Behind the Blog

The lovely Christina at Route Bliss nominated me to take part in this behind-the-scenes blog hop (almost a month ago... whoops! But I'm a journalist at heart and am loath to write about evergreen topics when current stuff is happening)! So today you'll be getting a peek into my writing process... or general lack thereof. ;) Hah.

#1: What am I currently working on/writing?

You know those bloggers that have posts planned and written and scheduled six months in advance? Yeah, I am NOT one of those people. I went to journalism school, which means I'm used to banging out a story and squeaking in just before deadline (because, let's be real, sources never reply in a timely fashion). However, I've improved! Just in the last few months I've started keeping some semblance of an editorial calendar, mostly to keep track of my Miracle Monday and Travel Tuesday topics... and also so Friday doesn't roll around and I have zero idea what to write about. I do like knowing what I'll be writing in the coming weeks, but I like to write all my posts only in the few days before I want to publish them. Maybe it's just me, but I think it keeps my blog feeling current, to some extent; obviously Mondays are evergreen and Tuesdays have been all throwbacks, but everything I write is what's going on in my head when I hit that orange button.

Anyway, to answer the actual question... I'm getting ready to write my Travel Tuesday for this week at some point this weekend. And I'm trying to write this post really fast because I'm dying to get started writing this week's Miracle Monday! (I literally look forward to writing those posts all week. Don't judge.)

#2: How does my work/writing differ from others of its genre?

Do I even have a genre? I'm not a travel blogger: I'm a blogger that occasionally writes about travel. I'm not a lifestyle blogger: I'm a blogger that occasionally writes about her life. I'm not a sports blogger: I'm a blogger that occasionally writes about sports. And I'm certainly not a fashion blogger, period! So if you can figure out my genre, by all means let me know. But I guess that's my answer: my blog doesn't really fit into a genre, which means it's just inherently different by definition. #specialsnowflake

#3: Why do I write what I do?

Short answer? Because I want to.

Long answer? I get excited about things. Like, really excited. Fly-across-the-country, camp-out-on-the-streets-for-almost-a-week, make-tee-shirts excited. And what's a writer to do when she's bursting at the seams about something? I believe the scientific term is "keyboard vomit."

In all seriousness, though, not a day in my life have I ever blogged for page views. Do I get super pumped when I gain a follower or get a comment or my stats spike? Hell yeah I do! But I blog for me. Some of my favorite posts get lackluster views and/or no comments, and it's kind of a bummer, but as long as I'm excited by what I wrote, I truly don't mind. So even if nobody cares about what's going on in the Olympic world, and the thought of reading about another hockey player makes you want to cry... well, that's too bad, because that's what I'm going to write about. :) I'm all about putting out content that I want to read and that I'm proud of. And if I can get other people excited about the things I'm excited about, or teach someone something? Well, that is just the cream cheese frosting on top of the red velvet cake!

I write about things that make me feel like this!

#4: How does my writing process work?

Writing process? What writing process?

Like I mentioned before, I do have an editorial calendar with post topics loosely outlined. (And I do mean loosely; there are more cross-outs and arrows than I care to admit.) All of my posts are usually written within 1-3 days of being published. Beyond that? I generally just kind of... sit down and write. My Miracle Monday graphics are all made already (I got really overzealously excited and Photoshop-happy one day...), but for my other posts I edit images after I've more or less finished writing, and then just plug them in. I let everything marinate for a day or so, go back and re-read and preview and make whatever edits I see fit... and that's kind of it. Really, there's not much to see here. (Blogging is EASY. It's fun. I'm my own boss. Deadlines are soft. I don't have to spend hours transcribing interviews. I mean, truly, if you want to see a writing process, spend one deadline night in a newsroom. This ain't no process, it's stress relief!)

So there you have it! Hope nobody's too disappointed by my lack of interesting insight. ;) I nominate Lauren at lauren elyse CAN to continue this bloggy chain letter.

Happy Friday!

A Peek Inside My Reporter's Notebook

Back in 2011 (uh, how was it so long ago?!), I was on the editorial staff of The Hurricane, the school newspaper of the University of Miami. On one weekend, we all crammed into several cars and drove the few hours north to Orlando for the National College Media Convention. It was here that I was gifted my first ever reporter's notebook.

*heavenly chorus*

Prior to this historic moment, I'd been taking interview notes in a full-sized spiral notebook. How amateur, right? While I'm still a fan of bigger notebooks, this little baby was all too easy to stuff inside a small bag and carry with me 24/7. So I did.

I used it in every session at that conference to take notes, and it subsequently accompanied me on site visits for my classes in London...

Hot mess. You try taking notes while simultaneously walking around a city and freezing your fingers off.

...to any and all UM sporting events I worked...

Also a hot mess. From left to right, basketball, soccer and tennis.

...to the Miami Heat, Marlins and Sony Open press boxes...

Heat game that went into triple overtime, heyyooo. #fundeadline

...to my USA Volleyball internship...

 ...and everywhere in between.

Still two of my favorite interviews I've ever done. :)

Poetically, I finished it off with my last interview for USAV on my last day as an intern. Saaad day.

Needless to say, that little notebook contains some good stuff. I recorded most of my interviews, though, so all of those are just lists of questions. Pretty dull. But I've been to a pretty decent number of conferences, classes, museums, and various other things that I collected info from. And what use is all of that if that stuff just sits there? So I pulled some of my favorite little tidbits to share with the world. (Or, y'know, however many people decide to read this post. Same thing.)

+ "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes."

+"Write about things you're interested in. If you can't get excited about it, don't do it."

+"You can make anything interesting."

+"Do great work where you are right now."

+The top of Big Ben tower is more ornate than the rest of the building because it can be seen from far away, and it not so subtly says "Britain is the most important country in the world."

+Buckingham Palace is a rather nondescript building that was never considered a regal place for the royals to live, but is more about the memory of Queen Victoria.

+"What! You're still looking at 'things' instead of what 'things' are doing?"

+"You are here-ish."

+"The term for a mind at work without the softening influence of the heart is... 'stupid.'"

+"In this house it is not what you see, but what you have only just missed and are being asked to imagine."

+"It matters how you write, not what you write."

+"If you don't say out loud what you want, nobody's going to give it to you."

My personal favorites, of course, from Steve Boyd at London 2012 Ceremonies volunteer orientation. :)

It's kind of cool getting to flip through three years of my life and collecting some wisdom from it. Hopefully my current notebook gets to have an equally cool life! :)

(Info/quote sources: 1-4 ACP/CMA; 5-6 Architecture of London class; 7-10 Dennis Severs' House; 11-12 Her Campus National Intercollegiette Conference 2012)