A new section on Spudart.org for ideas
I’m building a place on spudart.org for my quick thoughts and beginning ideas. This will be public place on the site for anyone to see. I have so many unpublished ideas that never get out there. I feel like there should be some place for these things to be seen—even if the posts aren’t complete, or if they are just quick thoughts. It’s like a notepad. That’s the name of the section—”Notepad”.
I love the idea of being free to just publish openly and quickly.
Why haven’t I published my drafts?
Whenever I write my regular blog posts, I’m always concerned about making the post a decent length. And I always include an image, because that’s the rule everyone says. “Blog posts must be longer, and have at least one image.” That rule has stopped me from publishing many many times. 1,842 times, actually.
1,842 unpublished drafts are waiting and waiting in my Evernote. Why don’t I publish these? Because these are all initial thoughts. All are in different stages of progress. Some are beginning drafts. Others are pretty close, but just need an image. But then they sit and languish. It’s kinda sad.
Now these ideas will come to life. Anyone will be able to see them on my site. Google would be able to see them. If Google sees that my site gets updated a lot, perhaps it might help my site ranking.
These “notepad” posts will not appear in the email newsletters, RSS feed, or homepage. I don’t want to feel the pressure of making each post absolutely perfect. I do want the ideas to get out there.
Graduating an notepad idea to a full blog post
When the day does come when a “notepad” post gets fleshed out, then I’ll publish it as a full blog post on the homepage, email newsletter, and RSS feed.
How am I doing this? Each “notepad” post gets assigned a category of “Notepad”. I’ve instructed the homepage, email newsletter, and RSS feed to ignore the “notepad” category. But these posts will exist everywhere else on the site.
Where can I find the “Notepad” posts?
- The easiest way is pulling up the “Notepad” category page.
- The posts will also appear in on-site search results.
- If a Notepad post is filed in a second category, then the post will appear on that category page. For instance, this post is categorized in both “Notepad” and in “Life.” If you look at the “Life” page, this post will appear.
In fact, this post is my first “Notepad” post. I want to make sure that everything is working correctly. Hopefully you shouldn’t see this on the homepage, email newsletter, and RSS feed.
After a couple weeks, I’ll push this over to the live published section on the site, and it should appear in the regular places.