Time, Time, Time Is On My Side (Yes, It Is.)

When I wrote the line  in a post that was entirely navel gazing, it never dawned on me that it would touch so sensitive a nerve within the blawgosphere as to launch three posts on other blawgs.  Geez, the inconsequential things that get people hot and bothered.  I wrote that my posts here average about 10 minutes to write. 

First came a post by Bob Ambrogi, to whom my statement “challenged credulity.”  Bob explained by offering a laundry list of what it takes to write a blog post:

Many bloggers will tell you that writing is only the half of it. Equally, if not more, time consuming is finding something to write about. For many who blog, the routine involves some combination of these steps:

  • Review your usual news sources, blogs, RSS feeds, court opinions or whatever.
  • Read some or all of the items that strike your fancy.
  • Choose an item or theme to write about.
  • Mentally compose your thoughts.
  • Put those thoughts in writing.
  • Give it a second read to see if it makes any sense.
  • Hit that “publish” button.

That takes time. Blogging is not just writing. It is reading and digesting and selecting and composing and editing. Even a brief post rarely consumes just 10 minutes, factoring in all these elements.

In the comments to Bob’s post, others agreed that blogging is hard work, and that a “good” blog post takes a lot of time and effort.  The tacit implication was that my posts can’t be very good if they don’t take as long to write as theirs.

Bob’s post was followed by a post at Spam Notes by Venkat Balasubramani, calling blogging a “time sink.”  He added some additional bullet points (though he preferred stars to dots) to the list:

* Check PACER to see if there’s been any activity in cases you’ve blogged about. 
* Take a quick look at the pleadings or briefs if you are writing about a case.
* Upload the pleadings or case documents to scribd or a similar service.
* Research/confirm any peripheral legal or factual points that may be relevant to your post.
* Double check grammar/word usage rules to make sure you’re not making an obvious mistake.
(I’m no grammar whiz, so I have to do things like google “timesink” to make sure it’s actually a word.)

Venkat notes that his post took 15 minutes to write.  Bob said his took 45 minutes.  When I pressed Venkat on whether it really took 15 minutes, he conceded that he was “multi-tasking,” which probably ate up 5 of the 15 minutes.  I’m no mathematician, but by my fingers and toes, that leaves ten.

I thought the issue was played out, but then another, a third, post appeared (which came across Kevin O’keefe’s twitter feed) at the Law Librarian Blog. Joe Hodnicki copies over Ambrogi’s list and adds, “If only it took a mere 10 minutes!”  Joe doesn’t say how long it took him to write that post, but I’m praying it took no more than 3 minutes,

What became clear to me in these posts is that many, maybe everyone else for all I know, blawgs differently than I do.  This isnt to say I’m right and they’re not, but we’re different.  I read a bunch of stuff, ranging from news to new decisions to other blogs.  This has nothing to do with my blawging, but rather with my wanting to know what’s going on in the world.  Whatever catches my interest, I read.  I assume that everyone else does the same, no?

When I read something that sparks a thought, whether for, against or otherwise, reminds me of a story, makes me want to say something, I set it aside.  On an average day, I will find that I’ve put about ten things to the side that were sufficiently interesting to me that they made me want to write. 

My approach to blawging is to write because something moves me to write.  My read of Bob’s list is that others want to write, and then go searching for something to write about.  With my approach, I never have to go searching.  To the contrary, I have to decide which posts to write about and which to leave on the table.  Some move me more than others.  Some lose interest upon reflection.  Sometimes, it’s a struggle to decide, as everything on my list makes me want to write.  This happens almost every day.

I’m a true believer in Shakespeare’s theory that I don’t know what I think until I see what I write.  While I begin with some definite ideas, and they usually pan out as the words appear on the screen, sometimes they go awry, even die, right before my eyes.  I’ve left many posts in “draft” mode, sometimes after a paragraph, sometimes after reaching the end, because they didn’t feel right. 

Do others do this as well? I dunno.  They aren’t saying and I’m not asking.  But I suspect that people who decide that “I’m now going to write a blawg post,” then go out searching for something to write about, aren’t inclined to spend their time going down Bob’s list and then not post it.  They did the work of blogging and their product will be posted.

If, however, at the end of a post it seems right, then I publish.  There’s neither composition process nor “second read.”  I hit publish and that’s that.  Of course, I can do that where others can’t because their posts are used as a marketing tool, an extension of their professional online personas.  Mine are just posts.  If the posts sucks, so what?  I won’t lose sleep over it.

If I were to include all the time I spend reading as part of the time that goes into a blawg post, then the time it would take me to post would be far longer.  I read probably ten posts/articles/decisions for every post I write.  But I don’t consider that a part of the time spent posting, as I would read these regardless, and they are the impetus for my posts rather than the other way around. 

Since my typing is pretty darned fast, and I compose on the fly, and I have no need to go searching for a topic to write about, I’ve shortcut a number of the factors that seem to bedevil others.  I’m not suggesting that others should do it my way, or that my way is better.  Everybody should do whatever they feel comfortable doing. 

