TroytlePower

Today is the start of week 2 of BlaugustReborn, and I’ve managed to have a post and drawing (of some sort) up each day! I’m really excited about that consistency and decided to write about my general process for today’s post.

Earlier this year, I switched jobs and decided that as part of that transition I wanted to put a lot more effort into creative endeavors, specifically improving my drawing/illustration/graphic design skills, with an end goal of someday doing those things as my primary source of income. I also want to spend more time writing, as I feel that documenting my perspective and experience of the world will help me “look” at life more critically, which I’m hoping will translate to helping me create better and more meaningful art.

Unfortunately, the new job has me commuting a lot more than I had previously, so much of the free time and energy that I thought would go towards creativity is instead spent driving my car back-and-forth for work. When I  do end up with free time, about all I have creative energy for is to make silly comments about video games on Twitch for a couple of hours. Sitting down to write or draw takes a lot more presence of mind.

Thankfully, hearing about the BlaugustReborn Initiative on the Geek-to-Geek Podcast really made we want to to give another genuine shot at the blogging side of things. I really struggle with being an active part of online communities, but every interaction I have had with the hosts and fans of the Geek-to-Geek podcast has been super positive, so their endorsement pulled me into the Blaugust community, which is just incredible! Seeing the content that others in the community created made me double down on wanting to consistently put my own stuff out into the world.

Unfortunately (again… there’s an end point coming, I promise!), I still struggled with finding the time to get ideas written and posted. I’ve historically been a bit of a perfectionist when I write, so even when I have an idea I like I end up editing it over and over and over again instead of doing anything with it. What I’ve started doing for Blaugust, in order to get past that, is twofold; one, I’m not overediting myself, and two, I’m using a dictation app to get rough ideas down first. In fact, I recorded the initial “draft” of this post on 8/3 while I was driving into town to run some errands. Using the app “Just Press Record” is nice for thinking through my thoughts at a reasonable pace and getting the initial ideas down, but they do not work for actually writing a post because, well, the technology still isn’t there yet. (I’m going to include the initial transcription and the audio file at the bottom of this post so you can see what I mean. If it says anything too horrible in the transcription, blame our benevolent computer overlords, not me!)

Once I have the transcription from the recording, I pull it up on WordPress and start heavily editing it into something legible. In fact, I usually end up starting to type ideas from scratch about halfway through, rather than following the flow I dictated. This is partly because I think written words flow differently than speaking, but also because I look at that transcription as a first draft, and I’ve thrown out at least half of every first draft of anything I’ve ever written!

At this point in a post, I’ll usually have a pretty okay draft, and I only allow myself to go through one time for a quick edit. This is the most difficult part for me, as getting stuck in an editing loop can be my downfall. My wife has experienced this when she’s asked me to look over papers she’s written, and I have to clarify if she’s looking for spell checking or editing… because I will always have a thousand notes on the “editing” side of things, even if in reality a piece is damn near perfect. For blog posts, though, both because of the format and because of pushing myself to get one up a day, I need to force myself to lean towards the spell checking side of things, and to accept that each post won’t be perfect.

The last part of my process is getting a drawing up each day. I’m not really sure why I set this additional challenge to myself, because just writing is tough enough, but I’m glad that I did. I didn’t put any restrictions on the size, format, quality, etc of each piece, I just decided that I wanted a somehow connected piece each day. For some posts, I know what I’m going to be writing about far enough in advance that I can start the drawing a few days early, but for most I’m usually working on the drawing before work, during a lunch, and then getting it finished and posted after work. Most of the stuff I’ll draw for BlaugustReborn won’t be complete, finished drawings, but they’ll be something that I made.

And that’s really what my goal with all of this is. I want to make more things. Someday, I want to make a living off the random, weird ideas that I feel driven to make, but in the meantime, I need to keep making small things to practice, to stay motivated, and to just be able to say “hey look, I did it.”

Here it is, the raw transcription from “Just Press Record”:

