You have read my blog. Read other people’s blogs. You wonder how I blog as a FTWM. And wonder what goes on before a post is up. Today I am going to take you to behind the scenes of me as a blogger. Enjoy peeking once again!
Before that, let me introduce this as a Writing Process Blog Hop that is famously making its round in the international blogosphere. I am tagged by Summer from A Happy Mum and then later on by Meiling from Universal Scribbles. I have to answer 4 questions on this topic. At the end of the post, I have to tag 2 bloggers and that’s how it works. A little about Summer and Meiling here.
I know Summer for as long as she was officially Kel’s younger brother’s girlfriend. She is my sister-in-law and we have never thought that we will end up closer as bloggers in the same family. She has 2 cutie girls and had followed her hubby to Sweden to stay for close to 5 years? She’s now back in Singapore with the whole family and is an awesome mum blogger who blogs with her heart. I enjoy reading her posts as I can tell she blogs sincerely and one can be infected by her family bliss. Check out her blog here.
I know Meiling from the Singapore Mom Bloggers and the SMB Blogger Event was the first time I met her. She was in my committee, a very helpful and friendly person. I love her blog as she blogs about being a woman, a mum and uses her blog to motivates and a platform for doing good for the society. Check out her blog here.
Now back to me.
Why do you write what you do?
What are you working on right now?
I am a mum blogger and I blog on parenting experience, thoughts and tips. I enjoy sharing my parenting woes and parenting success and love the exchange with readers on ideas. I see my blog as a love keepsake for my children. This is also mainly my motivation in keeping a blog.
As a blogger, I do enjoy the sponsorships that companies trust me with a genuine review of their products. I do selective reviews very much on whether they are relevant to my blog and whether the products appeal to me and my kids. The last thing I want to do is to turn off my readers in reviews that are totally irrelevant. I would say, blogging opens up a lot of opportunities for me to explore fun places, products and events which my kids and I would not have otherwise been exposed to. I really appreciate how blogging has taken us this far for now.
Currently, I am in a madness to meet deadlines for sponsored posts, blog hop like this one versus my own parenting posts. All these happened to be in the same 2 weeks and same as my travelling period too! After that, I do not have urgent sponsored posts and that takes away a great load of stress and I am able to go back to enjoying blogging about parenting posts at my own pace.
How does your work differ from others in its genre?
I guess as a blogger, we are constantly trying to think of ways that engage readers. The challenge comes in how much we want to share our innermost thoughts, our daily lives, our family whereabouts, our kids’ meltdown or even our own meltdown moments. Some of us are not so comfortable to be scrutinized in the public eyes and are only willing to share photos of the back of our kids’ heads, sides views, use pet names, draw cartoons, blog in half truths, etc. It certainly is not easy to balance how much to expose and how much to hide. For me, I am quite in between of this and that. I do consciously protect the kids in certain ways and yet I want to document their growing up years, where they have been to, and what they have been through in the blog as a momento to them. The day I find that our family is endangered in any way through blogging, I will probably stop. After all, internet is a double-edged sword. It can be friendly/useful/essential and yet dangerous/damaging/disturbing at the same time.
How does your writing process work?
How much time do you think I need to spend before a blog post goes live?
Depending on the content of the posts, the minimum time I spend on a blog post is 3 hours. The longer posts can span across 3 days straight. For reviews that need trying out on products or activities, these posts can sit in my draft posts for weeks with uncountable editions.
For parenting thoughts or feelings that weigh on my mind, I can type fast and furious and easily pour them out in words. Once, I got so excited about a certain thought to share, I sat down at a bus-stop and type out the idea before continuing my way home. I know once I get back, I will forget how I want to phrase it.
For those that requires more research, I will need to find relevant photos, information from websites, before I can start writing about them. There are lots of reading to do and lots of information out there that I want to include in my blog posts. Besides the reading part, the next time-consumer is to edit the posts for the nth time before I am satisfied to publish them out. I believe no one likes to read a post full of grammatical mistakes or spelling errors. Sometimes, I find myself re-reading for more than 20 times and at other times, I may be so satisfied with the voice and tone, I only need to proof-read less than 5 times and it’s out.
You may ask why bother to spend the time to edit the posts and photos? I take pride in my blog write-up and want each blog post to have good information to share with my readers, and possibly useful for my kids to know in future when they are parents themselves. I do not like to read half-hearted written posts and I know the reason why anyone would bother to read my posts is that they enjoy my writing style and am able to find relevant information to help them in whatever they want to know.
