A reader recently reminded me of the piece below. It was first published on June 6 2019. It is likely of interest to those who are new to this site. The process as described is still the same.
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In one of the interviews Seymour Hersh gave last year about his life as a reporter he was asked to give advice for other writers. He offered three tips:
- Read before you write.
- Know more than you write.
- Get yourself out of the way of the story.
Moon of Alabama writings try to follow those rules. This though is a meta piece about our writing for Moon of Alabama. The third rule thus does not apply.
To publish five to six original pieces per week, each on a different issue, requires appropriate tools, time, and a disciplined workflow.
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The first half of my days is spent with gathering news. It starts at at 7:00 or 8:00 am with scrolling through the last night's tweets of the 600 Twitter accounts I follow. If there are links of interest they get opened for later reading. Then comes a walk through the major newspapers' headlines and news agency sites. At the end of this process there are 20 or more open browser tabs that require further attention.
After a quick glance they get either closed or saved. The links and headlines will be copied into Notepad++ where each general current issue – Syria, Boeing 737 MAX, China tariffs, etc – has its own file. If there are usable excerpts or quotes they are added too. It is pretty much noon by the time the general reading is finished.
After a quick lunch comes a short check of Moon of Alabama. Comments caught in the spam folder ask to be liberated. The last night's treads might be in need of a clean up.
Another reading round follows through the dozens of blogs on our Links page. In between more stuff comes up on Twitter that again deserves attention. Now, six hours after the workday began, the information collection phase is mostly finished.
Then comes the big question of the day. What should I write about? What are the issues where I could make an interesting point that others have missed?
At times the answer is obvious. On other day there is absolutely no idea and even a walk through the neighborhood does not help to make that decision.
Luckily there are also days where I get help from my neighbors and friends.
The writing itself is rather quick. To type up the raw version of an 800 word story takes only about two hours. Most of the details come from earlier research or from previously collected links. The following editorial and production process now often takes longer than that.
The first reading through the raw story checks for the basic logic and completeness of a piece. Does it really make the point it is supposed to make? Are there claims in it that need to be substantiated? Is this or that detail necessary to make the point or is it just fluff? Do the quotes or excerpts make sense? If necessary, details and links get added or cut at this time. Pictures will have to be found, cropped, resized, uploaded and linked.
So far all this is is done in basic HTML directly in the editor the Typepad system provides. Only now follows the switch to the better readable rich text mode that you see here.
The second reading includes style and layout issues. Are there boring repetitions or long nested construct over which a reader might stumble? Does this sentence use the right tense? English is not my first language and I never lived in an English speaking country. I often need help with it. I use Leo.org to find synonyms or better English expression for whatever meaning I have in mind.
The last reading is abstract from the content and strictly to eliminate typos. Inevitably some will escape.
Time to publish? Not yet. A break is necessary to distance oneself from the text. Filling the washing machine or running some errant helps with that.
Then follow the last three tasks – find a headline, write a summarizing intro sentence and formulate the end. All three are most important for the attractiveness of a piece to readers and to commentators.
Only after all three are edited and rechecked for mistakes the 'Publish' button gets pressed. The day's work is finally on its way to you, the readers of this site.
It is also you, the readers, who make Moon of Alabama possible.
Your writer and host lives alone and is quite frugal. My apartment is in a small town that has now became part of a big city. Everything I need is within easy walking distance. This is the ideal place to do such time consuming work.
But there is also a need for income. I depend on you who read this to contribute to it. Email 'MoonofA @ aol.com' for my address and bank connection. Or use the Paypal button below to send whatever you are willing to spare down my way.
Thank you. – b.