[NOTE: I wrote this in late February, as a followup up to part 1, and forgot to post it] After nearly 9 months of regular blogging, I’ve noticed a few things about my attempts to set up and maintain a mini-network of blogs. While it’s relatively easy for me to discuss a wide variety of topics, what I’ve found without a doubt is that I cannot write about the same topic every single day - not even 4 days straight at times.

However, when my muse strikes me, I can write 2-4 entries about the same topic, take a break, then move on to another topic. I especially need the break if I’m switching between highly technical and non-technical subjects. It gives me a chance to shift mental gears. This is something I discovered 4 years ago, when I was working on a computer programming book at the same time as trying to write a collection of short stories.

There’s actually something to be said for staying with one topic for a few hours. You can spend a bit of time researching the topic, jot down a few ideas, then move on to researching another topic. Once you develop this method, what happens is that you’re giving the background processes of your brain a chance to think about the topic. You may suddenly get an article idea regarding the earlier topic.

To this day, after many years of using this method, when I use it properly, I will actually get a picture in my mind of actual words for my articles. Writing this way becomes effortless, provided you put in the effort researching. I’ll sometimes produce several articles in one session, or they may be spread out over the day. In reality, the articles write themselves.