If you had followed this post till this sentence, I thank you for being interested in my behind the scenes as a blogger. The next time you enjoy reading a blog post, remember how much effort is put into churning out that post by that blogger 🙂
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I am going to tag 2 bloggers for this blog hop. They are 2 of my favourite bloggers and share great posts in their own different ways.
First blogger is Bronwyn from Journey of the Fabulist. She is an Australian mum blogger residing in Singapore. I love her hilarious way of writing. You should really check out her tips for travelling with children which she often blogs about. They are so useful and comprehensive! She recently brought her 2 young kids on a road trip (read: ROAD TRIP) from Singapore to Phuket!! What an amazing mum!!
Second blogger is Vilma from Free But Fun. She lives in Finland and shares many fun and free activities in the ever child-friendly country. She can be Finland’s ambassador. I love her creative ideas of kids activities that are simple and low cost. If you do follow her blog, do comment on her posts because she usually has thoughtful opinions to share.
Wow thanks for sharing Christy. I’d like to find out how do you pen your contents? Everything on the computer or you scribble bits here and there and merge together?
Also do you source for sponsorships? It’s an eye opener for me to see how different bloggers get their work together. So I hope you don’t mind me asking these questions. 😉
I use evernote app alot, or rather, all the time. It synchronize my laptop, mobile at the same time. I usually rattle off my ideas easily. I think I am talkative by nature and that explains I can rattle off effortlessly lol!
For sponsorships, they seek me out. I guess they will come as your readership grows and when you do read and comment genuinely often enough on other people’s blogs. I am not coy about sharing this because that’s exactly how it is for me. I read lots and lots of blog out there, locally and internationally that by the time I joined SMB, I knew the blog name better than the real bloggers’ names!
Thanks very much for your candid sharing. 🙂
Love hearing about your process! (I’m a real stick beak like that 🙂 ).
I do agree it’s worth spending the extra time on a post. It sounds like a lot but by the time you write and edit and put in pictures it adds up. But I won’t say too much about this because I’m tagged so I’ll write it out in full! Now, who will I tap next?
Ah! I am looking forward to your post next Monday! Thanks for letting me tag you! It was not easy to find someone who will want to commit to this 🙂
Wish me luck with my tagging!
Certainly! I am sure you will find tagging effortless feat!
Let you know!
I’m with you about protecting the kids. I use a pseudonym for Mr. T, but a fake name only gets you so far when I also include a ton of pictures! I would be gone from the internet in a heart beat if there was a danger to my son! I can write about me all day long, but I really do think long and hard before doing a post about him!
The pride you take in your blog shows! I love reading it, and even though we are on opposite sides of the world and have kids at different ages, I still find a good connection to your written words!
And, I giggled about you jotting down notes as you think about it because otherwise you’ll forget how to phrase it! I’m the same way!!
I have the same sentiments Kate! Even though we are far apart and kids are of different age, your sharing always have me imagine how the future will be for my kids!
You are right about the fake name can only get us so far. Pictures are worse exposure! But without pictures it’s so hard to post a family blog post! I just hope no prankster or ill-intent person will want to target my blog to want to misuse the contents or seek trouble. Else, I will be gone too from the internet in a heartbeat!
Thanks for joining the blog hop and for the honest sharing! It is quite amazing how much time blogging takes up and yet we still find ways and means to keep it going. Hah. Glad we share a common passion and yes, it is awesome that we get to go to sponsored events together and let the kids gather and play! Hope you are having a fabulous time in Taiwan! 🙂
Ya! Meeting at sponsored event is always a pleasant surprise! Thanks for inviting me to this blog hop. Even though it was hard to find others to tag, I still enjoy sharing my work and though process with my readers 🙂
It’s great to read about your writing process. I’ve read this blog hop in a few blogs and have enjoyed reading every single one of them. I’m with you about protecting our kids and not revealing too much about them. I find myself always being caught in between… I use their pet names, yet I post their pictures online! I tried to use photos with their back view sometimes, but it work only for certain posts. So it’s about finding a balance, I guess.
I should have tagged you! Would be nice to know about your writing process! 🙂 Ya, protecting the kids is a priority yet we can’t help but share the pics. It’s a dilemma.
LOL! My writing process is simply… get idea + take pictures + write… nothing fantastic, haha!