On the other hand, others aren’t terribly reluctant to suggest that there’s something unseemly, undignified or downright crappy with my way.  Even my old buddy Norm took a backhanded shot :

Scott Greenfield over at Simple Justice has developed a following with a simple formula: three opinions a day, day in day out, and a web of friends and contacts stretching coast to coast.

My “following” is due to my formulaic approach to blogging?  Aside from Norm getting the “formula” wrong, it’s a great way to rationalize.  Norm follows up in another post with:

Imagine covering the legal world in 10 minutes a post times three posts each day. He gets more done in half an hour than I do most days. (He contends his blog is but a moment’s inspiration, something done with the morning’s coffee and before the workaday tasks of lawyering begin.)

But I suffer no hurt feelings by the doubters or those who feel compelled to offer me snark to make themselves feel more adequate.  I like and admire Norm, and I’m happy to serve as his counterpoint if it soothes his tortured soul.  That’s what friends do for each other.  As for Joe Hodnicki, however, if he couldn’t produce that post in less than ten minutes, he needs to find a better use of his time. 

Blawging isn’t for everyone.  When it feels like work, it may not be for you.

8 thoughts on “Time, Time, Time Is On My Side (Yes, It Is.)

  1. sd

    “I’m a true believer in Shakespeare’s theory that I don’t know what I think until I see what I write”

    ITYM Auden, not Shakespeare.

  2. SHG

    I understand that it’s attributed to a few different people Auden, Forrester as well.  My preference is to go with the Shakespeare attribution, just because it seems cool.  If I’m mistaken, my apologies to Auden.

  3. ExPat ExLawyer

    I really don’t know what the problem is with these doubters. And I write this as one of slowest bloggers on the planet. My excuse certainly is not time consumed in figuring out a topic. If anything I have too many to keep track of. I just need lots of unproductive breaks and I need a lot of edit time.

    You obviously have a natural, conversational writing style that gets your thought out cogently and quickly. I wish I did. But I am hardly going to be dubious about your time claims over it. It’s like saying, wow, this guy shoots par on a golf course that I shoot 98 on. He must be cheating on his score card.

    These people sound like nouveau-slackwazee.

  4. Charon QC

    How long does it take me to do a blog post?

    (a) Depends how drunk I am when I write – time of day is no guarantee of sobriety

    (b) Law that I write about (when I do) isn’t difficult – they are the easiest posts to write about.

    (c) I never plan, re-write or edit – sometimes, when I sober up I see if I can work the spell check thing!

    (d) I’m with Scott – I haven’t a clue what I’ve written about until I’ve done it. Some say, this is a form of stream of consciousness. I have to admit – I have a different word for it.

    I can see no reason why a blog post should take more than 10 minutes to write. Fiddling around with drawings, pictures, cartoons etc can eat up a bit of time – but the client always pays in the end, indirectly!

    As I don’t use my blog directly to market my services – writing about law does not help with my short selling,hedge funding, covert black dissimulation operations on twitter, giving dodgy unsolicited political advice to politicians or my recent work as an international lapdancer of some repute – I just write and post.

  5. BCS

    Perhaps this is too obvious, but to me one of the best parts of your blog is that you write about what you know. You see something and throw a few words at it. Such an approach shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. Your posts never seem like you’re stretching to cover a topic just because the blawg is solely a marketing tool.

    Contrast that with the bloggers who are trying to market themselves through their blogs. Such bloggers have to spend a lot of time composing their posts, and many of the things on Bob and Venkat’s lists mater to them — finding new topics, drafting and redrafting to make the final product a marketing masterpiece, etc.

    All of that stuff takes time, although in my book none of it is as interesting to read as your’s is.

  6. SHG

    It seems obvious to me as well, but then, that’s me talking about me.  I don’t begrudge anyone spending an hour, ten hours, whatever, on writing a blog post.  That’s their choice.  What I fail to grasp is why they need to justify it by denigrating me. If they feel they write superior posts by taking more time than I do, isn’t that enough justification?

  7. Jon Magarifuji

    What I find incredulous is the fact that Bob Ambrogi is counting “Review your usual news sources, blogs, RSS feeds, court opinions or whatever” and “reading and digesting” as part of preparing their blogs.

    Gee, I thought that was called CLE. We have to do it anyway, whether or not we’re going to blog about it. That’s like including your commute time in your billable hours.

    The time you spend on blogging is the actual time it takes you to express your thoughts about a topic. Sometimes it takes 10-30 minutes. Sometimes it takes an hour. But if you’re spending 6-8 hours on it, then it starts looking more like a treatise. Blogs are more like briefs rather than treatise. And briefs are supposed to be brief.

  8. SHG

    I don’t blame Bob for thinking otherwise, but that may be the difference between someone who does this, meaning soup to nuts, for an ulterior purpose rather than to just read for its own sake and write because we want to.  The motive colors the perception.

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