I am one-fifth of the way into writing 100 essays in 100 days. Really it is writing 300-1000 words per day because most of the posts don’t truly qualify as essays.

For this progress report I will focus on how I am circumventing the original rules I set forth. How to Paint Part One and Part Two was broken in to two posts so I could get two days out of it. Also, a few times I have scheduled a post to be published the following day. In fact, this very post has been scheduled! If I know I will not get a chance to write, I just write it the day before and schedule it to “go live” the next day at any time I choose. This is sort of sneaky but since I make the rules in this 100/100 it is not actually “cheating”. Plus, I find that you can pick up some new readers when you post at a different time of day than when you actually finished writing it. Especially if you’ve been posting at the same time each day.

Due to the laws of procrastination I have been usually posting at 10PM every day. Knowing I had made a commitment to writing an essay 300-1000 words per day I wait until 9PM to start. Which is funny because spy garden blog glog used to be the thing I did to procrastinate on other things.

Such as laundry.

This is why my hobbies should not become my actual job. If I HAD to write, garden or paint I fear these things could lose their luster. I used to just post whenever I felt like it and from the time of sitting down to the computer to hitting “Publish” used to average fifteen minutes. Maybe an hour at most.

Because I used to only write captions, such as:

Now it takes an hour MINIMUM. Because I want to make sure that among the 300-1000 words I didn’t typo (I’m using typo here as a verb): “there”, “they’re”, “their” or “you’re” and “your”. Because I was an English major and that sort of thing drives me nuts. So anyways… paying attention to grammar and syntax and trying to come up with witty snippits o life takes an hour of mostly uninterrupted silence.

Mostly uninterrupted silence only comes at 9PM, after the kids are bathed and asleep. So that is when I have usually started each essay pseudo-essay. To further complicate the essay word writing, another law comes in to play. The law of “I’m a teepy teeper.” I must be in bed by 10. So one hour is not really enough time to write a proper essay and thus I write 300-100 words.

So…do I think doing this 100/100 is actually increasing my readership? 10 days ago I had 244 followers, now I have 261! But before I started this I normally gained a follower about every time I published a new post, so there’s no real change, I’m just speeding the process up a bit. Still averaging around 20 views a day (My goal is 100 views per day).

I’ve also learned there are two sorts of bloggers: people who can do (essentially) nothing all day and then write something hilariously funny about it (The Bloggess is a great example of this type). The other variety are the people who have to do an activity or adventure of some sort and then write about it. I have learned that I am the activity type person and it is nearly impossible for me to write something unless I have actually done something. Or made something. From  scratch. And taken pictures of it. Before starting this 100/100 I VERY RARELY used a picture that was not my own. If I needed a picture of a curtain, I made a curtain. And then took a picture of it.

This approach to blogging is extremely time-consuming to say the least.

To complicate the matter further, I can only take photographs in natural light. This is because I know absolutely nothing about photography. I have a nice camera (a Nikon) but I can’t use the flash or take pictures indoors because they always turn out weirdly yellow and hideous unless daylight is streaming into the interior. So this means if I am posting between 9-10PM and need a picture of something, it is TOO LATE!

So since the 100/100 I have broken my only-use-my-own-photos rule several times. I’ve referenced the photos properly if it has been a painting by an artist (as in the Bread and Water painting in this post) or a still from Alice in Wonderland (because Disney is scary and I don’t want them coming after me!). But a picture of a pile of cheap plastic paintbrushes? I didn’t properly link back to amazon.com where people could potentially click and buy those brushes. Because spy garden website is supposed to be somewhat useful and educational not life-ruining.

The consequences of not properly referencing where a picture came from are really not so bad. Someone might send you a message to please take it down or post a link. It’s not APA format. It’s a glog.

So back to how I am producing my (non)essays…

Jotting down random notes and then saving them in Microsoft word. Sentence fragments, ideas, a few paragraphs. Saved in different documents like an insurance policy for writers block or lack of time.

So you may be wondering: What do I have to look forward to in the next 80 days?

Here are a few subjects of the documents (containing said sentence fragments) that may one day be turned into essays 300-1000 word glog posts:

Spy Garden thoughts on Mogs (that is “Mom Blogs”) Here are some examples of mogs.

How to Write a Sonnet (and why you would want to)

Music Appreciation (why Thin Lizzy is the greatest band ever)

How to Crochet a Hat

How to French Braid

These last few would require a photographer, other than myself, to participate in the activity/adventure stage of blog posting and because I am a control freak this may not be feasible. UNLESS I learn how to operate my camera with my feet.

Until tomorrow,

Spy Garden