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Ron asks:

“Bryan, you’re one of those writers that seems to be able to put an interesting twist on just about anything, and I thought you might blog about your writing process. How far in advance do you write your posts? What’s the process by which you get your post ready? (type it and hit “publish” versus a “write it, revise it, sleep on it, revise it, publish it” approach) Where do the more creative ideas come from? (like sending kids out in the snow barefoot or trying to sneak ingredients into your wife’s cooking). I guess that list of questions could go on and on, but basically I’m curious about your writing process, and I think it’d make for some interesting reading.”

First off Ron, flattery will get you everywhere. But being a Yankees fan completely nullifies the nice things you said. So, the pinstripes cancel out the compliments and you’re back to even.

Let’s tackle this one question at a time.

“How far in advance do you write your posts?” - Not far. Usually over the weekend I will get 2-3 ideas, and on Monday I’ll write out a schedule for the week on a post-it note. Then as I get ideas throughout the week, I can slot them in and try to post twice a day. Sometimes nothing is scheduled and I’ll just post an idea when I think of it, but this usually leads to posts that aren’t as good as they could be. which leads to the next question.

“What’s the process by which you get your post ready?” - Ideally, I write a majority of the post on one day, and don’t post it until a day or two later. I think most writers will tell you that “writing” and “editing” are two distinct modes they can get in. I know it works that way for me. So if I write a post, then switch to edit mode and try to clean it up moments later, it’s often not my best effort. Even if it seems great at the time, the next day I’ll usually catch an instance where a different word would have been a better fit or I’ll see an obvious joke I missed.

The one thing I ALWAYS do before I post something is to use the Wordpress “Preview This Post” button. That way I can see the post as the reader will see it, and oftentimes it’s there that I will catch typos, missing words, bad sentence timing, and all sorts of other garbage.

“Where do the more creative ideas come from?” - The scary recesses of my brain, I guess. I think most of us get random thoughts in our heads from time to time, maybe I get more than normal…or maybe not, I don’t know. But looking back, for the past 10 years I’ve always had a creative outlet for the silly things I think of that make me laugh. I’d either bounce them off Erica, share them with a friend, or post them on a message board. These days, the blog serves as that outlet for a majority of what I’m thinking about.

I think a huge component of blogging is momentum. If you are in the habit of posting on a daily basis, then you are always on the lookout for blog-worthy things. Sometimes they smack you right in the face, other times you need to create them. Having my kids go out in the snow was totally random. I just put the camera on hoping they would say something funny. You can hear the genuine surprise in my voice when they said they would actually go outside. As for the Jason Bourne thing, that is something I do ALL the time. (Yesterday i put 3 straws into her coffee cup when her back was turned…just because I could). I thought a video of me trying to be sneaky might be a fun watch…and thankfully it turned out pretty good. If it hadn’t, you would have never seen it.

When I’m putting together a blog post, these are the 3 things I consider:

1. Is it interesting to me? There’s no way I can write about something in an engaging or entertaining manner if I’m bored. If I am interested by it, then I will probably be able to make it interesting to you. (Hopefully). This takes discretion, of course. I care about my fantasy baseball team a whole lot, but I know none of you do, so you’ll rarely read anything about it. Unless I win the championship, in which case I might post about it, but only if I can make it somewhat interesting.

2. How is this going to come across? My goal for my blog is that every post either entertains, encourages, inspires, or informs. If it does 1 of those 4 things, then I can usually find a place for it. Also, I try to pay attention to what my previous posts have been. If the last two posts have been informational, I’ll probably try to get an entertaining one up next so the blog doesn’t start to taste like you’re chewing a mouthful of stale saltines. In addition, I try to be consistent with my writing voice. I want to make sure I am coming across as genuinely as possible. If the post sounds too arrogant or whiny or negative, then I need to rewrite it because I don’t want to come across with that attitude.

3. Does the post have a proper intro/outtro? With blogging, you don’t always have time to create an engaging hook in your first sentence or a brilliant last line to make people laugh. But that’s the goal, I guess. I want to make it engaging from the start, and I want the last line to make you think, make you laugh, or make you want to leave a comment.

Thanks for the question Ron, I hope that helps you out as you create content for your blog. And hopefully other folks found that somewhat interesting as well.

I’d love to hear tips, tricks, and tactics for blogging from other bloggers out there. How do y’all do what you do?

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in Reader Q&A, please email it to me at bryanallain(at)gmail with the subject “Reader Q&A”. I’ll take serious questions or dumb questions. I much prefer dumb ones though.

Thoughts I had while watching “The Miracle of Christmas” at the Sight and Sound Theater last week…

…Do you think angels need their wings to fly or are they just ornamental? I’ve always thought they were just ornamental. In fact, I don’t even picture them moving when they fly. They just kind of sit there, not doing anything except ruining the aerodynamics of the sleek angel’s bodies. I think wings are like the angelic version of the appendix, only they don’t kill you if they rupture.

