Paper before processor

For me, the biggest block to posting anything on Steemit, is the computer itself. I realize this is probably a fairly atypical observation among Steemit users, so I’m certainly not posting this as some sort of creative “how to” advice.

In fact I’m posting it more out of curiosity to see if I’m a complete freak on Steemit, and the only person on here who uses a paper and pen. (I actually use a clipboard too, but that is getting too tech geek, so I’ll stop there).

Basically, if I start by turning my computer on, from that point on, every idea I had in my head is rapidly swamped by an inflow of distractions. So whether I’m looking at Steemit or the internet in general, it’s safe to say no new posts are going to be coming out of me until I’m well away from the computer again, and my brain has reset itself from binary mode.

If on the other hand I start with a blank piece of paper, it seems to sort of magically fill up with words. Later these words can be typed up and pictures can be added, preferably lots of pictures.

When I’m reading a post, I pretty much need to see a picture at all times. If I see nothing but text, I snap into scroll mode, and start just scanning down the post looking for, at the very least, a key word that jumps out, but preferably a picture.

Back in the early days of Steemit, three or even four months ago, posts that didn’t even have a single image, were apparently quite common. Occasionally I still see posts like that.

If I was walking down the street and an angry looking overweight man was walking towards me wearing really tight shorts, with his penis hanging out of one of the legs, I would stare in horror (This actually happened!). But I wouldn’t engage with him. And that is how I feel about posts with no pictures.

And now, because good things come in threes, or maybe really because this is everything in my mind and I want to empty it out and go back to being a blank slate ready to follow the impulses of my pen, I’ll get onto point three.

I have already mentioned this https://steemit.com/steemit/@sift666/is-longer-really-better but the other thing that really zaps my interest in a post is excess length. Even if it’s a post about photography, if there are too many similar photos in a row, I start scanning rather than really looking.

A shit load of endless text can rapidly switch me from reading, to scanning, and then on the racing down to the bottom of the post to see if the comments are more interesting than the post.

So to reiterate (summarise for people who really can’t be bothered reading all this crap, and just want to get to the point). We are all different, but for me, it’s important to do these three things.

1. Write the post using paper and pen first

2. Place images throughout the post

3. Keep the post short and simple, switching from text to image and back to hold interest.

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SIFT666 aka Ian Gregson from Wellington, New Zealand, is the world’s foremost authority on writing Steemit posts and works full time as a professional Steemit blogger.
In between being commissioned to post articles on Steemit and developing new ways to use vegetables, he is currently developing a new website portal to rival Steemit called http://www.frot.co.nz where he is testing out a new feature called “refrotting” that may revolutionise blogging and overcome any need to produce new content.

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Apart from the image above, which is one of my own photos, all the images on this post were either copied from my own image library which has about 20000 images randomly downloaded from the internet over the past 18 years, or I just found them now using Google image search.
https://images.google.com
If you would like to find other sources for any of them I highly recommend doing a reverse Google image search - just don’t be surprised if you find say 25 billion of them

As to where any of them really originated from, I think the internet has been interbreeding for decades, and the idea that we can work out the original source for most images is an idealistic myth.

There are two sides to this position, but even as a person producing original art and photography myself, my opinion is that gate has long been open, and the horse has bolted. So that is why I’m buggered if I’m going to go through the pretense of crediting the supposed original sources of all the images I use on my Steemit posts.