First of all, I’ve been working on rebuilding a site called democracy101.ca. I launched the site back in April, but I let it lapse during the tail end of 2011. So I drew up a list of new year’s resolutions for the blog in the hope of getting it back on its feet, and so far things are going well.

Second of all, if you’ve been following me on Twitter, then you may have noticed a few recent links to a site called What’s Matt Been Drinking?, which I launched on the first of January. Reaching deep into my big sack of eloquent turns of phrase, I described it as a “daily look at the local and global culture of alcohol – and through the quality and quantity of one man’s humble role in that culture.” It’ll be a fun little side project, and I do hope you’ll check it out.

The one phrase I didn’t want to hear – and the one phrase I knew I would – was “show, don’t tell.” To “tell,” of course, is to describe the elements of a story in the factual and rather distant way I told this one – and to “show” is to write in a more immediate way, enabling the reader to experience the story through the action. You can say a woman’s funny, for example, or you can let her make the reader laugh. The latter makes for better, more livelier writing.

Getting there is going to take some work. I made a little progress in my second assignment, which I’ll post later, but I’ve still got a long way to go.

In my case especially, getting to “show, don’t tell” is going to mean breaking a lot of longstanding writing habits. I put some thought into it last night, and I realized that the bulk of the writing I do demands a lot more telling than showing.

Blogging, for example, is all about telling. It’s important to blog with a voice, sure, and there’s a lot of room to get creative – but you’re basically writing essays, and trying to make your point as directly as possible. Likewise, you’re probably not going to get too “poetic” with music reviews, unless you’re someone like Lester Bangs or Griel Marcus.

And hell, look at the web comic my brother and I have been writing. By the time he’s done all the showing, there’s literally nothing left for me to do but tell.

If I want to put the “creative” in “creative writing,” then clearly the first big challenge is going to be set aside the habits I’ve adopted through the writing I’ve been doing. It’s pretty great to have that sense of direction, and I’m looking forward to working on it.

I’m using Twitterfeed to post links to new blog posts in my feed automatically, and those posts are copied over to my Facebook timeline through a separate application. Hundreds of people get hassled about my blog by these applications, and I don’t have to lift a finger. Frankly, I’d be worried about losing followers and friends alike if not for the fact that people like you are actually kind enough to click those links and read these posts on a regular basis.

So first of all, thank you! But second of all comes the question of when I should be posting certain things if I want to make sure that they’ll be read by the widest and/or most appropriate group of people.

If you’re following my feed, which of course I invite you to do, then your reader of choice is already maintaining a list of all my new posts, available whenever you want it. Likewise, if you’re just a casual visitor, then you’re going to read whatever I post whenever you want to read it.

But when you’re getting the bulk of your traffic through tweets and status updates, timing matters. Those links have a limited shelf life, and something I post when people are goofing off during their first few minutes at the office isn’t going to get nearly as much attention as something I post at two in the morning.

So what do you do? When do you post an item in order to make sure it’s going to get its due? How much thought do you really need to put into timing in the first place?

Speaking for myself, if something’s time sensitive, I’ll post it right away, no matter what time it is. There’s really no point in sitting on something you want to share – and on a potentially cynical level, there’s a lot to be said for being the first and easily linkable source of a piece of information that a lot of people want. Of course, there’s an awful lot more to be said for taking the time to make sure you’ve got your facts straight, but that’s another story.

If I’ve got something that isn’t time sensitive, but which I’d like a bunch of people to read, I’ll post it during business hours. Although I can’t yet prove it, I have a feeling that that’s when most of the people who follow me on Twitter are around and willing to click on a link to my blog.

For the record, that doesn’t necessarily mean I do the bulk of my blogging during business hours. Because I can time the publication of my blog posts, I can get a good idea at the office on a Tuesday, write it on Tuesday night, and set it to publish on Wednesday morning.

What are your thoughts on timing your posts? For that matter, when and how do you tend to read this blog? Do feel free to let me know.

Specifically, I suggested creating categories, imposing schedules, and keeping posts brief. And now that I don’t have a hundred and forty character limit to worry about, I’d like to tell you why.

Creating categories or tags for the various things you want to write about has a funny way of making your work on those subjects more real and valid. It also makes it easier for your visitors – many of whom will have found your blog through a search engine and won’t necessarily know you from Adam – to find similar posts on your site. I’m not very formal about this – most of my posts are currently uncategorized – but I’ve definitely found it helpful to create categories for subjects I write about frequently.

When I was writing about the gun registry in the weeks leading up to the vote on Bill C-391, posting various updates and opinions under a single heading created the feel of an ongoing campaign. It also made it easier for people who joined the conversation after it had already started to read previous posts and get caught up.

And here’s the thing: it put a little pressure on me to keep writing. Whenever I happened to notice that my most recent post on the subject was a couple of days old, I’d get an itch to post about whatever might have happened since.

Imposing a schedule goes hand in hand with creating categories, and it’s another great way to keep yourself writing regularly. Even if nobody out there knows about your schedule, much less cares about it, it’s good to impose a little discipline on yourself. If you don’t commit to writing certain things at certain times, you’ll find it’s so much easier to put them off. Indeed, without a schedule, you run a much greater risk of never posting at all.

I post a Link of the Day every day at 8:45 AM. I write about a record I’m currently enjoying every Tuesday at 3:00 PM. Every Friday morning I post a music video, and every Saturday afternoon I write about democracy. And all of that’s just a portion of what appears on this site.

I don’t always keep these commitments, and I’ve never once been called out for not doing so. But having them ensures that I write a lot more, and a lot more consistently, than I otherwise would.

Keeping posts brief is also good strategy, and one that I should try to follow a lot more often than I do. When you’re writing for the web, you need to get in, make your point, and get out. Not only do longer posts take more time to write, but they’re also far less likely to be read by visitors who are eager to get on to the next thing. In fact, if you’ve read this far, then thanks!

If you’ve got a point to make, then sure, make it in as many words as it takes. But speaking for myself, I find I’m much less likely to write about something if I think it’s going to take an hour or two to do it. If you’re like me, and it’s often a question between keeping it brief and not doing it at all, then there’s your argument for keeping it brief.

That said, if you can make your point in a sentence or two, then you should probably take it to Twitter or Facebook instead of posting it on your blog. The best thing Twitter ever did for the world of blogging was to give people a way to say things like “I just had a pretty good sandwich” without cluttering up their own sites.

There’s more to be said on the subject, but I’ve rambled on long enough. Perhaps I’ll follow up in future posts. I mentioned yesterday that I’m planning to give this site an overhaul, and as long as I’m thinking about design, I might as well think about content and communication. And if I’m doing that, then why not share the wealth?

In fact, you know what? Let’s created a new category called “blogging,” and tag this post as the first in a series. What a great way to trick myself into following through on this!