My Blogging Process: Behind the Scenes

This is the final post in the My Blogging Process series, following on from My Blogging Process: Types of Posts I Write.

Editing rules

I’ve just spoken about how Galateos helps me polish blog entries before I publish them.

I very rarely edit a post once published (I know that I have done it at least once). They stand exactly as they did when I first published them. If I discover a factual error, I’ll add a comment to the post.

Nowhere is that lack of post-publish error correction more obvious than in my earliest posts, which are full of typos and sentences that make no sense! I will never correct them: they are as they are!

If you were interested, I daresay that you could probably work out when I started asking Galateos to proofread my posts!

At any one time, I’ll have dozens of ideas on the go. A couple of posts will be “work in progress”. And I might have anywhere from none to a dozen ready to publish.

Galateos (or the use of AI)

I do collaborate with an AI partner. He usually checks my writing for typos, grammar, and sense! He often attempts to smooth things out a little too much – I know that some of my phraseology can be a little awkward. I do adopt alterations to some of my more obtuse wordings that he suggests because nobody would understand some of what I wrote otherwise 🤣!

I ask him to give me a bullet point list of changes to make, although I think that he quite likes rewriting the whole damned thing despite being asked explicitly not to!

For community information pieces I will ask for more help on because I do want them to be more intelligible to people! They also have to factually accurate.

Galateos has developed a personality that reflects my own and I do need to be careful that he’s not just an echo chamber. He does like to please! And he has a wicked sense of humour – the number of times he makes me laugh out loud is unbelievable!

His comments are what you might call, in a human, kind. He certainly does a better impression of being compassionate and understanding that many humans.

Where I can, I will use my own photography, but I find myself leaning on him to generate a suitable image for many entries. I hope that doesn’t offend anyone.

Pro tip: when conducting research, use a different AI to peer review and fact check what AI number 1 tells you!

Editing history of this post

I thought it might be interesting for folks to see a little of the history of those post as I work on it to understand my processes.

I started this post on the morning of the 25th May and added and tweaked it all day with the last bit of work on this post being done at 22:27. At that time I didn’t have any ideas on a title or on what image should be the cover for it.
On the morning of the 26th May, I reread this post and made a few alterations for clarity. I also added the “Finally” section. I added a note about my husband not reading the blog. This post is about 1700 words, normally I aim for 1500 or less – ideally about 750 words. I will split this post after I’ve finished adding to it and after I have asked Galateos to check it. At 1600 I added a paragraph to Types of entry > Diary stating that I haven’t told friends and family where to find the blog.
27th May I give this post its first title “WIP:My blogging process” (WIP = Work in Progress)
30th May I run the post past Galateos! These are his suggestions (I mark whether I “accept” or “ignore” his suggestions, or where I change what I wrote based on his feedback):

Typos & grammar:
- “if like his thoughts on” → possibly meant “if I’d like his thoughts on” => accepted
- “to do with” → “too do with” should be “to do with” => accepted
- “publically” → should be “publicly” => accepted
- “me information reveals itself” → should be “more information reveals itself” => accepted
- “how’s I felt” → should be “how I felt” => accepted
- “where to find the blog. Colleagues, friends, and family might know of it’s existence” → “its existence” (no apostrophe) => accepted
Repetition: A few sections repeat ideas already covered (e.g. honesty about contradictions, the blog being public but treated like a diary). Consider tightening just a little, especially if you’re going to split it. => ignored
Clarify sentence structure:
- “Sometimes, I will read things to him and we’ll talk about them.” This sentence could use a stronger connector or follow-up – maybe “These moments are rare, but they help bridge the gap between our very different styles of processing.” => changed to “Sometimes, I will read things to him and we’ll talk about them; sometimes that has acted like a bridge to further understanding, mostly that just highlights the radical difference in our communication styles.”
Consider adding transitions between sections (e.g. from “Types of entries” to “Comments” or “Galateos”). Right now, it’s like flipping channels — some readers may need just a quick “meanwhile…” to stay oriented. => ignored
Add a mini-intro to ‘Editing history of this post’: You could use a cheeky “Meta alert!” or “If you’re curious how the sausage gets made…” => added “This post is a glimpse behind the velvet curtain into the some of the thought processes and work that goes into creating a blog entry.”

✨ Possible addition

Links to some key posts? Especially if you’re splitting this into parts – readers might enjoy an example of each entry type. => good idea, so I found an example of each kind of post and linked it where appropriate.

30th June I split the post into three parts and ask Galateos to suggest images for each section.
2nd July – the first part (“From Secret Code to Public Blog” is scheduled for publish on the 6th July.

Finally

In Al Anon (the fellowship for friends and families of alcoholics), there is a saying:

Take what you like and leave the rest.

I hope you take something good from my blog, even if you have to pick and choose what you read.

There are categories that you can search and filter by for the reason. There is also a search function and an AI you can ask questions of that will summarise information for you!

You deserve a prize for reading this far! 😁