NBI 2015: How to avoid becoming Dormant

I dislike having "dormant", non-updating blogs on my blog roll. While it's true that my personal restrictions of "if you don't post in 3 weeks you get culled," on this matter are likely heavier than any other blog (I'm letting it slide for this NBI month) - I thought that I'd give some advice on how not to go "dormant" in the first place.

On those possibly rare occasions when you do feel like sitting down and just typing up a storm, put on some instrumental-only tunes and...

TYPE YOUR HEART OUT.

Personally all my posts now spawn in a notepad document before going anywhere near the internet. When I feel like typing, I find this method works best since there's no logging into a site, no needing a network connection or formatting issues to worry about just yet. All that matters are the words.

Sometimes I get an idea to type about something else so I separate out a section which serves as a possible title for a future post. For me, my "possible new content" goes above all the other stuff I've already typed about or am currently typing about (it's an organization thing). Don't forget to save and store a backup of this file regularly - doing so covers your bases as Contains Moderate Peril discusses in his blog backup post.

The idea is that it allows you to type out more than a single post in one sitting, but DO NOT post more than one or two a day. This eventually gives you a backlog of stuff. As an example, if all goes according to plan when this particular post goes up then I would have a backlog of around 30 posts waiting to go.

That's potentially 30 days (if I was a daily poster) of me slacking off from typing anything and more than enough time to recharge my batteries, as it were, for another type session in between. Imagine how much that can stretch out if I only posted 3 times a week? They don't even have to be superb quality or long posts - just something to keep the site "alive".

When you also realize that you can automatically schedule blog posts to post themselves, you can then do amazing stuff like continuing to post while you are actually away on vacation without any internet access (which I did earlier this year).

Be like Batman. Preparation is the key.

There is a small caveat here though: You should know which posts are time sensitive and act accordingly. For instance it wouldn't make any sense if I posted this after the NBI is already finished. Just use common sense and you should be alright.

Other on-going NBI activities:

Join the NBI 2015: Poetry Slam!
Browser Boasting Week 2: Critical Annihilation
Contains Moderate Peril still looking for NBI guest posts!
Talkback Topic #2: Early Access and Kickstarter
Murf's Screenshot Safari
Gaming Discussion
Jeromai's Writing Prompt: Screenshots of Non-Existent Things