Here are the steps to how I blog:

1. I write the post in a text editor, my favorite being Q10 with the typing sounds on
2. I do a cursory read and make the post a bit more coherent
3. I cut and paste this into my WordPress WYSIWYG
4. I format any HTML needed in the post in the WordPress HTML editor
5. I give it a quick read
6. I post it
7. I finally give it the read it deserves, and find a crap-load of mistakes which I then correct

Why do I do things in this order? I seem to be unable to spot my own typos until my work is posted. I don’t know if it is because I am impatient. I don’t know if it is because I can’t visualize the final draft until it is no longer in draft form.

Either way, as soon as I see the posted content, I find and correct my errors. Everything should be alright at that point, if it weren’t for one little thing, my feeds.

Yep, the feeds pick up on the post before I get my corrections in place. Those that subscribe probably think I am barely literate. It is a bit aggravating.

I subscribe to the tenet of one of the greats, Hemingway, who said, “the first draft of anything is shit.”

But what I have now, looking at my Feedburner numbers, is hundreds of people getting that shit-strewn first draft. And to make it worse, it is all my own fault.

Maybe I need to stop my automatic work flow and deliberately start making new, more productive and correct habits.

Since I seem to need to see the final version before editing, maybe I need to save everything as a draft and then look at the post as if it were posted.

I know this seems silly to some, but this is just a result of years of bad habits that I now need to deliberately address and stop. Breaking habits and replacing them with better habits is not all that easy. A habit is, all in all, something that a person performs without thought, automatically.

Whatever the final solution to braking these bad habits, I need to start implementing ideas now as this is getting a bit more than embarrassing.

So, off to habit breaking war I go.

Cheers,

Eban