My blogging workflow

Now that I’ve moved my blog to Micro.blog, my blogging routine looks a bit different. So I figured it’s about time I updated my contribution to the Our blogging workflow list.

Writing

Most of the time, I write my posts in TextEdit on my Mac, in full-screen mode. I love the completely stripped-down experience – a blank screen slowly filling with words and sentences.

Even though my blog posts are in English, I write them in Swedish. From thought to words, it’s completely frictionless – which just isn’t the case when I write directly in English. There’s a disconnect in the writing; I lose inspiration and flow.

Translation

Once I’m happy with the text, I translate it into English. I’ve tried a bunch of different tools, and right now I like ChatGPT the best. I skim through the result to make sure no weird interpretations have snuck in.

Editing

Then I let ChatGPT proofread the text (I always include a note to preserve my personal style). Usually, there aren’t that many suggestions, and I rarely use all of them. These are the ones I chose to accept for this post:

• “in full-screen” → “in full-screen mode”
• “several different tools” → “bunch of different tools” – more casual, in keeping with your voice.
• “mistranslations” → “weird interpretations” – sounds more conversational and aligns with your casual tone.

I felt these suggestions stayed truer to the tone of my original Swedish version.

Title

I almost always come up with the title myself, and for a post like this, I don’t even bother asking for suggestions. But sometimes I ask ChatGPT for recommendations. I never use a suggestion as-is, but I’m occasionally inspired to tweak my original idea a bit.

Formatting

The last thing I do before publishing is paste the text into iA Writer. That’s where I pre-format everything and add any relevant links.

Publishing

Then it’s finally time to publish. iA Writer has a feature that lets me create a draft directly in Micro.blog. Super convenient!

Once there, I click “Edit” and use the handy AI summary feature. It’s used as the meta description and – with the theme I use, the stylish mnml by Jim Mitchell – also as the summary on the homepage and archive pages.

The suggested description is often pretty good – meaning: dry and boring, but clear and to the point. Sometimes I tweak it a bit, and other times I skip it entirely.

For this post, the following description was generated:

The blogging workflow involves writing in Swedish, translating to English with ChatGPT, editing for style, formatting in iA Writer, and publishing on Micro.blog, while enjoying the learning process.

Which I decided not to use.

And then comes the reward: Publish Post

Wrapping up

I get that this whole setup might sound tedious, complicated, or boring to some. But I enjoy it – and I’ve learned so much. My English vocabulary keeps growing, and I genuinely feel like I’m becoming a better writer, not worse.

That’s my blogging workflow. What’s yours like? Feel free to add a comment or email me – I’d love to link to your post in Our blogging workflow.