Blogging for Writers

Writer's Challenge: From Tweet to Piece? Days 4 - 6

Can I take a sports talk radio quote I tweeted about and forge it into an article?  That was the burning question in my writing brain last week. The answer is maybe.

Yesterday I actually finished the draft of the experiment and it's more suited to a blog post at this point. I'll post it after I hear back from my critique team. 

It was a good writing exercise with a self imposed deadline.

Writer's Challenge: From Tweet to Piece? Day 3

"When you find the right guy you need to stick with him until he figures it out." - Erin Hogan referring to Rick Barnes 

That quote has been writing/thinking fodder for three days. Can I turn that quote I tweeted into a workable piece/post? Here's the product of day 3: 30 minutes on elliptical today. Found an inspirational post on copyblogger.com yesterday that helped clarify thinking on this project. Can't remember exact post and didn't spend too much time looking for it. (Yea me!)

During quick peak at copyblogger.com did find a different post that helped me today. How to Write an Article in 20 Minutes by Jim Estell. What a perfect fit for my current mindset. In the post I recognized things I was already doing. (Validation!) I also took away a gem - "Sometimes I have to give up a point to write a good article." Excellent. I will go with the four points I had outlined at the start of this session and work on them tomorrow. I feel so productive - easily humored.

Writer's Challenge: From Tweet to Piece? Day 2

During today's 30/30 started with some quick blathering about the writing process. Ended up figuring out a plan for the Rick Barnes "Tweet to Article" experiment.

Here's the text from that:

So, I'll look at yesterday's 30 minute writing and see what raw material is there.  My deadline will be Thursday. If I don't have it fleshed to an article draft by Thursday, I relegate it to a blog post. Yesterday worked with music on ipod, just listening through catalog, not sure if it will work today. Word count of topic material spewed yesterday is 274, just out of curiosity.

Stuck when trying to write. How to untangle my thoughts? What questions do I ask?  What's my point?

Started a semi-outline. A decent analogy emerged. (2 minutes left on timer now. Need to post.)

Good progress. Kept writing. Even did a bit of research without being sidetracked. (FireRickBarnes.com is parked, not active. Glad about that. Also glad the Horns beat OU last night.)

Writer's Challenge: From Tweet to Piece?

On sports talk radio this morning I heard a comment about basketball that applied to marriage. Did a quick tweet about it via @64mascots. Went to YMCA for 30/30 time (30 minutes cardio/30 minutes writing). Spent 17 minutes seeing if I could flesh out the idea into a coherent analogy. Simply typed ideas, some complete sentences, some not. The point was to get ideas down.

When I got to a digestion point, a point of needing to think more on the subject, I let it rest. Switched focus to producing a blog post in 13 minutes.

With about 7 minutes left it was time to post. Did a quick cut n paste from Google Docs to Typepad. Editing post just a bit.

30 seconds left. (What? iPhone died..no music, no timer..big distraction..ok, just finish the post.

Tomorrow's 30/30 will be spent on the same project.

Have you ever used a tweet for a springboard for a longer piece?