Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Another Butterfly to Follow

I assume anyone with a Blogger Blog looks at the same thing I do when they have the "manage posts" section open.  A list of their posts, drafts, scheduled publications and imported posts are there.  At the top a short list of filters exist so that the blogger can break down their existing list of posts, drafts, imported posts, and scheduled posts to these respective categories.  I recently began to utilize this feature just to find out how my huge list sorted out.

Of the 1196 entries there are 911 published posts since I began this blogging madness back in December of 2004.  With no scheduled or imported posts on the list, that leaves 285 drafts sprinkled in among the posts that actually saw the light of day.   I filtered out the published posts and began to open some of the drafts. 

I have what I call a 5% rule regarding my published posts.  That is I figure maybe 5% of what I wrote is worthy enough to be considered almost decent and may at some point be worth re-reading.   Applying this same rule to my list of drafts, that means about 14 of the drafts may be worth finishing and/or publishing.

I began to read these unfinished pieces.  So far it seems many are actually finished, but because of  the subject matter, its time has passed.  Commentary on events that have long ago lost their relevance as the event or occurrence has been buried by the time that has passed since.  Others are just not worthy of being saved.  And some are barely started and when I read them, I cannot for the life of me remember just what I was thinking when I started them. 

So what to do?  Delete them?  Or keep them?  In that I am trying to turn over a new leaf and not accumulate stuff anymore, it would make sense to lose them.  But the pack rat in me resists.  I find rationalization for their continued inclusion sneaking by and through the logical and probably smart notion of divesting myself of uneeded and unused crap.  They don't take up much room.  It's not like a corner of the house will suddenly be found or storage space in the basement  opened and emptied.  Deleting them will make no impression on my wife.  She wants my focus on the things we trip over day in and day out.

So wasting my time editing them is the logical thing to do.  Why you may ask?  Well, because this is the butterfly that flew in front of me today.  And I know enough about myself that following butterflies beats putting my nose to the grindstone nine times out of ten.

Later....................................
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Image poached from Google Images

6 comments:

muddleglum said...

I already found that method of wasting my time. Those short posts you can't remember? I noticed that most of 'em are results in bit glitches. The computer or network or Internet or blogger.com hiccuped.

Then there are the ones that don't happen when someone drops in.

As far as the finished ones are concerned, just classify 'em according to subject matter and edit for the future. I.e., if about the president, just change the name when the next one comes around arguing about the same subject. It'll come around again—always does—and you have an easy post.

Yep! Pin them butterflies to a board. I have my own collection...somewhere.

BBC said...

I never save drafts on Blogger but it does some auto saves, that I never look at and will not be cleaning up, hell, it's not my computer they are taking up wasted space on.

My drafts are on word documents on my computer though, and once in a while I do clean one of them up and post it.

"manage posts"... It's a dashboard and mine says, "manage blogs". Maybe I'll post a snap shot of it and see if others will.

St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church, hahahaha

Commander Zaius said...

The instructor of the writing course I took last year mentioned several times about keeping everything you write. Pretty much for no other reason than to compare to your newer stuff.

Kulkuri said...

For some reason this song came to mind. Elusive Butterfly of Love

MRMacrum said...

muddleglum - Recycling brought to the blogosphere. I like it. Problem is, it doesn't account for all th eloose butterflies that fly past.

BBC - Why am I not surprised it was you who caught the blog title in the image. Is there even a St. Herman? I hope so.

Beach - Are you in the process of changing your handle or just having an identity crisis?

Since I don't have any good reason to delete old stuff, I won't. I get a chuckle out of reading what did not make it onto the blog.

Kulkiri - Damn. I have not heard that tune in like forever. It was actually one of those "our songs" some girlfriend came up with and I politely smiled agreement to. It is a great tune.

Randal Graves said...

Never know when a draft will be the kernel of something else. Reason why I never completely nuke discarded bits of verse, even if it's shit.