Why 1 Guest Post Took 44 Hours To Write

January 13th, 2010 · 45 Comments

This is a guest post by Nick Tart of JuniorBiz.com. See how you can guest post on Teenius.

Simon’s recent request for help got me thinking, it should only take an hour or two to write up a post. Surely he must have an extra four or five hours a week to write for his blog. But I’ll help…

As I began the guest posting process, I realized it takes much longer to write a guest post than I anticipated. In fact, as I write this, I’m about 44 hours into the process. That’s right, 44 hours to write six sentences.

Here’s what happens to a young, inexperienced blogger who simply wants to write a 600-word guest post:

  1. Sit down in a big comfy chair with a lap-top.
  2. Send the blog owner an email with a post idea and that you’ll get it to him within 24 hours.
  3. Jot down a rough outline.
  4. Check your email.
  5. Accidentally fall asleep.
  6. Wake up.
  7. Check your email to find a reply from the blog owner saying, “Sounds absolutely brilliant!”
  8. Open up your notes to begin writing.
  9. Check Analytics because it’s a new day.
  10. Check your own blog to see if there are any new comments.
  11. While you’re at it, might as well check Facebook and Twitter. (FYI, Word recognizes “Twitter” but not “Facebook”)
  12. Log into Facebook and an old friend starts chatting. So you chat.
  13. An hour later, you get off Facebook and check Twitter.
  14. Reply to all your @ replies.
  15. Maybe you got an email. Check your inbox again.
  16. Two hours later, go back to your guest post.
  17. Nail down the topic you want to write about.
  18. Google a couple headlines to make sure the topic is unique (or at least not overdone).
  19. Go back to the blog owners’ website to see if they have any other guest post guidelines.
  20. Check your inbox, again. Could miss something important.
  21. Finally get back to your Word document.
  22. Sit there staring at your computer for 10 minutes trying to figure out how to start.
  23. “Stumble!” for inspiration.
  24. Filter through 33 awesome web pages over the next hour.
  25. Check email.
  26. Check Twitter to see if anyone replied to your replies.
  27. Maybe there are new comments. Check your blog.
  28. Convince yourself that now you need to start writing because you’re officially past your own deadline.
  29. Conjure up a cup of coffee to help you focus.
  30. Sit there for the next two hours writing out a guest post that you wouldn’t even want to read yourself.
  31. Realize that your guest post is a poorly written, boring article.
  32. Get discouraged and decide to go out to dinner with your family.
  33. Get a phone call from a buddy and go out for the rest of the night.
  34. Wake up.
  35. Watch six episodes of The Office.
  36. Shower, eat breakfast, run some errands, come home and make another pot of coffee.
  37. Sit down at your computer, check your blog, email, Analytics, Twitter, Facebook, email, blog and Twitter.
  38. Decide to write out your blog post adventure and hope it gets used as a guest post.
  39. Read through it three times.
  40. 46 hours after you began the guest post process, send it to Simon for his approval.

The point of this semi-facetious blog post is that there are a lot of distractions as a blogger and it takes much longer to write a post then it should. Unless you’re some super-productivity freak, you’re going to need help every once in awhile.

Or, I suppose you could work on becoming more productive. But you’ll probably get distracted.

Thanks, Simon, for putting up with my lack of dependability.


stopAbout The Author
This is a guest post by Nick Tart, the owner of JuniorBiz.com, where he provides tips for young entrepreneurs such as a list of 100+ different ‘youth-friendly’ business ventures. You can follow him on Twitter @juniorbiz.
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