Blogger Beta As
A Free Writing Tool
Author: Max
The new Blogger Beta is a great free tool for an amateur
or
aspiring writer. Because it uses your Google account to
maintain a login it is conveniently available whenever
you are
online. Generally, I usually write short articles, but
the
methodology I've described below is also useful for
larger
works. Simply adjust my advice to apply to larger chunks
of
work such as chapters.
Create A Private Blog
It is very easy to create a private blog. After creating
a new
blog use the settings tab to access the blog's
permission
details. Select the option that makes your new blog
visible
only to blog authors. Voila! You now have a private blog
available only to yourself. You may now consider your
entire
blog a scratch pad for draft writings.
Use Labels To Track Relevant Details
When you start a new writing project, whether it is an
article
for submission to directories or another type of work,
simply
create one or more blog entries for that project. You
can start
simply by writing a single sentence describing what you
intend
to write about. Then, apply your labels. Personally I
like to
use Work In Progress (WIP) as a label so that I can view
all
work in progress at a single click. I also like to add
project
subject labels as well as various other categorizations.
This strategy allows me to quickly get a list of all my
articles, all of my historic work on a certain subject
matter,
or all of my completed work - assuming I change the work
in
progress label to another suitable value upon
publishing. The
power of simple lists for organization and productivity
cannot
be overstated!
Write Draft
Material And Edit Anytime With One Click Of course you are now reading
the published version of this article, but for quite a while it was
residing in my private
blog. I'd write some content, publish it for my own review, and then
make changes as I saw fit. When the article was |
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nearing completion I simply left it alone for a
while,to get a fresh
viewpoint, and then read the article again looking for
errors
and sections that could be improved.
How convenient! If I spot a mistake or think of an
enhancement
I simply click on the pencil icon and I'm in the editor
fixing
up my work. After making that one simple change I save
my
efforts and then continue on about my day. Personally, I
like
to pace, or otherwise keep busy, while I think and then
put
small amounts of time into making a change or addition
when
inspiration strikes. Generally, I think most creatively
while
I'm not writing.
When Complete Then Publish And Track
Obviously, when your work is finalized, you will publish
it
somewhere. You can simply open up the blogger editor and
copy
entire documents to any other location you like. At this
point
you should change the WIP label to something more
appropriate
instead. Once your article is published I would also
suggest no
longer making changes to it. Create a new project and
copy the
original document when starting a derivative effort.
After publication, use the comment feature to keep track
of any
issues that arise. You can also track the places that
you've
submitted the article for publication. This will help
you avoid
sending it to the same place more than once in the event
you are
later able to reuse the article. Also, add a comment if
you use
the article in some way as the basis for another piece
of work.
When adding comments be sure to link to the locations,
sites or
projects you are discussing.
Security And Backups
No computer system should be relied upon for any serious
project without considering both security and data
backup.
While the odds are very good that Blogger will do a
better job
at protecting your data than you, on your own home
computer,
don't rely on it completely. I would suggest either
downloading
or emailing yourself your own articles from time to
time.
Preferably to a location that is not also managed by
Google.
With respect to
security, you must realize that convenience and security are competing
ideas. If you do not sign out, staying
perpetually logged in, to maintain access to your blogger account, then
anyone using your computer will be able to act as you and view or edit
your work. |
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If this is not appropriate then
you must remember to sign out after each work session.
Personally, my home computer is used only by myself, so
I love
the convenience of never having to log in.
Summary
Using Blogger as a free writing tool makes a lot of
sense. You
can quickly and easily view or edit an entire catalog of
work
from any Internet accessible computer. Your data is
professionally managed and relatively secure. Flexible
tagging
features allow you to organize large and small projects
with
ease. Comments can be used to store project related
issues and
to track actions taken after project completion. In
short, if
you haven't tried the new Blogger Beta yet then you are
missing
out.
About The Author: Max is a contributor at
http://iblog-ublog.blogspot.com/ so drop by and read
commentary, product reviews and perhaps personal notes.
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