What to do with a draft once you outgrow it
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Published: April 25, 2024
Tags: blogging, writing
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Yesterday before falling asleep I was thinking about my current drafts. Lately I've been hesitating with regards to what to publish; I have many drafts that I'm no longer excited about but I still feel like I should publish before moving on to *more exciting stuff*.
I have this idea, this notion, of what my blog's narrative is and I'm trying to *continue* that narrative in a consistent way. But yesterday I realized that maybe I no longer want to continue that narrative!
I've been thinking about this issue for a while now. The idea that, as bloggers, we grow and change and how I'm no longer the person I was one month ago, and even less the one I was 4 months ago. My resolution was that it's ok to feel this way and it's fine that what I want to write about now no longer matches the style or content of the things I wrote in the past. One should allow oneself to evolve, and accept one's own blog as a reflection of this change.
But this is only about *going forward*, about things I haven't written yet. What I failed to consider was the gray area, the half-written posts waiting to be reviewed, those *almost finished* drafts that my past self deemed good enough and was intending to publish in the near future but never got around to it. Right now I have 23 drafts which are basically all almost-finished posts and only need some minor revision.
The way in which I write is that I sit down every day and just *write* about something, whatever is on my mind. Occasionally there's a part of what I put down that I feel is good and that I could post on my blog, so I copy the text and make a new file in my "drafts" folder. Every once in a while I go back to this folder and choose a draft that calls to me, clean it up, and publish it. When choosing what to publish I try to preserve some sort of internal consistency with respect to my existing blog posts so that I don't put out something that references a detail I mentioned in a yet unpublished draft.
This method has worked fine for now, but the speed at which I add new drafts is faster than the one at which I publish them (writing is of course more fun than editing) so I'm now at the point where I hardly remember what I was thinking (let alone *feeling*) when I wrote the older drafts. Moreover, I no longer feel like I want to publish all of those older ones since I've changed and so have my interests.
I tell myself I should still publish these drafts in order since they tell a coherent story and I want to paint as complete a picture as possible. But I feel this has been keeping me back from really enjoying the act of publishing, and (more importantly) from growing and branching out into other stuff. I now see tackling most of these drafts as a chore, one which I frequently procrastinate on.
I said that these are almost finished posts, but they still require quite a bit of work to clean up, reorder text, cut out stuff, add new stuff, etc, and I don't find myself really enjoying this part that much unless I'm excited about the post I'm in the process of cleaning up.
So, I've decided I will do a "spring cleaning" of my drafts folder. I will apply the Marie Kondo method of cleaning up and just archive all drafts that *"don't spark a sense or joy"* or some other emotion. I don't believe in deleting stuff though, so who knows, maybe these archived drafts will eventually find their way to my blog at some point.
I think that, going forward, I should strive to publish possibly on the same day or week in which I write something [1]. Honestly, this *drafts* folder has been weighing on my mind as clutter and I'm glad (even happy) that I've accepted I don't need to deal with it.
... 🍵 ...
Soon after I started my blog, Eve sent me a really nice email and in it she mentioned an advice I sadly tend to forget [2], but I try to frequently come back to it.
Sometimes I have to sit down and remind myself that there are no rules for what I post & I can change the game at any time!
I tend to *solidify* around these imaginary rules and suffer for it. It's good to remind oneself that your blog is *your* space and you can really do whatever you want with it, there're no rules.
~ 🍃
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Footnotes
- [1]: That is, after I deal with the drafts **I do** intend to publish! I'll switch my writing schedule so I work on those as a priority so I can get them out of the way.
- [2]: I frequently discover/accept an insight only to forget about it, and then rediscover it again down the road. I'm planning on making a post about this soon.
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