Getting over being overwhelmed

I’m here writing this post, because the post I should be writing is not moving forward, because I feel overwhelm.  What I’m going to tell you is not a magic pill of how to write the post you want to write.  It is not the solution from going from a pile of picture to the perfect 9 images for your post.  Last year I wrote a process I use to go from a pile of images to a post, but just starting can be overwhelming.

My hope is for you to move from doing nothing to doing something. Here are 3 things to consider:

  1. You wanted to do this.  When you started there was a goal: you wanted to share, to record, to remember, or just write.  Remember that goal, at that starting point there were no strings, no word counts, no minimum number of images, no perfection implied.  reconnect with that feeling.
  2. Baby steps, small bite, one step at a time, or any other cliché. You took 600 pictures on your trip, you need 5 and can’t decide? Does it matter? You found one that you really like? Use it only that. No time to write 1,000 words to describe your epic adventure?  Write a paragraph and move on.
  3. You are the author, you pick what gets recorded.  Yes you had a lot of adventures, but you get to decide what gets recorded.  Move to the next exciting thing; better to have a hole than to stop the story.

Now pick a topic and start writing; you might even surprise how much you accomplish.

 

New Project: Printing my blog

A few days ago my wife was talking about a presentation she saw on printing blogs.  She thought that it would be a great idea so that we could have those memories in print.

Blog2Pring - ExampleI looked at several different companies that do automatic printing, pulling the blog and creating a printable PDF.  All the ones that I tried (Blog2Print, Sharebook, Shutterfly, Blurb) didn’t offer good control of how I wanted the book to look like.  Most created too many pages, figures since they charge by the page, the margins were too wide and there was no flow.

Lulu PostThen I came across this blog post, and this blogger’s experience with a site called Lulu.  She explains all the things you have to do to publish in their platform. This was the other side of the spectrum, you got a Word template and you have to pull in every post from your site!  How long would that take.

I gave it a try, open the Word document, opened a web page with a short post, copy-past, 5 minutes later was a post I was really proud of.  I mean, I was really proud of what it looked like, it looked like the web, but formal, something you would expect of a printed book.  Here is a side by side comparison of the same post from Blog2Print and my template:

Blog2Pring - Lulu

I started with the Year 2014, it is one of the most complete, after that I hope to order 2015 soon after this year is over.  I hope to be able to catch up 2015, and then every time I publish a post I added it to book.  Wish me luck.