with crumpled piece of paper under me…
December 15th, 2011 at 7:14 pm
I’m the same to, I often start too write something only to
find, I just don’t have the time to finish it as I would like.
Just do your best, one good article is better then ten bad ones.
December 15th, 2011 at 7:51 pm
I too will have many ideas to write about. I find myself initiating a few articles and later will resume back to completing them. So my friend like you, there is an article pastureland existing for me
December 16th, 2011 at 3:02 am
Very good point – I had six drafts in my Triond account sitting there for two years, until I deleted them recently. It doesn’t apply just to publishing online articles however; there are so many things of which you never get around to doing.
December 16th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
Karen:
You are, I think, describing what every writer goes through. I think I read in Writer’s Digest once that Stephen King has exactly the same issue. I’ve often spent nights or early mornings thinking of great story/article plots and jot something down on the pad next to my bed, only to wake up and read total gibbersih. Or I’m sitting at my computer and something comes to mind and I start writing — only to reread it sometime later and realize it wasn’t worth my time and there’d be no interest in it. What’s the solution? Just keep plugging away at it.
Cheers.
December 16th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
I have tons of ideas which I write down on my writing list. Once I start an article or a story, I keep at it until I finish it. I can write one , proofread and have it posted in about three hours. My problem is time to write. I have been working full-time hours for the last few months which leaves me little time. I have to find time to read my friends. I hope after the First of the Year after we take a vacation for our 30th anniversary to cut my hours back again and write more.
December 17th, 2011 at 5:40 am
I find that if I don’t start some articles soon after thinking them, they lose their oomph and the writing moment passes. However, others, if conceived while I’m busy, as they often are, I try to carry in my brain for the day and work on them in my head. I too have a pastureland of articles – I love that term Karen.
December 17th, 2011 at 8:50 am
When I get an idea (no matter how bizarre!!) I sit and type till it’s done. If it doesn’t flow it has to go – that’s my motto!!!
Although saying that, there are probably quite a few of my published articles that shouldn’t have seen the light of day…
Nice article!
December 21st, 2011 at 12:12 am
I know. I think of ideas but once I get to the computer they lose their wow factor. lol Nice article about articles!