Plans and Design Shifts

First, sorry I’ve been out of touch the last two days. Been kind of out of it, even not considering the brain power required by my class.

Speaking of which I am taking DMPC 105, or Intro to Digital Marketing. It’s not a topic I’m very familiar with, and if I ever intend to get more than the automated bots that currently scan my site, it’s something I’ll probably need to learn about that. Last week, I learned about the 4 P’s of marketing, which are Product, Price, Place, and Promote. Price isn’t an issue; the blog is free, and I’m not at a stage where I would set up Patreon or newsletters or anything like that. Place… is definitely an issue (probably the biggest one) but I’m also not there yet. Same with Promote. (We’re actually learning more about those two the next couple weeks, though.)

To my surprise, though, I realized I didn’t have a firm grasp on the “product” of this blog. What did I want people to get out of this? What would they gain from being here, and is there anything here that would interest my target audience? So I spent time thinking about it, and I came up with two general reasons why I, at least, might ever visit a site like this. the first, is to see the writing process in action. Honestly, that feels a bit weak; this isn’t, thus far, a writing blog like K.M. Weiland’s “Helping Writers Become Authors”; I am 100% an amateur, and don’t feel qualified to give advice. I can just show you what I’m doing, for you all to analyze to your hearts content. However it’s something that could be interesting if I leaned into it a little more, so I intend to follow every post with a secondary, “behind the scenes” look at my process. Every day, before I write, I spend 10-15 minutes planning out what I’m going to write, and sometimes letting my thoughts wander. This secondary post would be a verbatim transcription of that (minor typographical errors aside).

Second, I thought people could come here for the stories. With the way I have the blog set up currently, that… would be a challenge. It’s hard to find the major stories I’ve written, and harder to dive into them. So I intend to take time sometime over the next week to include new pages, and focus my writing more so I have discreet chapters or scenes posted regularly, in addition to my daily ramblings. I don’t want to set those on a schedule; life gets weird, and until I’m more firmly established, I can’t honestly promise I’ll stick to one.

Finally, in addition to all that, I decided that once every other week I would include an in-depth review of a story I enjoyed. It will probably be focused on books, but it won’t be limited to those. For example, I intend to do an article on Arcane season 1 at some point. That could be a way to generate new interest, at least once I get to the point where I’m actively promoting this.

As for a timeline… I’m not really sure yet. The bonus, behind-the-scenes post I intend to start immediately. The story-centric restructuring…will not be immediate. It could happen Friday or Saturday, but we’ll have to see how that goes. As for the review articles, I’d like to start that this week; I’d say it’s more likely than the restructuring, but no guarantees.

I’m Back

Sorry I’ve been offline so long. Part of it had to do with school; I started my class at the beginning of February, and I’m wrapping up about now. If I’m being honest, though, that’s only a small part of the issue; I also let myself get really, really distracted. Mostly by various video games, but not just that, either.

Hopefully, I’m back for good. That said, I’ve only got a 1-2 week reprieve before my next classes start; if I can keep going through that, I should be good. And I have high hopes, too.

I’ve got one post tonight for Hanako that I wrote last night, and then a couple posts from back in February before I disappeared I need to get typed in still. Other than that, I really haven’t written much. But I’m looking forward to more in the future!

Introduction

A little over a month ago, I committed to write approximately 1 hour every day. I wanted to improve my writing skills, so that way I’d have the skill I needed to tell the stories I actually wanted to tell. So, I gave myself permission to write whatever I feel like, and more importantly, permission to let some of it be terrible, without it being a bad thing. Than I had a thought; I’m writing anyway, why not throw it up on a blog and get my name out there?

Of course, that means everything I post on here is unpolished. I may take a day here or there to revise something I’d written earlier, but even then, it’s not really edited. As I build the site, I intend to make it easier to find the stories worth reading, but that’s going to be a while.

For now, I plan on posting twice a day until I have a one-week buffer, then switch to once a day. Each post will likely have a little bit of my thoughts or explanations about it included in italics before the main post itself, so feel free to skip that. And welcome to the random writings and ramblings of Nathaniel Cloud!