Writing A Month Long Blog Series

You might wake up one day soon and think, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to write a month long blog series on so-and-so!”  It’s been done before, some examples are:

• Glenn Berry (Blog |@GlennAlanBerry) with A DMV A Day
• Paul Randal (Blog | @PaulRandal) with A SQL Server DBA Myth A Day
• Jonathan Kehayias (Blog | @SQLSarg) with An XEvent A Day: 31 days of Extended Events.
• My series 31 Days of SSIS

If you are thinking this, there are a few things I’d like to share about my experiences that will help you with your series.

• Make an outline.  Plan all 31 days in advance of writing the first post.  Make certain you have set a starting point and a clear progression on what you want to cover.  In my series, I did not do that very well and it feels choppy when I look it over at times.
• Pre-Write in Advance. Don’t write the posts for your series the day they are to be published.  This causes undue stress and leads to rushed writing.  Instead, try to get ahead on your posts.  I’d recommend having at least half of the posts written before the first one publishes.  Again, something that I didn’t do perfectly – but the few weekends where I got ahead allowed for some good down time.
• Have Time to Write. One issue I ran into was that at the same time I wrote my series, I was also working a bunch of overtime.  Try to avoid doing that.  Work extra if you need to, but make sure that you understand that writing this volume of information will be like a part time job for the month.
• Find an editor.  For the series, you will be writing a lot of content.  Your posts may end up being quite long and there will be a lot coming out of you.  Don’t harbor the illusion that the attention to detail you have at the beginning of the month will not become exhausted by the end of the month
• Get Some Guest Bloggers. Just because you are hosting a month long blog series does not mean you need to write every post.  Find someone to write one or two of the posts.  Properly attribute them, of course.  I did this with three of my posts and it provided and unexpected and needed break in the writing.
• Write About What You Know. A blog series of this length is not the time to learn a new technology and to blog about it at the same.  Of course, this doesn’t mean you want to regurgitate content that is readily available.  Take a subject you know well that you want to know better.  Write about it from your perspective.

Again?

One question that was asked when I wrapped this up was “Will I do this again?” Oh, yes, absolutely.  I found this to be an incredible vehicle for gathering my thoughts on the subject and taking the time to state what I know and my thoughts on it.  I already have ideas and outlines in the works for doing this again.  Admittedly, my fiancé may kill me if I try this again before the wedding in July – but maybe I can sneak in the next one right after it.