…How far is it from Bethlehem to Nazareth? Would it be wrong of me to pull out my iPhone and Google that right now? I don’t think so…I’d be enlightening myself, and wisdom is Godly…Hm, 80 miles, that’s a long walk…Do you think God picked that moment in history to send Jesus into the world because cars weren’t invented yet? Otherwise the 80-mile trek wouldn’t have been so impressive. Joseph and Mary could have done that in about an hour in a Honda Pilot if the traffic wasn’t too bad.

…then again, maybe the incarnation had to happen when it did, because the internet hadn’t been invented yet. If it had been, they wouldn’t have needed to travel to their home town to get the census done. Herod could have checked out the demographics of his country on Wikipedia between Google searches for “how to wipe out all the young males in your country” and “hot concubines”. I’m glad God thought of all that before deciding when to interrupt history with the virgin birth.

…Are frankincense and myrrh just spices? Do they even smell good? What if the combination of the two smells was awful, like combining the wonderful smell of cinnamon with the pleasant smell of honeydew melon. Great fragrances on their own, but together they smell like sadness. What if Mary and Joseph really liked the one smell and not the other, do you think they carried the frankincense home with them but re-gifted the myrrh to the innkeeper?

…And what did Mary and Joseph do with all that gold? Since the gifts were for Jesus, did they put it away for him when he turned 18 or did they spend it all on themselves? And if they did spend it all on themselves, did they do it with one big ticket item like a new carpenter’s shop or a couple cattle? Or did they just take out a few gold pieces here and there thinking they’d pay it all back at some point like Harry and Lloyd with their suitcase full of I.O.U.s in Dumb and Dumber?

…And if they did spend all of the gold, did they feel bad about it? Did they ask for forgiveness once he starting doing miracles? I’m thinking at one point if Joseph said to a 12-year old Jesus, “will you please pick up your room?”, Jesus might have said back, “How about I do it when you pay back the 500 pieces of gold the wise man brought me when i was born?” Then there would have been a long silence, and then Jesus would have said, I’m just kidding dad! I love you!” (you see kids, you CAN talk back to your parents without it being a sin! Bryan said so…)

…How about the star that the Shepherds saw in the East? Was that a real star that God turned up the volume on so it would burn brighter just so they would notice it? Or was it actually a holographic image of a star, and not an actual star? (I know holograms hadn’t been invented yet, but God could have traveled in time and grabbed the technology and brought it back with him for this one time). I mean, God could have done anything he wanted right? Maybe just for fun he created a giant light-bright peg and stuck it in the sky and made it glow like a huge star. Who didn’t love Light-Bright?

…I wonder how many other people saw the star (aka, Giant Light Bright Peg) and had no idea what it was. I bet there was a bunch of people who saw it and thought it was aliens from outer space. You’ve gotta think that even back then there were a few wackos who believed there was life on other planets. Nazareth was probably their version of Area 51. Remember that quote from the Bible about “can anything good come out of Nazareth?” I’m guessing that was a reference to aliens. You see, you’re not going to get that kind of biblical insight out a Matthew Henry Commentary, I’ll tell you that right now.

…What do you think would have happened if Joseph, between gags from the smell of the cow crap, had said to Mary while she was pushing baby Jesus out, “Isn’t this so cool, honey! I bet some day people all over the world put out little statues of us and the animals with fake straw to celebrate this fantastic moment! The only way this event could be better is if you weren’t feeling any pain, but that possibility won’t exist until epidurals are invented in about nineteen hundred and forty-two years!” She probably would have ripped his arm off and sunk her teeth into it to deal with the pain like they used to do with pieces of wood during civil war amputations. Mary was fierce like that.

What about you..do Christmas plays hold your attention or do they make you wish you had an iPhone to play with?

I had two very interesting breakfasts this week.

The picture above is from the first one. You don’t know the guy in the foreground holding the bagel, and you probably don’t know the guy in the background with the weird look on his face either. But the guy dressed in black? Chances are you’ve read something he’s written before, or at the very least you’ve heard of him.

There were 6 of us strangers who met with him for coffee and conversation. The coffee was good. The conversation was good too, though at times it felt more like smart people trying to sound smart. In the end, it was worth the 2-hour drive down to Fulton, MD, if only to connect with Brian afterward and introduce myself as the guy who interviewed him for Prayers For Blowouts. He had nice things to say about the site, and even gave me a contact to look into for future writing consideration, so that was nice of him.

The other breakfast I had was with a good friend I’ve known for almost 10 years. You probably don’t know who he is, but this breakfast was closer to home and featured two dumb guys not pretending to be smart. I liked that a lot better.

At one point we were talking about something that could potentially shape the path of my life in a completely different direction than it is currently heading. Hm…lots to think about…

If you’re in the Boston area tonight around 11pm, stop in to O’Brien’s Pub on Harvard Avenue in Allston. My brother Josh and his band, The High Seas, will be playing what I think is their debut show (could be wrong about that though).

Good luck Josh! Have a blast!

The High Seas