My writing process:
1. I get a thought. I read up on it, talk loudly to myself, call my friends and discuss it, crystalise what I think about it.
2. I send it in its most basic form to my own WhatsApp number.
3. I finish the work at hand.
4. I go to my WhatsApp and start typing the post on the phone.
5. I write it all out and send it. To my own number (this is an unused number no one knows about).
6. At a later time (this could be minutes later or weeks later), I open up my WhatsApp messenger on my laptop and copy-paste the post into Facebook.
7. I have, by that time, thought up of an appropriate image(s)/photo(s) to go with it. I edit, download, and rename those to make them easy to identify. I also identify any links/URLs I may need to include.
8. I prepare my blog post on Blogger.
9. I copy-paste the same onto my website (yet to be launched).
10. I format and edit any one version. This usually goes through 2 or 3 revisions.
10. I then copy-paste this to the other two places.
11. I upload the image, mark the location, adjust the time of the post, write a short summary (for Twitter, and sometimes LinkedIn).
12. I publish simultaneously on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn (if appropriate), Blogger, and my site.
13. I re-read it. Invariably, I find typos, mistakes, etc. I correct, and edit and re-edit (some of my edit histories have 3 or 4 dozen edits) and keep copy-pasting it to all the places published (Twitter has a link to my Blogger, and so, even if Twitter posts are uneditable, the post on Blogger is).
14. I forget about it. I do not engage or respond unless really necessary.
15. I go back to whatever else I was doing until I get the next idea.
I know. I am a boring, process-driven, detail-obsessed person who is a misfit in any place but a shopfloor of perhaps an automobile factory, a place I have only ever visited as a guest. But somehow, I manage to do this, consult on business, branding, systems, processes, and positioning matters with my clients, run a jam company (badly), be a father and son (and at least for the time being, a husband, until the papers come through), and find time to dream a dream where I have a motorcycle and the freedom to go wherever I want to. The problem (other than not owning a motorcycle) is that I do not want to go anywhere except where my little Baby bear is. At least for the time being.
Will someone as ‘organised’ and structure-loving as me ever get to just get up and ride off? Who knows. The future is an exciting place. And I cannot wait to get there.