All righty this thing is recording what’s right of August post about my process for writing blog posts so this year I switched jobs and into switching jobs decided I wanted to put a lot more effort into creative endeavors excuse me I just said that we’re very badly creative endeavors I specifically I wanted to spend more time drawing I am I I kind of aspire tune to do illustration a graphic design as a career that will be aureus to me I’m so want to spend more time driving but I also understand what I’m writing because I think bad writing experience in the world is a really good way to kind of hold your experience in the world and even if I’m not writing about what things look like writing about you know what I what I see and do and think it still at especially in consuming hot culture which is kind of my jam and I thought that it would help me to to being more where of what kind of pizza I want to put out so I like I said and switch it out I really want to spend more time on those two things drawing and writing and I’m fortunately the new job but I switch to have me commuting a lot more than I had previously so the free time that I I thought I would have enough time and energy to really dive into those creative things are a lot of that energy can spent time in my car back-and-forth every week and then when I do you have free time about his credit is I want to be is to turn on twitch stream in Play some video games in and you know make silly comments about the video games for a couple hours sitting down to write or draw is a little bit it takes a lot of her presence of mind which is difficult but then I said to hear about the Boguist reborn initiative and that really made we want to to get another genuine shot two to the blogging side effects actually to writing because I don’t know why it’s just that the community that I heard about it through which is the need to get past me but he is a really positive community and I I’ve been listening to good to good Carsons like they’re six episode or something like that and I have really enjoyed getting to go from a distance the house about Podcast but also add TV interactions I’ve had with Abe and little because I’m not very good at all my committees it all been really positive so Abe send their endorsement of August report I decided that I wanted to try to give it a shot I driving distance of artistry born end and start talking to people there and read the post people they’re making and it really inspired me to try to get more but I’m still struggling with the idea of having to time and energy to to get my thoughts right down I’m kind of a perfectionist when I write work better I previously was kind of a perfectionist my road I am writing a something that I take seriously I have a bad editor if you have a paper app because I I take writing seriously I was not to say that I’m necessarily seriously good at it but it something that like I am in hospital in critical i guess so like when my wife at the rec papers and asked me to read that like I I I I love to help her with that but I’m not the greatest resource work because I i have like 1,000,000,000 1/2 ideas anytime I read something even if it something of it myself so boring is kind a hard for me because when I read something I’ve written a i immediately want to edit and change really things so I had a lot of topics that I had wanted type of us about I maybe got dammit I just kept changing them instead of actually finishing up I’ll be helpful because it would force me to actually finish writing things down and at the weather I added up deciding to do that is what I’m doing right now which is how I using a Dictator so I tried out with using Notes at Belton to buy home at Hearst pay else has a light set time. Apparently but it will listen to you dictate and then it stops dictating which saw this album and of course it just dictate it doesn’t report anything so if the dictation is bad it’s really dad I can go back and listen to what I was saying to try to get it right instead I add that I just get like what what what what is this trying to absurd anyway whatever the settling on this app called Just Press Record app using it right now I’ll just push record records everything I have to say I’ve used it off with my Bluetooth headset that I wear with my Apple Watch and I is actually better with the Apple Watch as long as I keep my Apple WatchWhat’s my face are the reason I said I dictation is because I can do this paragraph I’m driving right now I’m not distracted it’s not if you give my body to drive I probably something very safe be very cautious and driving in a residential area right now it’s a 25 mile an hour speed limit I’m only going 24 miles an i’m using my transit at school anyway just petrified like me to get my ass down by driving and it records it and it transcribes so I can bust read what it recorded although the transcription is often very bad I am and I can also listen to it later which is nice to be i had a recap however but I thought is that RV what I record when I’m using the app is often not what ends up in my actual blog but it does serve as a first draft so what I’ll do my processes that I write the podcast or I can pick it Bob I copy it into word press and then I go through and start editing and usually the first like paragraph Purcell is pretty close to how I started the recording app but then I end up re-writing her a letter I have fighting the rest of the post and using the transcription was a reminder of the topics I wanted to discuss rather than a word for word version of what I wanted to discuss app but it still helps it’s not up to me to get ideas down and take it out what I have asked have you know is I’ve had to basically decided not to edit my post op I I think that if I had somebody else editing them it would be fine but if I’m trying to edit to myself I don’t know when to stop so what all do you typically is all right above us at all dictated by post I’ve been re-read it I read it through once just to make sure that everything still hurts I don’t like forgive myself and then I posted I don’t do a thorough edit because if I do you throw at it once I will finish that edit start back of the tub I do with her added again and I just get stuck in a loop where I continuously edit the bank and never feel like it’s ready to no just got a pass for Maddie but I was up because I also wanted to draw I can’t get myself to additional challenge of having a drying or some sort of artistic thing to go with each campus that I’m putting up her progress and I’m only a couple days in the fog is and so far I’ve had something for you to stay but why do I expect that to be a challenge as I go further south center of the art pieces but I put up a Michae sketches like that that will be definitely a variety i have a finalization I guess James B says to some of them will be very well constructed fleet of it at Little Steven universe PicsArt I put up the other day while it take forever to put together I I consider to be a decent it’s actually up for sale of a sore arm while the Jack Jack drive that I put up for the Incredibles 2 post was very much not complete it was just me try to get us something together out little bit of an experiment and going to super like a detailed style and I’ll be Thomas I don’t have a very much I don’t think it’s right but I really do want to push myself to try to get something new up each day I’m just I’m I’m kind of at Lexi does great apostles and get it back as an attending the time on so anyway that’s my office that I use for walking right now I think I’m actually going to do with this post is this is going to be a post in three parts so I’ll read she will have just read at the top of the page is the edited version as me are using the transcription To kind of re-write all the parts that I just got out into the reporter but I’m gonna put a break and then I’ll put in the transcription as it came through exactly without any evidence whatsoever that means it is fine to have no punctuation I can give it to Tracy and if I state to text Trisha but in case you ever think about it with this and I shouldn’t have your file that I don’t have so yeah I just got a lot of the show office and I i think that’s the best way to do it in the circumstances to give you kind of need the three are the three pieces that go i’m getting a bath instead which is third-party which goes to the transcription of a transcription which goes to show up if it’s the transcription has any bad words for somebody to where I apologize I have definitely seen it think that I said things like poop pads before but I don’t know what I said at seven at I have since set is anything rid of it I apologize that I just because that’s how I actually sent it anyway and this happens happens I’m getting grandpa but I hope that this was an interesting book at our process do you everybody goodbye this report keep it up you guys are awesome I love you and for anybody reading this used riding or driving just do it it doesn’t have to be perfect but if you if you just do it and put it out there you will feel better that if you got it in the first place that’s that’s kind hi Weiss how did it die

And finally, the audio version: