At the time of writing this, I am in the middle of an all-day Lord of the Rings/blog post editing marathon.
Did I mess up and start 4 hours later than I meant to? Yeah. Yeah, I did. And I’ll be paying for that come midnight. It was a dumb decision. Plus, I had a video call with my parents, which also took time away from the marathon.
How did I get here?
In a previous video or a blog post, I think had mentioned the idea of doing an all-day Lord of the Rings marathon while writing. And while that is still possible, I also came up with the idea earlier in the week to do an editing party instead of a writing party.
Of course, right now, I’m writing because I still need to post a video for today, and it’ll also let me show some clips from The Two Towers (which is currently playing on my DVD player). The fact that I’m on the Two Towers is great; it means I’m almost halfway through the whole day of this marathon. Still, I’m far from over, so that’s not much comfort.
But I’m watching the Lord of the Rings (or at least listening to it), so why should I complain?
So far, I have three blog posts completely done and scheduled. I mean, they’re ready to be posted. They’ve been edited, I created graphics, optimized them for SEO (I love the plugins I use to help me with that), and scheduled them.
I had debated on just focusing on the editing part because I think I would be able to get through most of the July posts that I’ve written drafts for, but I do like that the 3 I’ve done so far, I don’t have to worry about anymore because they’re scheduled.
Not to dim my success so far, but I have 15 blog posts left. My goal is not to finish editing them all by the day’s end. I won’t be upset if I do and won’t be upset if I don’t. It’s the middle of May (at the time of this writing), so I have more time to finish editing them.
What I’m focusing on, instead, is getting the process right.
Do I batch-create the graphics first, or do I edit and work on the SEO side of multiple posts first? Or do I do them as I have been, one post at a time?
The problem with batch-creating the graphics first is that while each of my post drafts has a title, those titles may or may not stay the same once I run it through the headline checker on WordPress. The title for my first daily writing practice update post went through a dozen name changes since most of them weren’t working. And while I could get the graphics ready (where all they’re missing is the title), I might also spend too much time creating them, slowing down the rest of the process.
That could be something I try with my next editing party.
What have I liked so far from this editing party?
First, I would never turn down the opportunity to do a LOTR extended trilogy marathon. And if I can be productive during said marathon, that makes it even better. Well, maybe not better, but certainly easier to justify.
I like that the effort to be productive to justify the marathon is great at keeping my motivation high. I’ve been at this for over 5 hours now, and I’m still going strong, albeit a tad hungry. Once I finish this writing session, I might snag a quick bite. A small morsel or two to feed my stomach so it’s not gnawing at me for the rest of the evening.
I’ve been filming my editing party, which has been a learning experience. Of course, I’m filming this writing session as its own video, but I’m also filming the editing marathon. And since I’m keeping it to 3 minutes, I’ve had to judge the length of clips, how frequently I start/stop recording, and where in the movie I want to record (such as the film title cards); it’s all been a lot. This is the choice I made, so I’ll stick with it.
Looking back on it, I really liked how it all went. I finished the day with 6 blog posts edited and scheduled, and I ended up filming a 3-minute video with the intent of having both a 3-minute and a 1-minute option for social media. Not including my writing practice video, of course. After editing the video, I ended up posting a 2-minute version instead and called that good. It gave me the best of both options.
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